Originally Posted by
13ollocks
you absolutely don’t need a chain idler for single speed - just horizontal dropouts and a careful selection of the appropriate chainring/freewheel combination to tune chain length
Having ridden 25,000 miles on SS bikes I built from the frame up without an idler, I’m well aware of this. My point was that the thru-axle frames I’m familiar with don’t have horizontal dropouts. Nor do the vast majority of QR frames for the last few decades. Pretty much only a small set of modern frames designed for FG and SS have horizontal dropouts, and apparently there are a few TA examples. I’m still using frames from the ‘80s and they have horizontal dropouts because that was normal in that era.
Otto