A single ring with a 9 speed cog?

For the life of me I cannot find something like that .....well .... I found a few but not many.

I am planning to keep things simple for my wife. Not only for leisurely rides but also for commuting.

I posted also on road cycling forums, but it seems that is not interesting to them.

I am planning the lightest bike on the under 1k budget.

Where is the kicker? Saving me a bunch of troubles on using an indexed downtube shifter instead of STI levers.

a 40t ring and a 13-34 9 speed cassette will give her more than enough ratio ranges than she will ever need.

Has anyone tackled something similar?

Try the cyclocross forum. I hear it's common in cyclocross to just have a single front ring. Also I think Bianchi has a commuter that comes that way standard. Forgot the name of it though.

I have setup a bike with 1x5 gears using a Stronglight Escapade crankset with a 40t ring. It is a neat solution but you may need to use a chain-keeper, either a non-moving front mech or one of the specially made keepers such as "chain dog"
Use a thick chainring with no ramps or pins.
Pay attention to the chainline.

Like a 3/32 track ring AND a chain dog? The straight line should be running in the gear that will give her +-70 gear inches. She is planning to commute on that thing too, pavement all the way, and the hills getting there would not call for anything lower than 40 gear inches. Specially since she would be leaving her stuff at her office. The bike would be doubling as light tourer, climbing machine too. So weight is an issue.

In Cyclocross you will often see bikes set up with a 40 or 42 t ring in the front with chain guards on either side and a 9 speed cassette in the rear. Here is a ready made ring kit but in the past I have just ground the teeth off of an old ring which it slightly bigger. https://www.store.yahoo.com/cyclocros...mtasinkit.html

The bike is the "Castro Valley" .... thanks for the tip!

I will be looking at one as soon as I get a chance, so to see how the powertrain is setup.