I have a older Bontrager PrivatEer I enjoy it like crazy but as I get older I'm wanting to simplify my life. I'm thinking about reworking my Bot into a single or should I just sell it and get a new single? Or should I ask the single forum?

All depends on what you want from a SS MTB, your level of experience/desire in tinkering around.
If the dropouts are horizontal, it's be extremely easy/cheap to do.

a converted single will never be the same as a real single. You will spend good money on tensioners of all sort just to fold and get a real SS frame either with horz drop outs or EBB. Mind you that each tensioner ranges from $30-100 + $20 chains to go with it.


save the headache and get a singlespeed 29er.

Quit shifting.

Good points.

If most of your riding will be in a relatively flat area or if you are a very strong rider, a single-speed bike is about as fun as it gets. However, the only one good picture I found of a Privateer's rear-end shows vertical dropouts. I wouldn't mess with converting a bike like that. If you can find a whole bike with horizontal or forward facing dropouts AND a crankset that will allow you to remove chainrings (some less expensive but decent quality bikes have them riveted together), a single-speed conversion is pretty simple. I recently did it to a 1983 Takara Highlander MTB and the only things I had to buy were a spacer kit for the rear hub and single-speed cog. I'm not counting the tools, which will easily come to more than the parts you'll need. I would have eventually purchased those regardless of this project.

I'm working on converting an old 91 stumpjumper to a singlespeed right now. I feel like converting to SS can be a pretty big range depending on your wants.

I lucked out that the frame has semi-horizontal dropouts. I could have done it just by getting the spacer kit and a rear cog, but I opted to update the brake levers (old ones were integrated with shifters) BB and crankset as well. Depending on what components are on it you might be able to pay for some or all of your conversion. This bike had Deore DX and some people really like that group - so I'm hoping I can pay for a lot of the changes by selling the vintage bits on ebay.