Good question for everyone

the one thing I still can't beat are the 20t, 22t and 24t chainrings on a geared bike. you wouldn't believe the hills and other conditions I could own with those things.

I have a single speed mountain bike with a 32/21 setup and while it will do a lot, it still won't do a very steep hill, some of which are even paved.

Add to the fact it is a 29er and those wheels hate the hills.

what could I do to go smaller?. I wondered if a bmx crank might be possible?. Those often have a 20t ring.

My single road bike also isn't a steep hill machine with 700c but it does fairly well and is maybe 8 lbs lighter than my mountain bike with a 42/23 setup and it might do a lot more if the front was moved down to a 38 or 36t.

what do all you single speeders do when you live in a land of super steep hills?.

also the geared bikes can do up to 30t in the rear and really at that level you almost feel like you might flip the bike over on yourself, but it's still nice to have them anyways.

On another note the granny gears also allow you to do super slow and controlled wheelies.

What kind of rear hub? If cassette converted to SS, the sky's the limit for tooth count. If threaded, White makes a freewheel up to 23t and you can't be the quality(noise).

Walking hills too steep to ride is a reality of single speeding. Often if it's too steep to ride, walking isn't much slower than riding it (with gears) anyway.

Part of the fun of single/fixed is coming to the realization that you are almost always in the wrong gear. I run a 48:15 fixed and 36:13 singlespeed. It's flat here. Taking off on the fixed is some work but once I am at cruising speed it is effortless. Taking off on the single is a cake, but the top end suffers. Luckily it is very flat here or I would be changing my gearing for sure.

What about the bmx cranks?

get yourself a crank with a spiderless chainring and you can have any tooth ring you want.

that being said, if 32/21 is too low for you i really have no suggestion of what could make your life any easier except maybe sram eagle with a 22t chainring

HTFU, stand, push, pull, grunt, curse, spit, keep turning the cranks. Single speed isn't easy, but it looks cool.

This is pretty much correct.

I've learned to expend as little effort as possible climbing while standing, gently rocking the bike, pulling up on the opposite hood using the core rather than the arms. The technique gets ingrained after a while.

At the end of the day though, sometimes it just takes tenacity.


-Tim-

I do this on my geared bikes a lot. Shift 3 or 4 gears up, stand, lean forward, and rock the bike. It takes very little energy to do and and can be used as a way to rest on a climb and air out your hot ass.

Try harder.

Or. https://www.bikeforums.net/singlespee...r-bicycle.html

Given that your single speed roadie is a full 8lbs lighter than your MTB, it sounds like you're dragging a boat anchor when trying to climb hills on the MTB. How much does that bike weigh? When it comes to climbing, weight does make a huge difference.

I'd look to Enzo's point ^ above--way cheaper to swap sprockets than cranksets, especially if you're experimenting with gear ratios.

+1
If you gear it so you can ride up anything it will be hopelessly under geared the other 95% of the time.