I claimed a 12 year-old Trek 820 out of the trash at the shop where I work this past week. The original grip shifters are still on it (and mostly functioning after a good twenty minutes of tinkering and tuning), but they're not going to last. The bike itself is not in great shape and has some rust; I'm intending to run it as my winter bike (in Chicago). I'm going to be doing a good amount of riding, commuting to and from school, etc. I wondered though, if for simplicity's sake, I could convert the rear d-rail into a singleator. I built a Nishiki road frame into a b*tching single speed this summer using a surly singleator, but I'm trying to invest as little money in this junker as possible, so as to avoid feeling compelled to maintain it all winter (since it's going to get torn up).

Any ideas for what I can do with this??? Thanks much for any and all thoughts, links, etc.

The theory behind using a RD sounds solid, I have not seen it done personally. I'd suggest a wicked sweet offroad machine with a low gear ratio, maybe like a 32/16 or something.

Basically you don't need to modify the RD from what I understand you just pull the chain tight and as such you'll pull the RD forward and up.