Giant Single Speed Conversion
 

So I just got a new cannondale for my birthday and had my old race frame sitting around being useless. Its an 05 Giant TCR Alum frame. I decided I needed something for cruising around campus and town and stuff so I decided to convert it as cheaply as I could. Pretty much everything was donated or bought extremely cheap.

I started with chopping the bars and flipping them over.

Then I took off all the unused components like front d, bottle cages, brifters.

I purchased a single speed conversion kit for the rear, and took the big chain ring off.

Put a little aero brake lever on and voila, a super cheap singlespeed. Im running a 36x12 setup, its a little weird but its all I had to work with.

A few questions: Is there any other options for tensioning the chain? I hate having that huge deraillur on it.

Any input, criticism or complements are welcome :)

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/2...bike003xu3.jpg

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/9...bike005nl2.jpg

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/7...bike006um6.jpg

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/7...bike011ee0.jpg

for chain tension:
eno eccentric hub.
chain tensioner.
or a frame with horizontal drops or trackends.

Who makes a pretty cheap small tensioner?

nashbar or performance for cheap.
size isn't really an issue, i havn't seen any too small.

you're still gonna have something hanging down there, no amount of shrinking will solve that problem for you.

this should be a really light bike - drop the derailleur,and see if you can work it without or with a "half-link"

A trick to making the tensioner look smaller is to have it push the chain up instead of pull it down.

As far as which one to get, just grab a cheapo performance one and roll with it.

magic gear

Also, ghost rings, if you want to mess with them, but I would go for the magic gear.

-Rob.

If that's not fixed, you probably should throw on a rear brake- no reason not to. Otherwise, cool build, bet it's light. I'm using those same wheels on my single speed conversion.

Looks pretty sweet, it's not cheap but Surly makes a sweet derailleur style chain tensioner that would probably fix that up nicely...and I second the rear brake idea.

Thanks for all the replies, ill probably just settle for the tensioner. I heard that if i use the half link my chain will stretch out overtime anyways.

Any specific reason why i need the rear brake?

i'm pretty sure the idea is that w/ just front brake, a high-speed stop could send you over the handlebars.

Also, those brake levers look great. Which ones are they? Also, did you have any problems getting them into your chopped and flipped bars? I haven't bought any levers yet, but I'm a little concerned w/ getting them to fit since the bar-chop is along the "curve" of the bars - if that makes sense.

Im not sure what kind of lever it is, a friend of mine gave it to me. Its just some generic brand. About the bars, i had to shave a little bit off it on the underside but just some brute force got it down in there. But any more curve and i wouldnt of been able to get them to fit.

You don't see any road bikes out there with just a front brake, do you? A non-fixed single speed is the same as a road bike, except with only one gear. It's just common sense. No reason not to.

The real debate is whether you need a rear brake (or more accurately, whether you need a brake at all) on a fixed gear, but we're not going to get into that here.

Thought id show an update

Here's what the bike looked like before any mods(except a custom paint job)
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/6260/img00102sw5.jpg


I found the magic gear for my bike which happens to be 50x16 or 48x16 46x16 ect ect so if anyone has a TCR then iv done the work for them
http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/6869/img00162vt9.jpg

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/3711/img00163wh8.jpg

And i chopped the bars and got some Oury's
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/119/img00149ci0.jpg



Next thing on the way is a surly fixxer so i can take the front brake off, and then my bike will be done

I dont think this bike weighs over 10 pounds, its light as ****

I was hoping to open this thread and see i really huge single speed...

hahahaha sorry to disappoint, maybe ill change the title

Bad idea.

I live on the edge

of what?

(and not a bad looking bike!)

on the edge of life? i dunno

thanks, anyone got any good suggestions on cheap durable pedals?

I like seeing modern road bike single-speed conversions. Looks fast and light.

Might want to look into these on sale:
http://tinyurl.com/2255og

so you chopped the bars twice? i liked the bike better after the first chop, but it's still a nice looking set up.