postup

First post:

I'm currently working on converting my beater (Miele) into SS. Rear wheel is a bit wider than front and has a 700c x 28 on it. Friend of mine and I tried but couldnt' get lockring off , so took bike to local shop. The guy told me that to put SS on the spokes would have to be moved, too, blabla, basically suggesting it needs a complete rebuild and I might as well buy new wheel ($45) and new hub ($50) and have them put it together ($30).

Is that true or is he taking me for a ride (no corny pun intended)?

I thought I'd be good with taking out unwanted rings from cassette and putting in spacers.

The chain is no problem. My friend helped me tighten it and I've been riding it on the same ring for weeks.

Thanks!

Yo!

The problem is the wheel is dished to compensate for the cassette, so yes, your LBS is right in telling you you'll need the wheel re-dished. However, this is far from a full "rebuild"; all it takes is incremental spoke adjustments to center the rim over the axel and in between the dropouts. If it's a beater SS, just look for a cheap SS wheel on craigs, or buy a spoke wrench, study sheldonbrown.com, and redish the wheel yourself. Even so, you could still run your setup without all the hooplah, especially if it's a beater.

How were you able to get proper chain tension on a geared frame? Are you still running the deraileur?

no name

On my beater SS mtb i spaced it out to compensate for the dish. You can get kits like this to get the chain line correct. https://www.nashbar.com/bikes/Product..._200276_200429 These kits can be found lots of places.

Steev

You're not too clear with your terminology, but I read it as you have cassette on a freehub (the cogs slide onto a splined body and are retained with a lock ring).
In that case, the wheel does not need to be re-dished at all. You use a single speed kit like the one linked above, put spacers onto the freehub body to get your choosen cog to line up with the chain ring you want to use, hold it all together with the lock ring and you're done.
If your wheel uses a freewheel (the cogs and ratcheting mechanism are one assembly that screws to the hub) then you will need to re-dish, but as you were talking about removing a lockring I don't think that's what you have.

postup

Thanks.

So I'd have to do this even if I picked up a 700x23 rim?

Nope, no derailleur. Took out some links and have horizontal drops. I'm also using big rings.

postup

I thought I had a cassette on a freehub, but maybe it's the other? How can I tell?

Yo!

Oh thats right, a semi-horizontal on that frame. Find out if the cassette was removed off a splined hub or if it was a screw on freewheel type cassette.

postup

How? The cassette's still on. Take it to the shop, seeing that I'm a newbie?

Steev

Read about it!
https://sheldonbrown.com/k7.html