hi single speed people! I am working on a trek 5220 single speed conversion. The bike is a 1998 and has miles and wear. i am converting it to single speed. Is it possible to use a standard shimo dura ace hub and let the gear i choose to use on the hub float with no spacers to hold it in place. Also are there any creative ways for chain tension, i do not want to use a chain tensioner on the Derailleur hanger.

Sure, you can run it without spacers. You can also run bare rims without tubes and tires.

Would I recommend it? Heck no!

As for tension, magic gear.

Ask the mechanics forum. The land of sw8 fixays is the worst place on bikeforums to get mechanical advice.

If you're not going to use a tensioner then you will have to workout the magic ratio. Be aware that using a single cog on a Shimano freehub may cause notching. Maybe there are cogs with a wider base to prevent this

is magic gearing just getting the chain length right for the front and rear sprockets leaving no sag in the chain?

You'll have to play around with different cog sizes to get good chain tension. Do you plan on changing the chainrings?

And/or changing front and rear sprockets, and/or adding half-links to find that "magic gear" (assuming vertical dropouts).

Life's much easier with horizontal dropouts.

Use spacers and find where the rear cog is going to line up with the front chainring. You don't want this to be floating around on the rear freehub. Once you find the position that lines up correct, use the full amount of spacers and then the cassette lockring to lock it all in place.

If you can't find the magic gear, there really is nothing wrong with using a chain tensioner on the rear der. hanger. They work well, don't cost much, and there are several to choose from.

520 has long stays, maybe you can use the "ghostring" chain tension method:

https://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/files/100_0733_182.jpg

Thanks people for the info. I will experiment with magic gears. I will also look into the ghost ring, i had herd of it but never seen it thanks for the pic.

sez the chief purveyor of bad advice


for magic gear try this:
https://eehouse.org/fixin/formfmu.php

"floating rear teeth" ...for a second i thought this was a DDS question : \

Why don't you want to use a tensioner? Why don't you want to use spacers?

Forgo the DA hub and get a White Industries ENO.

Name ONE piece of bad advice I've given. I'll wait.

how bout this to start...

And there we have it.

At least most of us here have the common sense to use foot retention to prevent being thrown from our bikes like a ragdoll.

I don't know if it's his remarks or avatar I just always think ultraspontane is a ****ing jerkoff

This is what he really looks like.

this sw8 fixay thread is just missing sw8 poems