What defines a singlespeed and why...
 

...do cruisers fit/not fit the description?

one cog in back
one in front

I thought they did fit the description, as do unicycles.

Hey - why isn't there a unicycle forum on this site?

I have three unicycles, one of which is a six foot tall "fixed gear".
It takes three chains linked end-to-end to reach from the crank to the hub.

there's an elementary school in seattle where riding unicycles is an important part of the the school culture. i went to see them perform last year. they had some 11-12 year old kids riding on those six foot tall ones. very impressive.

According to this guy, this is what happens when you drop out of school.

Edit: Habitus's last post would seem to refute this!

Because this is a bicycle site. Bicycles have 2 wheels...

that's weird.. i had a girlfriend from seattle.. who could unicycle really well.. like forever..forward, backward, etc... and she never identified as a unicycler .... it was just one of those things one day she was like "wanna see something..." .. this would explain it..

poor definition. what about hub gears?

do we need to go back latin on this? hub gears are gears.. with an s.. single means one. alone. solo. just like bicycle means 2. good thing you werent in Dr. lees latin class.. you woulda gotten a detention for that reply.

yes, I know.
I was pointing out the inadequacy of Habitus' definition: "uni-chainring + mono-cog = single-speededness"
since the potential for mono-chainringed, uni-cogged, hub-multi-geared bikes exists.

baxtefer- don't be a dick. You know what he meant.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be a dick. I knew what he meant.
but i'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to stuff like that.

it's the math-geek in me. i can't help it. :)

Mostly, they fit. See pedantic argument above regarding geared hubs to understand necessity of adding 'mostly.'

Single-adjective, meaning "one". Speed-noun, bicycle terms meaning "gear". ONE GEAR

ahh i see what you were saying.. i take that back.. Dr. lee would have loved you..especially for dropping "habitus" so casually.... it was me he hated

Ain't no time to hate, barely time to weight. Lee powered a cruiser from mid-eighties through mid-nineties. First real player on single speed in DC. There were a few casual bmx spotted occasionally.

ok, ok.

geez.

one cog in back, one in front and NO INTERNAL HUB SHIFTING!

shut yo' mouth, foo'!

i meant the word "habitus".. nice and latin.. am i the only person who had to suffer the brutal torture of latin class?

i never took latin. but MY name refers to bourdieu's concept of habitus, the socially structured lens through which we all (differently or similarly) see the world.

droppin' science, foo'!

Actually,I have heard the argument that it is the inability to shift that makes it single speed, according to local legend Bill Braum, aka Trainwreck who rides a Schwinn S-10 single speed with an option gear, and a Deore rear derailluer to allow him to be in either gear. The catch is no shifters, hence he has to be off of the bike to switch between the different gears. I am considering a similar set-up for my mountain bike.

can I be a bit more pedantic and say that perhaps flip-flop rear hubs (with different cog sizes) shouldn't be considered single speeds either.
I mean the ability to change gear ratios is there, albeit not in any practical manner.
if you allowed flip-flops to be considered single speeds, then riding any geared bike around without touching the shifters should be considered single-speeding as well

Then again, if you rode flip-flop hubs without carrying a wrench with you, then I guess it's ok :)

/ok i'll stop being a dick now.

i ride a fixed gear. i could give a damn about single speed, double speed...

That's non-sense. Would that mean if I carried around an extra chainring and an allen wrench on my rides then I wouldn't be riding a single speed since I could stop, unbolt my chainring and install a different one?