My derailleur is broke, seems like a pain to replace, I’m also sick of feeling with gears, I have another reliable but boring bike that had working gears. This one I just want to ride for fun, and would love to have it minimal and rip off all the gears.
Is this a big project?! I’m dumb but enthusiastic when it comes to bike maintenance.
by kingpubcrisps
13 Comments
Sick of *dealing* with gears.
You could always just pick which of the gears you like best, size a chain up to go straight around that cog (bypassing the broken derailleur which you could remove), then boom, it’s a single speed. It’s a quick and dirty way to test out the conversion before committing to it.
The simplest way is just to pick a gear on that freewheel that gives a straight chain line and shorten the chain so it goes around that gear and not through the derailleur.
Your dropouts are fairly horizontal so it should be easy enough to get the chain tensioned.
https://sheldonbrown.com/singlespeed.html
Everything you need to know is there.
Basically you can take off the freewheel and replace it with a single speed freewheel.
Cheapest way is to get rid of the derailleur, wrap your chain around the gear of your choice, and cut the chain to length. Use the horizontal dropouts to tension the chain sufficiently and make sure your QR is clamped very tightly.
Better would be to get a [single speed chain tensioner](https://surlybikes.com/parts/singleator) that maintains tension and can keep alignment. I would consider this the “minimum” level of work to make a reliable (read: won’t regularly drop a chain when going over a bump) single speed bike.
Replace it with a bike with alfina 11 speed
Just leave it in one gear and adjust it to stay.
Honestly ur derailleur looks beat to shit a good derailleur makes shifting pleasant
The way you take care of and maintained this, it’s not going to be too long before your fixed gear is busted either.
adjust the limit screws and cable tension to lock it in one gear. Fast, Easy, and Free. Or get your der hanger straightened, new cable housing and learn from youtube how to make minor adjustments to stop the skipping. The other option is that the chain and cassette are so worn that nothing will help except replacing parts.
Replacing a derailleur is literally just undoing that big bolt and the small one holding the cable, then you have to break the chain if it doesn’t have a quick link which you would have to do either way, after that the only thing you have to do on the new derailleur is adjust the barrel adjuster (the adjuster screw just before the cable retention screw on the derailleur) until the shifting feels smooth, it’s not that hard, I think a 1x conversion is a lot more work/headache
Integrated hub gears
Skipping could be caused by worn chain, cassette and chainring. Check chain wear.