How to Convert A Hardtail Into a Singlespeed

Today we are going to learn how to

convert

your

hardtail

bike with gears to a single speed. If you've been watching the channel for a while, you know I'm a big fan of single speed. It's fun, it's raw, it's a little more difficult, it's simple. All the things I love about

hardtail

s: they get me in shape very quickly and make the trails exciting again. I've been having some knee problems lately, which is possible with single gear, so I've been off my single gear for the last six. months while I recover I'll try it again I miss it and I'll be working on my binary maniac yeah let me show you how to do it because it's pretty simple and any hardtail bike can be made single speed so when making a single speed bike, you take off the shift cable and the derailleur and shorten the chain and then we do a couple things to make sure the chain is tight, so first of all, I'm just going to take the chain off now. to remove my grip so I can remove my shifter, you're going to slide the shifter out, you may have to turn the bars to get the slack you need and now the grip goes back on.

I love external cable routing for many reasons. this is one of them, we simply remove these clips, now we simply remove the derailleur from the suspension arm, the derailleur and the cable are all together to be used on a different bike, all good, it's quite simple, but now we still have our 10 gears here let me show you how we deal with that now we're going to remove the cassette. This is pretty standard if you've been working on your own bikes, if not you need a small device to hold the cassette. These are by far my favorites. tools for the job, there are cheaper options but I do this all the time so it's worth it for me now, we remove the cassette now, we have to get technical and you have to pay attention, most hubs have hub bodies Free interchangeable where you can switch between HG Micro Spline and XD.

I order all mine in hg for two reasons: one is that my transmission uses microshift advent unique. I order all my wheels with hg. This is old school. This is what we have used since the 90's. It fits seven speed, eight speed, nine speed, 10 speed and 11 speed. This is the old standard we always use. You can see that some of the teeth bite into the body of the freehub, that is its nature, so sram decided to create their own driver, this is the xd driver and this is for all sram 12 speeds. I like this controller better, but it makes single speed more complicated.

I know of an adapter that allows you to run single speed on your xd driver, so if your bike comes with sram eagle level gx and above you probably have an xd driver. and you will need that adapter to go at single speed. This is the third standard and this is Shimano's micro spline. I haven't found a single speed adapter for these yet. I imagine they will arrive soon, but I haven't found anyone who does. make one now to shift to single speed you need a couple of things you need a spacer kit they are all pretty much the same no matter what brand you use.

I'll put a link to this in the description and you need a rear gear. I will note that I have a variety because I change it depending on where I am going to drive. The single speed derailleur is something that people love to argue about, they are new to the single speed derailleur and they love to brag about their derailleur, but people have been using the single speed derailleur. For a while I understand that there is no point in bragging about your team because they realize that each state has different equipment needs, so in Florida you could be running a 32-16 and in Colorado you could be running a 30-22.

I don't know, everyone is different. Before my injuries I loved the 32-19 because of where I ride. I'm going to run 3220 right now just to give my knees a little rest and get back into it. This is a stainless steel gear with wolf teeth that lasts long. Right now, we don't tune the teeth unless they are even teeth, because if there are 19 it can't be lengthened because you can't go one to the other with an odd number, so the wolf tooth has some narrow and wide aluminum. gears but they are only in the even numbers of teeth so I don't bother with that.

I'm 18 19 20 and 21. I can change gears in less than a minute on these bikes so when I ride with my single speed and I'm not quite sure what terrain I'll need. I'll bring a couple of these with different teeth and change them now. That's not necessary, but that's what I do now. This is your spacer kit and it comes with different spacers and what it's doing is allowing this to line up with the chain line of the crank, so you're going to want to put the spacers in the appropriate spot to line this up. I'm going to start by lining everything up correctly. in the middle usually on my frames that's right where it wants to be these are not directional so if it starts to wear out you can flip it over and go the other way let's see I don't really care I like the look of those wolf teeth.

Looks good, we have a stalemate. Now I just put my lock ring on and then we just tightened it like a normal cassette. This is one of the few Abbey tools that I think is worth the money. I'm sure there are some knockoffs on Amazon that will work well. I love this one though make it nice and comfortable. Make sure there's no play and we've got our 20 teeth in there. Let's throw it on the bike and see if our chainline lines up. It's amazing how light a rear wheel is without a single sprocket cassette. There is something special about single speed.

I don't expect you to understand it if you've never done so. Those who have done it, understand it. To prevent knee injuries, I will have to do some additional abdominal and glute exercises to balance my quads. I overuse my quads and calves and they just throw my knees out of alignment, so I have to be very careful with that, it's easy. to put a lot of power into these bikes without realizing it, I want to quickly pull the plug on some products that I've really loved, this is from bike hardcore, they have biodegradable degreasers, chain lubes, bike cleaners and stuff, and I'm really into this stuff. , plus they sell them concentrated so you just mix your own water, you are not paying for a full bottle of water and it is very useful, so I am very grateful for you sending me this to try, now it is easy.

Get too fussy and too complicated when you do this. I suggest you don't make it simple. This is an 11 and 12 speed chainring. It is a narrow and wide wolf tooth chainring for normal 11 and 12 speed drivetrains. This wolf tooth. The rear can be used with 11 and 12 speed chains. I'm using an 8 speed chain, it's just a little thicker. You know, some people will complain about what I'm doing here and insist that their way is better. That's great. It's simple, this is cheap, I haven't had any problems with it, so this is what I use right now. I'm checking my chain line, which looks pretty straight.

I'll be able to say for sure when I link this, so yeah. This is simply the cheapest Sram eight speed chain I can find because it works for me and I'm pretty easy on my drivetrains, so you can really use any speed chain here, including a single speed chain. They make specific single speed chains that are supposed to be a little earlier. I'm fine using a cheap regular 8 speed or 9 speed or 10 speed, whatever. Now with single speed you want the right amount of chain tension. This is a little weaker than I like. work, you don't want it too tight and in fact each plate is not perfectly round and you're going to have a tight spot so here it's pretty tight while here it's pretty loose so even though it's not an oval the plate has a narrow knit, so this is one of the reasons I love sliding toes.

They make it super simple and that's why I designed this bike to have them. You simply loosen these two bolts and that allows the toe to slide. with these loose, this entire dropout can slide and now I can use this screw to push the dropout back and tighten the chain. Now I need to do the same thing there to make sure the wheel is centered, but that's how it works, it's a little tight. so I need to back off these quarter turns each, oh that feels really good, it's usually better to be a little too loose than too tight.

I know it seems counterintuitive, but too tight puts a lot of stress on the hub bearings and causes a lot of wear. on your teeth, so don't go crazy with this. Now I double check that my wheel is centered on the dropouts and it is, and now I simply tighten my dropout bolts, allowing it to slide the couple of millimeters it needs to get the tension I want Now you'll have to adjust the size of your chain, the length of your chain to fit your scabbard. You'll have to remove some links, but basically in this option you could add another link if you wanted super. long chainstays but I don't like super short chainstays now my bike is a super simple single speed with sliding dropouts now what if you don't have sliding dropouts?

I would say 90 percent of the hardtails out there maybe even 95 don't have sliding toes. I tried putting on a bunch of chain tensioners for this video, but no one was interested in sending me one to show you what it does, whether you know it or not. You are already familiar with chain tensioners. A diverter. It's a chain tensioner, it's that little gear that pushes this up, so if you don't have sliding dropouts like this, there's still hope for you to bolt a chain tensioner onto this derailleur housing. My test pick has a chain tensioner that allows me to run single speed gear without sliding dropouts, so some chain tensioners push the chain down.

I don't like it so much because that makes the chain come off these teeth a little, the more wound the chain is on these teeth the better. I prefer the ones that push it up, they just screw onto the derailleur hanger, you slide them into place, they have a little tooth, you align the wheel, push them up and install them, some are spring loaded, some are not, they just rely in the tension. I've seen some that mount on an iscg tab and there's a little wheel here, like we used to see on the old downhill bikes, the chain guides and they push up and I like that because it wraps around more, you can push them down, but I like it.

I said I prefer anything that pushes it up and gives it an extra wrap. There are 15 or 20 different chain tensioners, unfortunately I don't have experience with any of them because I always use sliding dropouts on my bikes because single speed is a big problem for me and that's why I look for something that has this on many of my bikes. option, that's exactly why I designed this bike this way and because I like being able to adjust the chainstay length when you're using a derailleur, but being able to single speed is a lot of fun, it's just an easy way to reconnect with your trails and reconnect with your bike.

There's a joy in single speed that can't be explained unless you've tried it, and I don't mean pedaled it. riding around the parking lot for a bit, I had friends who are new to driving try it and just say I feel like a kid again, it was so much fun, I forgot to shift, I forgot what gear I was in and I just rode and I can totally relate, that's the feeling I have now, be careful, listen to your body, listen to your gear, the more hills you have, the easier your gear will be, the less hills you will have, the more you can put in a heavier gear.

It's not a competition, it's just a new way to get out and have fun on your bike. I started running at single speed because my main riding partner, Cody, does it. In fact, he was a national champion in a 24-hour single-speed cross-country race. He's an animal, you guys don't understand, he's a professional cyclist and he's a beast, he's a road cyclist, he tests, he does everything and he got me hooked on single speed and I'm so glad he did because I love it. It's a simpler bike, there are fewer things that can go wrong, it's a quieter bike, you don't have chain knocks, I don't need chainstay protectors, it's very simple, so if you have a bike whose geometry you like and want to try something new with it, try to increase it with single speed, have you ever used single speed?

I want to hear in the comments below if you need help choosing your next bike. I have a bike consultation service that I offer on Patreon, that's how I pay my bills. How can youSave a lot of money by not buying the wrong bike? I have so many customers who say, “Damn,” I wish I had asked you before I bought my bike. I bought a bike that was too small because that was all they had. in stock and I really don't like it now I have to sell it at a loss and go buy another one.

I should have used you before if you really know what you're doing and know how to find bikes that you know how to size. Learn about modern bikes and you can get everything you need for my reviews. It's great if you're a little lost or overwhelmed with all the options and how bike A compares to bike B and want to pick my brain and chat one on one. That's what the consultation service is for, please register, support me and help me avoid making costly mistakes. There you have it very simple to

convert

your bicycle to a single speed.

Sorry, I don't have any more chain tensioners, I really want to. do a chain tension or shootout so I'm going to contact all of these companies again and see if they send one to be a part of this chain tension or shootout so I can tell you which one is my favorite in the meantime thanks for watching there's a party at the mountain and you are invited