Winter rig.

I pieced together my winter bike yesterday. I stripped the derailleur and gears off my 1x8 LeMond Poprad. I had some singlespeed road levers lying around. They even fit with the old housing; all I had to do was peel back the tape a little bit and adjust.


I then used a singlespeed conversion kit, basically a bunch of spacers that I put on the freehub body. The kit came with 16, 18, and 20T cogs. I threw the 18 on there, which puts me right at 63.4 gear inches with 35s and 172.5 cranks.

I lucked out, and 42/18 is a "magic" gear for my 43 mm chainstay length. Well close enough to one. Basically that means that I can get more or less proper chain tension without using one of these. The chainstay length is about 1 mm too long for ideal tension, but that is so close that chain stretch should be able to account for that. The chain is maybe 500 miles old, and the ring/cog are essentially new, so everything will break in.

I threw a studded Nokian on the front, and a fat, blocky 'cross tire on the back. My bike hoarding has paid off, I did not have to drop a cent on this bike since I had everything laying around.

My initial impression is very good. I put about 10 miles on it last night. Gearing is good for drier winter roads, 90 rpm is 17.0 mph, 100 rpm is 18.9 mph. It'd be nice to be a hair spinnier to keep warm, but I can't complain. The bike handles the slop a lot more solidly than my road fixie. This is all temporary. The converted rear wheel will be replaced by an ENO rear wheel, which will allow me to ride fixed.