Single Speed

I love bicycles. They are very liberating things. The most mechanically efficient form of land transportation, they are marvels of ingenuity. Not like the open-ended wonders that require subscriptions to keep running or constant drains on resources to use. They are complete units that any person can use. They are quiet, clean, noninvasive. There are no traffic jams on a bike. And in our increasingly sedentary lives, they are a bright spot of physical activity and serotonin release.

I am fortunate enough to be able to ride my bike to work. This is partly good planning on my part, and partly Providence. So, I ride for a useful purpose. When I started, it quickly became clear that modern bikes are over-engineered. They have lots of gadgety conveniences that get in the way and do not actually help the bike function. Did you know that in a 21 speed bike, several of those "speeds" actually repeat when you look at hte gear ratios? And others are so outside of the range of normal human riding that even athletes rarely use them. Most people only use 3 to 5 of the speeds.

So, big deal, right? It's just extra junk that we may use when we finally decide to bike up Mount Everest. But in my daily commute I began to see the downside. This extra engineering takes constant maintenance, and eventually the bike stops functioning well, and Murphy's law holds very true...it will stop functioning at the worst possible moment. Here's an example. I have to cross a big road with cars whizzing by way too fast. When I get an opportunity, I take it, pedalling hard to get across quickly. But the sudden torque causes the derailleur to bounce and the chain to skip and all of a sudden, I'm in the middle of traffic spinning my feet wildly with no traction and trying not to get run over.

OK, so I could get better parts that wouldn't do this...If I wanted to spend several hundred dollars on them...which wouldn't be worth it on the average bike, so I might as well buy a better bike, which in the end costs as much as a cheap car! Who can afford this? Even if I could I wouldn't pay it. It's a matter of DIY Punk solidarity with the oppressed masses who just need reliable transport. Me and Snake and Chin Lau and Rajeem and Paulo represent the literal billions worldwide who aren't part of this rich elitist bike club.

Fortunately, there is an answer. Single Speed! More than a type of bike, it's a lifestyle choice, a statement, a reaction to the evils of bigger, better consumer culture. And it's embraced by people from competitive athletes to street punks all over.

So, I was hooked. But I'm cautious. I started riding single speed by simply not shifting for a year or so. I slowly learned more about how bikes work. I discovered that I have a pretty decent bike for making the switch and I learned what gear ratio worked best for me. Then, about 3 months ago, I decided to make the switch. Of course this is not without it's corporate invasion and I could easily buy rather pricey conversion kits, or loose parts. But I'd prefer to do it street style!

So I tried to scavenge up some parts through Freecycle. I got lots of bikes, but all seemed broken in the same ways (can anyone say design flaw?) or didn't have what I needed. So I just removed the mech and ran a short chain on my existing gears. This worked great until I hit a rough patch of gravel and the chain bounced high enough to catch the pick ups on the gear above it. Being just long enough to fit the cog I had chosen, it bound tight, freezing my hub.

To make a long story short, I ended up having to buy a new wheel after learning just how thoroughly entrenched the man actually is in the surprisingly political bike world. I was flat refused service, as soon as they caught drift of my intentions, by certain bike shops that I now know are not in the single speed camp. I'm not kidding.

So then it was a matter of finding the other parts. After lengthy internet searches, refusals by bike shops even to advise me, and attempts to grossly overcharge, I ordered what I needed from some websites. All the while still collecting bikes form Freecycle, hoping to hit up on good parts.

This all came to a head this week after 4 hours trying to make the dang thing work with the new parts and still getting chain problems. I spent a sleepless night dreaming about bike gears and the next day, finally hit on the vocabulary to describe my problem. I then quickly found a solution on the internet and now have a beautiful DIY Punk single speed bike that still cost far less than buying an overpriced attempt to suck in the faddies and posers.

And as bonus, several kids have gotten new bikes out of it from me. The guy who drives around scavenging metal to scrap from people's trash has gotten a boost in his income from my curb. The neighborhood knows I can fix 'em for free and takes advantage of it. And I even ended up with a back-up bike and parts in case another unforeseen problem crops up with my design!

So, this is not simply a funny story of reverse engineering, nor a case of taking a beating for ideals, though it is both of those things. Deeper than that, this is an illustration of the simplicity on the far side of complexity. A journey through the valley of discovery with all its trials wherein the truth-seeker finally arrives at the goal only after persevering in the path, battered, but triumphant. This is real human experience, bro!