Mountain Bike History 101 and the Single Speed

With the growing buzz about single speeds and the bike industry answering what many riders request of “back to the roots of mountain biking”, I feel its time we talked about the history of mountain biking and how single speeds mountain bikes fit in.

Like snowboarding, mountain biking has evolved a lot since its first conception. Around the turn of the century it is said that road racers in Europe would race each other to neighboring towns but were allowed to take any shortcut they wanted. Even if it meant that they would be climbing fences or riding through fields. This would evolve into the sport of Cyclo-cross. It became popular after Octave Lapize credited winning the 1910 Tour de France because of his off-season Cyclo-cross training. In 1950 Union Cycliste Internationale, a cycling association that oversees competitive cycling events internationally, held its first Cyclo-cross race in Paris. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Cyclo-cross gained popularity in the US and in 1975 Berkeley California. was the site of the first US National Championship.

Also around that time in California, people were starting to take old fat tire cruiser bikes and modify them with gears and BMX style handlebars. After people started racing these modified fat tire bikes, people started to think about improving the bikes. One of the first things improved was the wheel hubs and breaking system. Racers were always having to repack the bearings in the wheel because of the speeds they were reaching while racing down hill. Racers started to build new wheels combining road wheel hubs and stronger rims to handle the bumps off road.

In the early 1980’s road bike manufactures started making bikes for the mountain bike arena. Using the technology of the time, these new bikes were lighter and stronger then the old fat tire cruiser bikes. Like road bikes, mountain bikes go through the same kind of trends. In the mid 1990’s the single speed trend started with the road bikes and moved its way to mountain bikes by the late 1990’s. The start of the trend for road bikes was from bike messengers. They started taking the gears off their road bikes and making them into single speeds. The reason single speeds appealed to them were because they were more reliable and noticeably quicker and easier to pedal.

Fast-forward to today and you will notice that bike manufactures are now starting to produce single speed mountain bikes. Just like bike manufactures answered the trendsetters’ call to make mountain bikes in the 1980’s they are doing the same for a new bunch of next generation innovators. The benefit today is that technology has come a long way, components on bikes are better then ever and more reliable.

So why should you get a single speed mountain bike? Well single speed mountain bikes are not for everyone. They lack the gears that allow you to make up hill climbs easier and down hill descents faster. That’s not to say you can’t go fast down hill. You just won’t be able to do it as efficient with out gears. If you want a mountain bike that is easier to maintain, more responsive when you pedal, and are looking for a great workout, single speed mountain bikes offer all of that and more. There is nothing wrong with either type of mountain bike. It is more of a personal preference. If you’re looking at getting a new bike I strongly encourage you to look at single speeds. There are some great ones out there and they are a ton of fun to ride.

In the next couple of months we are going to bring you every single speed mountain bike in production that we can get our hands on and put them through their paces. We are working on some of our favorite picks right now but if there are specific bikes you want to hear about let us know.   All I can say is “Are you ready for the ride!”

My Singlespeed Friend

Whoever made the statement that you can never go back to your childhood was wrong. While there is truth to the fact that once we age past those great years of endless child powered energy, we can still recapture pieces of our youth by simply doing the things we used to do. One of the greatest joys I have found recently is the ability to once again tear up the track and trails of my childhood with a single geared mountain bike. Sure the bike needs to be bigger and unfortunately they are a bit more expensive than saving my paper route money can afford, but single gear mountain bikes are a great way to not only remember your childhood, but bring it back as well.

I, like a lot of riders, still freshly remember tearing around a dirt track. Taking on jumps and bumps, sliding around a turn with one leg out to help keep myself upright, all of this and more. I remember how from the moment I got home until the sun set I was gone somewhere on my bike. The best part about being an adult is I don’t have to worry about my mother calling me home too soon. Yet the bad part about being an adult is that after a couple hours of riding like a crazed maniac I am exhausted. However it is a sweet price to pay for the feeling of once again being a kid.

Sure there are some issues with single gear mountain bikes. First off those hills that are hard with gear selection become true monsters with only one gear. Also only having one gear means that no matter how hard I pedal I am not going to get a better speed ratio from my bike. Yet I am more than willing to give these things up and not just because I get to regain some of my childhood. As a matter of fact I can think of a lot of benefits to a single gear mountain bike.

First is the obvious fact I don’t have to worry near as much about derailing issues. Since the bike only has one gear, there is no chance that the chain will derail as it switches gears. Also because everything is simpler, I have a lot less maintenance I have to worry about. Instead of making sure my gear rail is in good shape, then testing to make sure the gear cables are in working order, I can just check to make sure my tires are good, my handlebars straight and off I go. All of this is even before I consider the different challenges a single gear bike offers.

While I can’t speak for every biker on a trail, I can vouch that at least some of us enjoy the pure challenge of the sport. Now imagine that already monster hill without the benefit of gearing down to help you get to the top. Yep, you have one gear and the only way you are going to make it up that hill is to put everything you got on the line. Yet once you are up there, you know you earned it. Another challenge aspect of single geared bikes is the fact that back woods trails become even more technical. Now instead of being able to gear up or down for the demands of the trial you only have one gear and that gear is forward.

So okay maybe these kind of bikes are not for everyone. After all if we all converted to single gear bikes, engineers would be joining the unemployment lines in droves. However for those of us looking to recapture some of our childhood, or those of us looking for a different kind of challenge, the single geared mountain bike is a great answer.

First Ride On My Fully Rigid Singular Swift SS Mountain Bike

Homeboy’s skiing blog provides you skiing tips & tricks, road-trip stories, movie and book reviews, technical information, competition watch, resort reviews, news and photo sessions. Our main focus is to provide you how-to-information, such as how to ski in different conditions, how to fix your equipment and how to organize your ski trip. In the summer time our main sport is mountain biking and you will find quite a lot of mountain biking related content on the blog at the moment.

I recently wrote a short article about converting my 29er hardtail to fully rigid single-speed. Carl from Made-to-Order Bikes found my text and asked me to feature here on this site with a post about my Singular. Well, I found this a good opportunity to promote our blog a bit. I was also just about to write a first ride report with the new set-up, so the timing suited me very well.

My Singular

I guess the Singular brand is not the most well known in the USA. So, I start with a brief introduction of the manufacturer:

Singular is a small frame manufacturer from UK specializing in 29er bikes. A quote from their website tells the following:

”Singular Cycles brings you bikes for the type of riding you do. A blend of modern concepts with proven design and materials makes for beautiful bikes, which ride like a dream.

We’ve become disillusioned with ever more fragile bikes and components which offer no real benefit to the everyday rider who wants a bike which rides sweetly, looks lovely, and doesn’t need replacing every year.

Singular Cycles - singularly distinctive bicycles.”

The company also has a nice blog – check it out for more detail about e.g. product development, race results and customer’s bikes.

I have ridden the 29er now for a bit over two seasons. Before my current bike I rode (the original) Gary Fisher Rig for about one and a half season. I bought the Singular last November and didn’t ride it much during the winter months. I was pretty happy with the original hard tail set-up in e.g. this endurance event. However, having enjoyed the excellent rolling features the 29ers offer, I started to think that maybe it is the rolling and the geometry that weight more when defining the good riding characters of a bike than the suspension per se (Especially when thinking about cross-country/trail bikes).

With that said I was still a bit nervous about this project. After all, I pretty much learned to ride a mountain bike on a full suspension rig, as I already wrote in my original blog post about this issue. This feeling got stronger as the day for the test ride came – as the first notion on the morning was “damn, it has rained the whole night before…” (This means slippery with capital s on our trails…)

We rode some five miles to the trailhead and paused to let some air pressure out of the tires. I pumped the tires (Panaracer Rampage 2.35”) to about 3 bar (around 42psi) for the road and tried now to adjust them to about 2.5 bar (around 36psi).

The trail started with some series of technical short climbs. Which were not easy for me – I should have probably let even more air out of the tires as the rear wheel kept slipping. (I’ve read somewhere that Rampages are not the best wet-conditions tires anyway?) Also the bigger factor after riding gears for couple of months was sprinting for some square-edged “steps” on the climbs: I think I just got used to the seated/geared climbing again, and now the single-speed riding style just wasn’t immediately there. The 38-18 gearing felt a tad heavy; previously I’ve had 32-19, which suits maybe even better to our rooty/quite technical trails. (I think I keep it like it is though, because now the transition to trail head was bearable. With any lighter gearing the roads would start to feel total PITA in my humble opinion.)

However, the flatter sections of the trail were ok and the 29er wheel rolled nice and easily just like it should. With the rigid fork your hands are going to feel more impacts for sure but on the other hand lifting the front wheel and/or making small corrections were very easy and accurate – a pretty cool and new feeling to me.

Then we got to some nice steep rollers. Whoa, I never believed an old-school rider friend that blasted how rigid fork is actually very good on steeps as the geometry never change during the descent. Check the pictures, I really dug to ride these slick rock sections, and was surprised how well it all went.

After that the trail got easier and I found the rigid bike very fun on some mellower, faster sections. After all, weight savings over a suspension fork must feel somewhere. Rigid bike, mellow up-hill and single speed – you don’t need any “pro pedal” set-ups, right?

Typical Southern Finland Singletrack

It was only when we hit one particular slippery part of the trail with big, wet roots when I got in trouble again. I wasn’t attacking the obstacles aggressive enough and kept slipping around – frustrating for sure but next time I know I should just pedal on and not hesitate…(funny how easy it always sound at the desk!)

Also, after about two hour of riding, I really started to feel the impacts on the arms, especially when the speeds got higher in the downhills. Today’s loop wasn’t much longer than that thought. I’ve yet to see if I can take some four-five hours ride with the rigid fork – at least you get some decent arm pump if nothing else…

At the end I also have to praise the Singular on some well thought design. Their rigid fork that is designed to go with the frame offers very good handling. The fork is quite long for a rigid one (485mm A-C) and has a rake/off-set of 48mm (that’s a good amount of it folks!). But this combinations just works – riding this bike will keep you smiling. Check this review from MTBR for further proof. It seems like riders way better than me liked the bike too.

And at last, I’d like to thank Carl for an opportunity to write on this excellent site. Happy trails and just keep pedaling! I hope you enjoyed my review.

Janne/ Homeboyski Team

Just another shot from today’s ride