For over five years the commuter bike has been a singlespeed, built around a DMR conversion and chain tensioner. I’ve loved riding it like this but it has suffered with a tendency to drop chains as they stretch with time. The chainstay length appeared to make it tricky to get the chain length right to take up slack beyond a short stretch. I’ve looked around for sprung tensioners to fix this with little luck. With the extended thinking time I decided to go in a different tack.
A quick bit of research on the internet confirmed my idea that Shimano kit, whether road or mountain bike, would work seamlessly together. A plan formed to fit a road cassette, giving more gears but a close ratio, with a neat short cage mech and to run it with a MTB shifter on the flat bars. More internet time and I had an Ultegra cassette, Sora Mech and Deore shifter on the way, along with a new chain.
My shoulder isn’t in a position yet to lift much or exert much pressure, so it was a bit of a gentle, careful wrenching session, which may actually be no bad thing. The bike went from this:
To this:
In a little over half an hour and with the help of the turbo to set up gears.
The set-up works perfectly together, even with my famously cack-handed setting of gears. I even successfully instantly found the cable guide for under the bottom bracket, which could have been irritating to lose in the parts box. The set-up flew together and ran smooth on the trainer. I can’t wait to get it out onto the roads.
A
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