I started my third innings of cycling with a 26″ Hercules Arrow MTB which was initially single speed-ed. Soon I realized that single speed might not help me as a beginner who is reinventing cycling with the sort of terrain Bangalore roads have.
I struggled initially, but may be I could have lived with this if I were a little more fit.
One day while reading some forums, I figured out that it is possible to add gears to a single speed cycles (of course with an additional cost). I inquired my local bike shop where I bought the cycle from on this and they confirmed that conversion is possible at a cost of 1k for a shimano 6 speed system. I quickly took my bike and got it converted. I also had option of 5 speed system from SRAM probably for 600 Rs, but that name wasn’t well known at least for me at that point.
The problem
Well, it was a lesson learnt, unless you are clear what you are doing and what you expect the outcome to be, you are most likely to be cheated. The Local Bike Shop guys just dumped a 7 speed shifter instead of a 6 speed shifter on my bike. End result- I had all sorts of problems with the cassettes and chain, it never felt as though the chain is properly attached to the teeth of my freewheel cassette. It also used to slip at times.
While climbing when I shift, the chain used to slip and that made me make another shift to a higher/lower gear and lose the energy in the process. I almost lost the interest to cycling as my rides were proving inefficient, my energy was lost while fiddling with the shifter and trying to make a proper shift and have the chain properly in place on the freewheel.
The solution
I found that there is an active forum called BikesZone for bikers (motor/motor-less). I became a member and fired my first question at the forum members on my problem with the gear up-gradation. First real reply came from BikeyVenky which was direct at the mismatched components.
Now that I was clear about the solution ahead, I purchased a matching shifter and installed it myself on my bike.
The mechanical engineer in me was reborn! This also threw me into the thought of building a bike (cycle) myself , Venky had already done that, but while being in US. Most of the components including frame has to be sourced from US/Europe/Japan , I haven’t made myself ready for the challenge yet.
But I will certainly build a bike one day!
[…] would be a great idea and gears can take me distances. I consulted my local bike shop and finally geared up my bike. Of course my LBS messed things up and I ended up doing a lot of DIY stuff to make my bike […]
Hi Ram,
I enjoyed reading your blog. In some places you remind me of myself. me to got a single speed bike last month(btwin). its quite interesting to know that I can put gears in it.I will check with Decathlon. but this idea itself is quite crazy!