Singlespeed Part 1 — Sergeant Red Beard

Interactions with people at the last few races have got me thinking about how I became a singlespeeder, why I still ride one, and the general mindset of the singlespeed sub-culture. So this is the first post of a multi-part series about the how’s, why’s, and who’s of single speeding as I see it. We’ll start with the story of how I found myself a committed follower of the Singlespeed Cult.

I started mountain biking in 2009 and, like many others, started out with a cheap bike. It was a 2009 Specialized Hardrock Disc. It served me well that first season, but I not so secretly lusted after the fancy full suspension rigs. So when the time came for a new bike in 2010 I settled on a Specialized Stumpjumper FSR with 26 inch wheels. This was a year or so before 29ers became mainstream, but they were popping up all over the place and I was curious. So when a friend posted his Haro Mary SS for sale online priced at $300 I took the plunge, despite having little interest in riding with only one gear.

The Haro Mary SS was as barebones as they come. Full rigid steel frame and fork, mechanical disc brakes, cheap wheelset; but there was something about it. I couldn’t quite land on what made it so much fun to ride. I started riding it more after I put a fork on it, then more still when I upgraded the wheelset, suddenly the bike came alive even more then before. I upgraded the brakes next, then the cockpit. All of the sudden I realized that almost every time I rode I was grabbing the Mary.

Black Bear Rampage 2011 was the first time I’d entered the Singlespeed class in a race. I’d spent much of the season racing in the geared classes, but always ended up training on the Mary. BBR 2010 was a calamity for me. At that point I’d never ridden more then 20 miles before, but I’d signed up in a geared class and finished the 40 mile distance in 5:46. So imagine my surprise when I crossed the finish line on my Mary in 3:49, almost 2 hours faster then the year before!!! Obviously there had been a ton of training in the year since, but I also attributed some of it to the bike; wrong as that may have been.

For some reason I entered the 2012 season still running gears. That season was easily my most successful from a racing standpoint. I finished 2nd in my age group in the overall TBRA points series and set a personal best at BBR that I still haven’t come within 20 minutes of since. But for much of the year all I wanted was to race in the singlespeed class.

Starting in 2013 I rarely entered races unless it was in the singlespeed class and trained on it almost exclusively. I traded in the Mary for a Niner One 9, the Scandium model, and dropped the suspension for in favor of full rigid awesomeness. Ignore the droopy chain…this was from the inaugural ride.

My singlespeed addiction continued when I built up my Silent Cycles cross bike. This bike has turned into my default choice for commuting around the city.

For the 2015 race year I went to a Niner Air 9 Carbon with matching Niner Carbon fork and later a SID XX World Cup.

When it comes to buying mountain bikes the first thing I check is whether I can set them up as a singlespeed. One of my goals when I started riding again this year was to get in good enough shape to take the gears off the Chameleon. Once I got there I sold the frame when I realized how much of a pain it was going to be…it was cheaper to buy the Big Honzo frame.

So its now 2020 and I’ve been riding singlespeeds for the better part of a decade and I’m almost back to where I started all those years ago, riding a steel framed singlespeed. I’m uncertain how much longer my body will allow me to continue, but I’ll hang on as long as I can. Why??? Tune in next week to find out.