The Making of a Single-Speed: Part 2

I've got a pretty decent stockpile of parts kicking around. When it came time to choose a crank for this bike, I considering improvising a solution using some low end stuff I'm never going to use, but nothing really seemed up to my standards. So instead, I decided to go with this half-decent Sugino I got at the Portland Bike Swap. I only paid 2 dollars for it due to some pretty heavy but largely superficial wear. Anyway, I stuck them on the bottom bracket and this happened:

Note the distance between the chainring and frame. Now, there's nothing about this set up that's technically wrong, but for our purposes, we want to close up that gap as much as possible (I'll come back to the "why" of this a little later). Note how there is an impression in the frame to make room for a really close fitting crank. The goal is to move that chainring as far in as possible.

These are bottom bracket spindles. The one in the middle, I believe, is the one that we just had the cranks mounted on. The other two are spares I had lying around. The goal was to find one that was notably shorter than the others. Unfortunately, these were all pretty close to each other. So I went down to my friends at Port City Bikes and bought a new spindle that was basically as short as possible. Here are the results:

Compare the first photo to this photo. That chainring is now basically as close to the frame as it will get without rubbing. This not only looks pretty cool, in my opinion, but it also serves a purpose. You may remember in the previous post that the back wheel's hub was spaced very much off center. What that means is that in order to have a perfectly straight chain-line, we needed to get that chain ring as far to the left as it would go. And we got lucky...

Perfect! It's not always easy to make the chain perfectly straight like this. Many times, it requires the rear wheel to be respaced and "redished", which requires wheel truing skills that are not my strong suit. This time, we lucked out and the shorter bottom bracket spindle was all it took.

Because this bike is to be ridden by somebody who hasn't been on a bike in years, I deemed the drop bars unacceptable. Instead, I threw on these upright "three-speed" style bars I had lying around. Much more comfortable for casual riding. The brake levers were purchased at the Orono Bike Swap for $2.50. They appear to have, at one point, had shifters built onto them that were ground off. The price was right, though. It should go without saying that these bars will be equipped with grips, I just need to buy them first.

The (nearly) finished product.

Bike: $25

Handlebars: $13

Brake Levers: $2.50

Brake Cables: $4

Crank: $2

Bottom-Bracket Spindle: $10

Pedals: $5

Chain: $12

17t Freewheel: $15