Who doesn’t love a little controversy? I mean, at least when it’s down to arguing about things that don’t really matter. I don’t know about you, but I’d way rather debate whether manually-shifted dingle speeds qualify for A.a.S.S. status than whether free and fully funded public transit is actually the best and cheapest way to reduce traffic, making transportation more convenient for everyone, and especially those folks who drive cars. And hear me out: reduced traffic, reduced stress, reduced aggressive driver behaviour, safer for cyclists and pedestrians at the same time.
Yep, dingle speeds, manually shifted dingle-speeds at least, are my favourite single-speeding controversy. I mean, only one ratio is available at a time, and ‘shifting’ requires removal of the rear wheel. And I hear you, but what about commitment to the one-speed ideal of being in the wrong gear all the time? Okay, okay, but what if one ratio is exclusively for the ride-to-the-ride, and the other ratio is for all the mountain biking that takes place? If the entire mountain bicycle ride takes place in the same gear, that’s #1FG, right? Right!?
Okay, clearly my Hammerschmidt Honzo dingle speed wasn’t a single-speed bike. It had an uphill gear and a downhill gear just like Jesse’s sweet Japhy, but it also had a shifter that let me swap, lightning fast, between those two ratios, even when I wasn’t pedaling.
But WAIT! Jesse reports that thanks to the magic of narrow-wide rings “…if you run your chain just a little on the slack side with narrow-wide chainrings, you can pop your chain off the cog, off the chainring, onto the chainring, onto the cog by hand and switch ratios without any tools, and not suffer any chaindroppage.” Okay, okay, still requires one to stop and move the chain, it’s not like he can kick it up and down between ratios with his foot? Right? Right, Jesse?!
Beyond that, this thing is “…a way-over-forked, twenty-nine-by 3.0 front, 2.8 (r.i.p.!) rear, double-magic-ratio, Onyx-silent screamer of a steel-super-stapler.” Yes, bring it! If you would like to hit me with some dingle-speed deterrence join us at r/MEATengines or fire me an e-mail, but in the meantime as long as it can’t be shifted on the fly, we’re going to allow dingle-speeds to enter the conversation. Have a single, or now dingle, speed you’d like to share? It’s easy:
You write a Haiku
Submit it with the photo
Then, I say thank you
Jesse on the Esker Japhy:
Technically dingle
One for uphill, one for down
Tensionerless, bitch!
{Photo: Jesse Einstein}
For more of the MEATengines one-speed haikuniverse: About a Single-Speed