My old Kona was looking sad and unused, in the garage gathering dust ad cobwebs, so I took a few parts off it. It’s not a proper singlespeed conversion, but it forces me to ride it one-geared; and, a full conversion can be completed eventually.
The starting point. Rigid Konas just look good. Unfortunately, this one has a flat front tyre and the gearing is rather worn.
A box o’ bits!
The bike with all the extraneous parts removed. I got rid of the bottle cage, pump mount and crud guard as well, but they may return at some point. It still looks like a geared bike for the moment, but I have no cash to spend on bits to properly singlespeed it.
The chainset with no front mech. An advantage of keeping the rear mech and the chainset is that I can manually change between three gears, for road use, or big hills. Eventually, the three rings will be reduced to just one.
I’m using the rear mech to tension the chain, and still have the seven sprocket cassette. A single sprocket will be added at some point. The mech is aligned with the cog using the high and low adjuster screws.
It might not be a proper singlespeed yet, but it looks like one from the front.
One of the pedals creaks a lot, so I’m going to have to share a pair of flats between my two bikes, and it now has a rear puncture, but it was fun to ride on it’s first outing.
34:19, by the way.