I got introduced to Single Speeds in 2010 I think and got started the way most people do I think. I had a few extra parts so I bought a cheaper frame and put one together. I quickly started to enjoy a few things about it and I’ve been predominantly racing and largely riding a single speed since about 2012. I started because I wanted to learn more about putting bikes together and not needing some of the complex drivetrain parts made it a little easier to do that. I had really only been mountain biking 3-4 years at that point and living in Atlanta I wasn’t getting to ride all that much.

My first single speed creation was this ridiculous looking 26″ On One Inbred that was too small for me, but I bought it on Ebay not really knowing much about bikes at this point. I pulled a lot of the parts off my original hardtail and made it fit. I ended up using just about every bit of my 420 mm long Thomson Seat post and had a whole bunch of spacers underneath the stem. I did make it kind of fit though.

I was enjoying this one gear thing. It was nice and quiet with almost no rattles, always felt solid, mechanically it was pretty simple to keep working well. At most of the local trails in Atlanta it worked really well. I still wasn’t sold on this being a bike to use in races, keep in mind racing was pretty new to me at this point too.

At the 2012 Snake Creek Gap race, which may have been my 2nd or 3rd race ever, the conditions were terrible. I was riding a Cannondale Rush (short travel full suspension) that I was borrowing from Katie’s Dad. I don’t think I was 1/4 of the way through the race before I started having major chain suck problems and eventually broke the chain. Now, I was pretty new to riding a bike in bad conditions and may not have properly prepared for it but I was really annoyed. So at the next Snake Creek when the conditions were going to be bad again I made the decision to just use the single speed. I didn’t want to spend half the day messing with my bike, I was there to ride it.

I ended up beating all of my previous times and having a blast, this was the beginning of the end. I still wasn’t sold entirely on single speeds being ok in big races or proper mountains. Then it came to PMBAR in 2013 I think, again I was riding that Cannondale Rush.  As luck would have it maybe 1/2 way through our day the rear shock blew out and I was left riding a lowrider through Pisgah. This was before I knew much about Pisgah and my partner and I got caught a long way from home in a lot of cold rain. This would be the end of geared mountain bikes for me for a while.

At this point I had built up a slightly more proper 29″ single speed from a Vassago Jabberwocky frame with a small crack in it. So I had a bike a little more suited to proper trail riding. We had also just moved up to West Virginia where I had better access to ride a little more often and I met my now good friend Andy who is a fairly committed single speeder. Between those two things I didn’t have a geared mountain bike for number of years and I didn’t miss it.

Shortly after moving to WV I started to piece together what I kind of consider my first custom build. I bought a frame, Vassago Verhauen (which I still sort of have) and all of the specific parts that I wanted to put on it. I got to pick and choose everything. I even bought the hubs/rims and built the wheels myself which was really pretty cool. Note: this was also back before I had kids and had time to build a wheel. When I finally got the bike built I was sold for a long time.

It was probably 3-4 years before I’d ride a geared bike again. I have had a few other bikes since that one, in addition to, not instead of…. I had another Jabberwocky that was set up fully rigid, a Mukluk Fatbike also SS, a Canfield Nimble 9, and two TimberJacks (one Aluminum and the TI version). I’m currently stuck on the TI Timberjack and suspect I will be for a little while. This bike is kind of all the things I’ve wanted in a hardtail/SS frame since I started to understand frames and bikes a little more. At some point maybe it’ll get its own post.

Since most of my riding now is in Pisgah I do dabble on geared bikes more than I ever have, but I still find myself reaching for that Timberjack more often than not. The single speed still sees a majority of the miles throughout the year.