Filed under: News
I rode my polo bike today. It’s an interesting ride. It’s a ton of fun, it’s more upright and casual than any of my other bikes; I’m glad that I put it together with “getting around” town in mind.
For all intents and purposes, it is a single speed (as a good polo bike should be, in my opinion) but I’ve kept the triple chainring, and simply spaced out a freehub with a few smatterings of cogs. I’m not sure where I saw this before, or what, but to keep the chain tension I kept a derailleur in place. That’s not unusual for a bike like this, but I actually kept a cable in it to keep the derailleur tensioned too.
What’s great about this—and “great” is definitely subjective I know—is that this bit of cable is actually adjustable at the barrel. Not widely of course, but just enough to be able to trim between a couple of cogs when I need to.
The handlebars have nothing but a single brake lever on them. This is another part of the bike I enjoy, it’s simple and clean, and oh, so comfortable. So how do I “trim between a couple of cogs”? I stop riding, dismount and twist away on that barrel, adding or subtracting tension. For a real good time, perhaps on a hill climb, I’ll reach down and nudge the chain off the middle chainring and drop to the granny gear. (Getting it back up to the middle ring requires stopping and dismounting). It’s a peach.
What's more interesting than the beer can in the spokes is the use of 10spd chain and cogs.
Riding it all day today, I had a thought regarding those “flip flop” hubs that are so popular nowadays. How often have you flipped your hub to get a different gearing? Or switched from fixed to single-speed? This is something they used to do in the golden days of the Tour. Get to the top (or bottom) of a hill, dismount, detach the rear wheel and flip it for a different, favorable gear. Two options—manually chosen and implemented with tools and all. None of this 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11 speed nonsense. Since the inception of derailleurs and such, stopping and getting your hands dirty to switch gears has become so passé. Well you know what? Nothing’s too passé for me! If you’re not utilizing all your gears, or the flip flop feature of your rear wheel, why do you have them? Why are manufacturers making them? So many unused features of components or entire components themselves seems such a shame. Doesn’t it?
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