Converting to a Single Speed

I decided to write this post for anyone who is interested in working on their bicycle and glean some pointers from my experience converting a bicycle to a single speed.

Last summer I purchased a janky 1970's Huffy bicycle in hopes of fixing it up to be a commuter.  Here's the starting condition and after stripping off all the logos I started painting the bike red.

I'd advise wearing a mask, especially on these older bikes... lead paint.  I replaced the Huffy logo with an Om symbol.  I just used regular ol' red spray paint with a rust resistant base.  The paint looks spotted because I tried using this reflective paint in hopes that at night my bike would really stand out to cars.  However, the reflective particulates don't come out evenly so in hind sight I'd recommend against this.  I still need to put a clear coat over all this (perhaps next summer)... maybe some sort of an automobile clear paint to seal everything in and make the frame less likely to attract dirt.  I'd appreciate any suggestions if anyone knows of good paint for a bicycle.

Some other pretty committee changes...

And here's the final product from last summer.

Given the decals I painted and color scheme, my coworkers have dubbed this as 'Buddha Bike'.  So this summer this name got me thinking... if this is going to be a 'buddha' bike it'd better be true to its name.  One of the beautiful things about buddhism is simplicity.  So what better way to honor this name than to convert it to a single speed.  Remove the gear hub... remove any attachments (pun intended).  So now onto the process of converting to a single speed!

I chose to keep the brakes since I do have a few hills and, how shall I say this... 'slightly less aware' pedestrians and car drivers in my neighborhood.  I also decided to go with a free wheel since I'm not quite ready to go to a fixed gear (resistive pedaling to slow down).  That's another great thing about buddha bike... nothing is permanent and its always changing.  If you are interested you can buy a wheel hub that lets you easily switch between fixed and free.  I also ordered new rims since the old ones were pretty warped and I don't have a truing stand (yet)... although in this case I think it might have been a futile effort.

REMOVAL OF ATTACHMENTS: I removed all the cables, shifter, derailleur, and old brakes.  Really, nothing special to note here... except that if you are not familiar with bicycles or this is your first endeavor into bicycle maintenance (like it was for me) I'd take pictures or notes so you can remember how things are attached.  And keep a pile of parts for each 'system' that you are removing.

BRAKES: The new brakes I ordered were essentially the same type, but just slightly more advanced, more powerful, and lighter.  The key I noticed to installing brakes is to have the self tightening washer. 

Also, for these new brakes there is a little screw on the top (see picture) that lets you adjust the brakes left/right when viewing from the front.  This is a fine tuning adjustment with only a small turn necessary to make a large movement in the brakes... but very handy.

Since, I was replacing the brakes I also went ahead a replaced the brake cables and cable housing.  You'll need a special cable cutter for this since the cable housing is not just plastic but has a metal inner, hollow core.  These cutters are about $40.  When replacing the cables before you cut the new ones measure the length of the old cables so you don't cut them too short.








REAR WHEEL: Since I ordered new wheels I didn't need to worry about removing the old wheel's hub.  If you are doing this it requires a special tool and from the online tutorials I've read doesn't seem like a complicated process.  You just need to prevent the wheel from rotating about the spindle so you can loosen the hub.  I ordered a 16 for the rear wheel single speed gear ($15).  I'm told this is a bit high in resistance for a typical single speed but I'd rather not max out on 'comfortable' rpms and have extra torque.  Once you remove your rear gear hub, you just need to screw on your single speed gear on the rear wheel by hand.

Above, is the before and after picture.  Looks so much simpler and its quieter!

CHAIN: I still had the original chain on this bike so I decided to replace it.  Something you may want to consider, is using a single speed chain.  They are much more robust than a standard road chain.  This type of chain has a special link (golden in picture below) that snaps on (by hand).  These chains are pretty inexpensive... I paid about $12.

A caveat to this type of a chain, is that once you snap the final link on its really difficult (even with a chain tool), if not impossible to remove without damaging the chain.  The 'regular' links are not really designed to be added.  So be sure you remove links slowly until you are certain you find the correct length of the chain.  This may require you to move the rear wheel forward or back to have the proper chain tension.  I don't think it is necessary to have a dynamic chain tensioner on the rear wheel... although some people use them.  I feel this way for two reasons: 1. its a single speed... its supposed to have less parts :) and 2. if you put the chain at the right tension when putting on the wheel this additional part isn't necessary.  One handy tip for putting a chain on is to have your chain tool and use an old wire/hangar to help link the two ends together so you can use your hands for putting the rivet into the two open ends.  Plus its cost is great... $0!

That's about it! Pretty simple huh? I did some other pretty committee touch ups too, like adding a new seat...

and I did order new pedals to match the paint and seat, but turns out the crank is so old that the thread diameter is not the common size used today.  So I'd recommend measuring this yourself.

In this process I've learned to not trust a local bike shop mechanic's word 100% and its a good place to start with anything but sometimes its just better to do it yourself!  Plus when you're out riding, you won't have a mechanic to help you out!

Hope this helps you or at least perks an interest in working on your bicycle.  Feel free to ask me questions.

Happy Riding!

Raptor Squirrel vs. Kate Round 2

My optimism from the last posting on this subject had been slightly squashed by the latest discovery...

Yes, your thoughts are correct... that is a pot that raptor squirrel had started chewing on since last season.  As you might expect, after finding this any hope I had of building a structure to keep this predator of plants and pots out was deflated.   Raptor Squirrel 1.5 Kate 0.

Never fear, fellow green thumbs... I still have another card to play. 

I'm pleased to report that my decision to go with non-edibles this year in the garden has been successful and slightly cheaper.  Now only the summer heat is my foe.  I still see traces of the elusive raptor squirrel, but I think he has moved on to a new hunting ground.  I think my 'garden' has become more of a storage site for raptor squirrel since now all I find are shiny objects half buried in the pots.  Perhaps next season I'll try for some herbs as well... we'll see.  Although the season is not quite over, I feel that it is safe to declare a new score...

Raptor Squirrel 1.5   Kate 1

Code Monkey

If you would had told me a year ago that I would be spending at least 50% of my work week programming, I would have been mildly skeptical. If you had told me that additionally I would enjoy, look forward to, and even spend my free time programming I would have seriously questioned your sanity. But here I am.

"You know, programming is actually quite creative, it is kind of like painting" ... at least that's what I tell myself to justify staying up until 2am, coding away with a caffeinated beverage and iTunes playing in the background... or when trying to recover some inkling of a sex appeal after meeting a new guy. Cause let's be honest ladies, its already a questionable outcome when you say "I'm an engineer", but adding "I like to program... for fun" to the conversation doesn't always get the "Oh that's cool, tell me more" response one would hope for.  So true, I'm not using an artist's typical tools... instead of using acrylics or oils I declare variables, instead of considering lighting I create logic loops, and instead of presenting my work on a canvas I use a GUI.

Clearly, I get joy out of this, perhaps rather unfairly stereotyped, activity. And while I'm not going to run out and purchase a deck of Dungeons and Dragons or start wearing Star Wars t-shirts (not that there's anything wrong with that)... I figure why not embrace my code monkey side and make the most of it.  Therefore I've given myself the task of learning another programming language (Adobe Flex). I've finished the first 5 tutorials in one of the books I purchased and look forward to maintaining this current pace and finishing this book by the end of February.   I still will need to learn MySequel and Java/PHP in order to see my projects through to completion... but its a start.  I'll keep you posted on my project status, new programs, and inevitable road-blocks.

So in the mean time, to all my fellow heavily-caffeinated, iTune-junky, code monkeys out there... happy coding!

Raptor Squirrel vs. Kate

Last summer I had decided to not be constrained by living in an apartment and grow my own veggies and plants.  How nice it would be to sit down to a salad of home grown, patio veggies.  So when it finally came time to start building my garden, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning.   I spent many hours preparing the pots, carefully selecting the best plants that would yield the tastiest harvest, and diligently watered and nurtured each seed/plant. Several weeks went by and I began to take a bit of joy and pride in watching my plants grow, flowers appear, and eventually little buds of baby veggies reveal themselves.  I had a real garden... no better, a suburban oasis with delicious veggies and beautiful plants.

Everything seemed to be going along quite well.  That is until one morning when was awakened by unfamiliar noises in what seemed to be my regular bed in what seemed to be my regular apartment... but I was wrong.   My apartment had been transported back to the Jurassic era.  I now appear to have a family of brontosauruses living above me.  I gave little thought to these changes until a few days later I noticed my lovely garden now looked like a patch of the rain forest that had been visited by bulldozers and chainsaws.  At first, I was a bit puzzled about what could have been the cause.  Had the repeated hail storm mixtures of Play-Doh, Kool-Aid, and god-knows-what-else from the brontosaurus family above me finally taken its toll?  Locusts?  Wrath of the Meat-Industry gods retaliating against my vegan ways?  As I sat down at my kitchen table to ponder the cause of this massacre over breakfast, my heart sank when I saw the creature that had caused this veggie-cide.  I'm not sure why it returned to the scene of the crime... perhaps to see if there was anything it had missed... no, that was too naive of an assumption.  It was to taunt me and gloat about its masterful and thorough destruction of my little sanctuary.   Much to my disappointment, my patio was now the new hunting grounds of a Raptor Squirrel.

If you have never seen this rare cold blooded animal, let me describe it and the depths of its evil ways.   It looks like your garden variety squirrel, but is actually a descendant of the velociraptor... only meaner.  Razor sharp claws allows this creature to shred plants with an ease similar to tearing a Kleenex tissue and also apparently to have the same wall-scaling, window-walking, physics-defying powers as Spiderman.  It employs gorilla warfare and ancient torture tactics like interrupting your sleep, ambushing you from hidden locations, and splashing water from your fountain all over the deck.  And similar to its prehistoric ancestors, when it looks at you, you can tell it is thinking things through... sizing you up.  It is thinking about how to cause the most destruction and yet cleverly leave half a plant... giving you a sliver of hope that the chili powder you dowsed your plants with had successfully deterred this heartless killing machine.   Just when you get your hopes up, when you are most vulnerable, it attacks! Eating that last defenseless baby squash right in front of you.  And to add insult to injury, it leaves a more "processed" version the next day on your patio furniture.

Although this beast tested my "no hurting another creature" philosophy on numerous occasions, I survived Round 1 with my beliefs uncompromised. For the beast, it ended this round with a slightly thicker layer of fat for winter. After licking my wounds, I have resolved to once again take on my elusive and cunning foe this spring for Round 2. So where does each contestant stand? Raptor Squirrel has been lazy and hibernating all winter. I have been using the inventive power of my significantly larger mammalian brain to devise a new plan of attack, a means to fortify my patio and ensure my garden will last all season... and more importantly will have a feast larger than two quarter-sized tomatoes and one leaf of spinach.  Only time will tell the outcome of this next bout, but know this Raptor Squirrel... its on, so you better bring your A-game this year!

Current Score:
Raptor-Squirrel 1pt
Kate 0pt


ROUND 3
Two Words: "Cactus Garden"

Let's see if Raptor squirrel finds this as tasty as my previous gardens!