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The Turner goes Single Speed with Full suspension
It's time to join the off road single speed crowd, so decided to do a conversion of the Turner 5 Spot.
This is a 5.5" travel machine, so it needed a tensioner for the chain, as there's 15mm chain 'growth' between uncompressed and full travel, quite apart from the fact it has fixed dropouts.
So to do it on the cheap, I used an old road derailleur, and an old cog from an XTR cluster.
The cog is on an alloy carrier with a wide base so it will be nice to my alloy hope hub. It also has a 16t cog on it, so i can raise the gearing for road riding to the trails by adjusting the der limit screw.
On the front I've used a 32 front ring on my XT crank, and left the front derailleur on as a chain guide. To keep clearance from the chain stay as it compresses, the derailleur has to sit fairly high. I'll get a MRP top guide for it later on to tidy it up and give more guidance for the chain.
The gearing is 32:18, which with a 26 x 2.2" tyre and 175mm cranks is 47.9 inches, and a ratio of 1.78:1
Overall dropped 900g, so its sitting at 11.5Kg, which is not too bad considering it's a 6.1lb frame (2.8Kg).
It feels good so far, yet to do Heart beak hill at the Dam though!
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Looks interesting.
Theres lots of out of the saddle mashing on SS dont forget to lock it out on the climbs.
32 x 18 is a good place to start heart break hill is easy you need to have a go at the two big climbs heading up the Oaks and then the road climb out thats the real test.
Hi Onegear - yep I hear you re mashing!
I've been commuting single speed (one the road) for a long time now and know what it means to grind up steep pitches.
The Turner has a fine horst link, and I've fitted an RP23 shock ages ago, so can adjust the propedal platform as needed to pretty much cancel the bob when mashing.
I'll be using this one for training, technical skill drills and fun. It bombs the down hills, so should be good for making time when needed too!
I seriously considered converting the Ibis to SS instead, but couldn't face the hassle of pulling all the gear off, only to put it back on again for the racing season. But it's not out of the question in the future if the bug bites