Ah the singlespeed. The current expression of modern cycling purism. Though not as minimalist (and hardcore) as the urban messenger style fixed gear, MTB style singlespeeds evoke the cruiser qualities we associate with 2 speed kickdown coaster brakes and rusty grocery-getter beach bikes and yet can hammer along the local trails with style.

Singlespeeds I have known...

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Steamy Single:

Surly Bikes sells this sweet singlespeed mobile with ridable road geometry. Pretty much heaven. I slowly collected the parts to build this up as a frewheeling singlesepped with brakes. Got some cool old Specialized sealed hubs, Suntour Superbe Pro cranks in the 175mm length for maximum torque, and some nice wide drop bars to let you really put your back into it! The hardest part of building the bike was finding a non-crap and inexpensive 1" quilled stem. I finally found a nice Icon or something (not pictured).

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The Scapin

My first singlespeed sweetheart will always be the Scapin singlespeed. I built this back in Durango for NYC messenger style antics. A triathlete buddy of mine had this smoked-Chrome Scapin for a training bike for probably 5 years and thousands of miles before he finally decided he wanted something newer and lighter. I hacksawed some spacers on those sexy American Classic (or something) hubs and built the rear wheel dishless with too-beefy 2.0mm spokes. A 49/16 gear makes you work for it. Long campy dropouts make this a no-brainer singlespeeder.

Internal cable routing, painted chrome, and Dura-Ace cranks with Italian bottom bracket threads make this bike too classy to be hammered like it has.

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Brian's De-Geared MTB Contraption

Here we see Brian's singlespeed. He chose to add a suspension fork for "all the modern conveniences". Damn shame about those vertical dropouts, but a surly singleator singleates things nicely.