Confessions of a Singlespeeder

“To the charges of elitism, ego-tripping, and excessive moralizing, how
does the defendant plead?”

“Guilty, your honor.”

I am a member of the first church of the singlespeed (reformed). I am no
Martin Luther, tacked his 95 Theses to the front door of the Roman
Catholic Church, igniting the most important schism in Western
theological history, but I will submit that the state of singlespeeding,
at least in these parts, is in need of help. Or rather, its
practitioners are. Hopefully no major schisms will be necessary here.

When I first started riding singlespeeds, I was but a naif, bereft of a
derailleur, any spare cash, and with the opportunity to keep my old bike
rideable by testing a new…thing that had come through the doors of
Mountain Biker magazine (the sister publication to my mag at the time,
Bicycle Guide). It was a singlespeed hub from Paul Components, and it
simply allowed me to not have to mothball the old Bridgestone until I
saved enough for a new drivetrain. I was unaware that many other people
did this thing, this riding with only one gear, and it seemed a bit
esoteric and pointless to me at the time. It hurt my quads and knees. I
had to walk stuff I’d been able to easily spin up on gears. My friends
dropped me on descents easily. But as I rode I became better at it;
could stand on the hills, power up rises with speed I’d never thought
possible, and clean technical sections I’d fallen on before. It was
confidence, the ultimate aphrodesiac, and I was high.

In the four years since, I can look back and trace the development of
singlespeeding through the comments from other trail users. From
amazement: “Dude, you have only one gear!” to respect: “That’s
incredible you can climb this on a single!” to the snide backlash of
today, “Singlespeeds are a crutch for people who wouldn't be able to
hang in a more traditional mountain bike environment.”

This attitude describes an eerily-familiar arc: that of mountain biking
as a whole. When the sport started it was due to a few creative-minded
individuals who were bored with the then-current offerings in cycling.

Gary Fisher got kicked out of the USCF for having long hair, a no-no in
the 1970s when the establishment in power was desperately trying to keep
its grip in the face of an angry, disenchanted youth culture. Cyclists
tried the crossover, and some liked it but others didn’t see the point.

The new group of converts grew in size and influence, their numbers
keeping pace with a sport that was bounded only by the creativity of its
participants. By the mid 1980s, the sport was becoming established: a
fledgling National race series, growing interest worldwide and the scorn
and hatred of everyone from die-hard roadies to scared Sierra Clubbers
determined to re-interpret the non-motorized provisions of the 1964

Wilderness Act to include human-powered wheeled locomotion. Not
coincidentally, mountain bikes were banned from the city of Boulder’s
Mountain Parks in 1986.

The parallel is not limited to mountain biking either. Witness the birth
and growing pains of snowboarding versus its parent, the ski industry.
Inline skating versus skateboarding. Sport and traditional rock
climbing. Virtually any modern splinter branch of a more established,
older sport goes through this timeline: invention, discovery,
population, derision, and finally, to acceptance. Sometimes, as with
snowboarding, that acceptance is grudgingly and painfully given. Other
times, as with mountain biking, it is recognized for its true importance
– a revolution that arguably rescued cycling in America.

I do not claim singlespeeding is any such revolution. It is more like
telemark, that ancient, revived branch of skiing that gets more stigma
attached to it than nearly any other sport. Telemark has enough
stereotypes for a major television network sitcom – free-heelers are
granola-crunching, tree-hugging, wool-wearing retro-grouches who rail at
“those hooligans” on snowboards. And while that’s not really true today,
it once was. The same holds true for singlespeeding, whose participants
are categorized as arrogant anti-establishment elitists trying to corner
the market on what is soulful and pure about mountain biking.

A sport’s stereotypes are largely a result of the collective of personal
stages we go through. When I first started riding a single, I was proud
of it. As I stated, that confidence became a drug for me, and its effect
was not a high, but an inflated ego. I was proud to beat geared riders,
and told them so. I thought maybe singlespeeding was simpler, maybe a
more pure form of mountain biking. There aren’t any derailleurs, no
granny gears, nothing to do but pedal, nothing but yourself to blame if
you couldn’t ride something. I was a singlespeed egoist, and rabidly
defended my sport against insinuations that maybe it wasn’t that cool.

Well, it’s not. Cooler, that is. Singlespeeding is not a political
statement. It is not more “core” than other forms of cycling. If
“coreness” is directly related to the amount of equipment on the bike,
then the match sprinters and unicyclists have got us all beat. We are
not a more evolved form of cyclist, a member of a somehow deeper gene
pool. If you ride a $2000 Phil Wood KISS Off it is not a statement about
opposing the culture of consumerism as advanced by the “more is better”
mountain bike industry. Even if you ride a 1991 Bridgestone MB-1 it is
not that statement. It is not a statement about revolting against
money-grubbing race promoters and stagnant national federations. It is
not a statement of anything other than the fact I like to ride bikes.

I’ve come full circle on my bike, from the innocent naif who didn’t know
that a 38x16 would break my knees to a more wizened naif who doesn’t
care. Do I repent of my sins? No, for they are not sins. They are the
same pattern of growth that you have gone through somewhere in your
life, catalyzed by a love, a fierce and deep connection with something.

The first time your handlebars brushed the trunks of a pair of trees on
a tautly-threaded singletrack. The first time you laid a perfect
half-moon carve in the snow, felt the g-force push you down on the edge
as it bit deep into the snow, stopping to look up at your line. The
first time you crested a ridge and saw the alpenglow illuminate a high
cliff wall while trail running. The first time you felt yourself harness
the unstoppable power of a wave using nothing but your arms, legs,
balance and a nine-foot length of styrofoam.

It’s a force you tapped into once and it flowed through your veins with
the force of a thousand hearts beating behind it and suffused your
entire being with lightness and freedom and the sweet-hot tightness in
your chest, leaving you with a painless hangover, a fuzzy glow of
contentment, and it dooms you to spend the rest of your life chasing
that feeling again. It’s a feeling I get whenever I do anything I love,
a connection I’ve forged with those things, and the people I do them
with, and anyone who has been there before can look me in the eyes and
see immediately the depth of that passion.

I attach no statement to what I do other than to say, “This is what I
love.” Those acts are simple daily expressions of joy, and against them
the attitudes, the egos, the statements and opinions fall hopelessly
short. And I will know you cannot judge me for my perspective, that you
were once as I am, that you went through what I have as well.