On the road conversion to a SS

[Slowbee]

So I offered a guy a lift home who had broken his derailleur. He said no worries he lives just down the road. 

 

But this got me thinking.

 

How easy/hard/tricky is it to make a ss as a way to get home when you are in a tight bind?

 

I am referring to both a road and mountain bike.

 

 

 

 

 

[Hairy]

Depends on the damage....but even if the Der is lost down the road you can still shorten the chain to fit over a cog that can let you crawl home

[thisismyotherbike]

[fanievb]

I always carry a spare hanger and chain breaker.

 

(and phone)

[BuffsVintageBikes]

Very easy if you have a spare master link. Remove the damaged derailleur, fit the chain onto the rear ratio that gives you the straightest chain line to your front chain ring and shorten the chain. It should get you home.

[Kranswurm]

Very easy if you have a spare master link. Remove the damaged derailleur, fit the chain onto the rear ratio that gives you the straightest chain line to your front chain ring and shorten the chain. It should get you home.

Thats the way to do it

Piece of cake

[Beattbox]

I did this once in a race when I broke my rear derailleur.

I removed the broken derailleur and shortened the chain (without a quick link) to make it a 1 speed.

Only problem I had was that in my haste I didn't line up the chain line perfectly so the chain was constantly wanting to "climb" up to the next higher gear on the rear cluster. This resulted in extreme tension in the chain which prevented the crank from turning.

The only way to get the chain back down to the lower cog was to release the quick release mech on the back wheel. It would then shoot forward under pressure and release the chain.

This would happen every couple hundred meters and I would have to repeat the process.

It took me a while longer than planned to get to the finish line but I eventually did. 

If I had to do it again, I'd make sure that the chainline was dead straight.

[Butterbean]

To be frank, with the prices of chains nowadays, I would probably just call someone to fetch me or walk instead...

[dasilvarsa]

I did this once in a race when I broke my rear derailleur.

I removed the broken derailleur and shortened the chain (without a quick link) to make it a 1 speed.

Only problem I had was that in my haste I didn't line up the chain line perfectly so the chain was constantly wanting to "climb" up to the next higher gear on the rear cluster. This resulted in extreme tension in the chain which prevented the crank from turning.

The only way to get the chain back down to the lower cog was to release the quick release mech on the back wheel. It would then shoot forward under pressure and release the chain.

This would happen every couple hundred meters and I would have to repeat the process.

It took me a while longer than planned to get to the finish line but I eventually did. 

If I had to do it again, I'd make sure that the chainline was dead straight.

I did this shortening the chain trick and did not have this problem.

Worked perfectly for 3 days and +- 110 Km.

[Goodbadugly]

I had to do it on 2 occasions.

The first time it was on a full suspension bike. Not so much a piece of cake. Hanger that sheared off.

The second time was on a hard tail. The derailleur was a complete write off. To get a chain line seems easy. Until you start putting more than 50 watt on the system. The cassettes are simply not made for it. I wants to climb onto the bigger cog all the time. I stopped and tried a different length. Bollocks.

Sounds easy. But expect to go into limp mode.

[deanbean]

I had to do it on 2 occasions.

The first time it was on a full suspension bike. Not so much a piece of cake. Hanger that sheared off.

The second time was on a hard tail. The derailleur was a complete write off. To get a chain line seems easy. Until you start putting more than 50 watt on the system. The cassettes are simply not made for it. I wants to climb onto the bigger cog all the time. I stopped and tried a different length. Bollocks.

Sounds easy. But expect to go into limp mode.

Use a bomb on the shock to lock it out if it doesn't have a lock out, on a DS. I've had to do this on a number of occasions. Best if you can use the RD as a tensioner, but if the hanger is broken you are out of luck here. I always carry a spare hanger.

[Slowbee]

So two things pop up.

 

The first is, a roadie would need to have a multitool to be able to sort this out.

 

The second is the app rent "limp" mode to get home.

 

The main issue would be getting a straight line. I would imagine that this would be rather tricky.