One Nine - Setup

Yesterday on the way home from bagging 35 miles of single track, Gina and I stopped by Cycle Path in Cornelius. Gina needed to see about getting a road bike frame warrantied. While she was discussing this, I wandered around the shop to entertain myself. Depending on your perspective, this can be dangerous.

Gina and I had been talking about setting up or getting a single speed mountain bike for quite some time. My take was to get a single specific frame and after doing some research, I had become a little partial to the Niner Air Nine, but not the new one, the one from roughly around 2010.

On the bottom rack toward the back of the shop I spied exactly this frame. Looking closer, it had the newer two screw bottom bracket tensioner as opposed to the single screw. The front shock was a 110mm. Yes, slightly overkill, but so what. The front rotor was an oversize nine inch. Stopping power is good. On top of that, it was a wonderfully obnoxious blue. They put a pretty good price on it to boot.

I showed it to Gina. She liked the idea, so we walked out of the shop with a new bike. Boats are a hard sell with her, but bikes are pretty easy.

This morning while pouring myself a cup of coffee, the pedals we picked up yesterday for the bike were just staring up at me from the kitchen island. Yes, in case you are wondering, it is perfectly normal to have bike parts in the kitchen. Grabbing the pedals, I headed downstairs to put the pedals on and swap out the rear sprocket.

At Cycle Path they told us was an 18 tooth cog on the rear. When I got downstairs and pulled it off, it was pretty obvious the 19 I picked up yesterday was a LOT larger than the old one I just took off. A closer inspection revealed it was not an 18. Rather it was a 16. I most definitely am relieved I picked up the 19.

I was amazed how easy it was to pull off the old and slide on the new cog. Once on, the 19 is considerably larger than the 16, so the rear wheel would not slide into the dropouts anymore. This is expected. Thankfully, it is not difficult to adjust this at the bottom bracket on this bike. I was impressed how easy it was. Loosen two hex screws, rotate the assembly to get the right tension and tighten it back up...done.

Slapping on the pedals and adjusting the seat did not take long following. In total, it only took about a half hour to get this ride set up. I am impressed. Now, it is time to take this steed out and see if Gina and I can figure out this single speed thing.