One-Way Tikit

I'd specifically had this Tikit built with Rob's adjustable dropouts because I like to tinker. With a Pocket Rocket to ride at other times, I finally decided that the Tikit was going to do pure commuting duty and that single-speed made sense. Sometimes I'm commuting when I'm feeling tired and the option of freewheeling down some of Brisbane's hills led me to go with single speed rather than fixed wheel.

I've continually been disappointed with the durability of nine-speed equipment and shelling out $40+ for a chain and $50+ for a cassette with a life span of about 3000 km is just irksome. And it's worse than that because it starts to get those grungy stretched chain noises well before then. The single speed uses a SRAM PC-1 chain ($15) and a $12 Shimano BMX cog that will last tens of thousands of km.



It's a straightforward conversion: the BMX cog just goes right on the existing freehub. I used a selection of cassette spacers to adjust chainline. A nice quality 48T chainring and quality 1/8" chain finishes it off.

Sure, the wheel would have better bracing if I used a single-speed or track hub, but these 16" wheels are so tough already that I don't think that's an issue. More important is the fact that the cogs for a standard cassette go down to 12T, letting me use a nice compact 48T up front. As far as I know, there's only one brand of screw-on freewheel that goes down to 15T, it's not cheap and I'd still have to use that big 60T ring up front to go with it.