A tale of 2 Singulars

So serendipity placed a Swift and an Osprey in my size within 30 minutes, unfortunately these were 4 hours drive from Penzance where I was dropping off wife and child for a boat to the Isles of Scilly, but as I had a day free why not go for a nice drive up the M5.

So the Swift is an unusual Mk1 without the eccentric bottom bracket. Almost a complete bike and a great price, to honor other interests and off-set costs and diesel, seat & seatpost, wheels and bars to be sold.

Stooge moto bars already purchased .

Hoping to turn this into a XC/ hybrid do it all just a bike type ride. Maybe longer miles bike packing ?

I'll rifle through the garage to find suitable parts for a 1x 9 set up and skinnyish 29× 2 wheels/ tyres.

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Following. I love my singulars. Just missed out on a bargain swift on ebay. Is that a disc osprey?

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No @bobble believe it or not those are both pictures of the Swift.

Osprey is rim caliper and very similar to yours!

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So the osprey can go a couple of ways, shimergo veloce shifters to tiagra 8 speed, classic silver mechs and square taper cranks
Or
1x11 Sram apex modernish groupset

With these dropouts, I say go all 2007 and do a fixie conversion ;-)

Cornwall's not too hilly, right..?

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Devon now mate! Just need an on one fixed hub and I'm away!

In shock news I've just measured the bb shell on the swift- 68mm NOT 73mm the normal MTB 'standard'.

Nice as I have a few road chainsets I can use, but may be limited to a 34 front ring, maybe a 11-36 cassette would do for now?

What is stopping you from spacing out the crankset?
I think most shimano HTII BB come with the necessary spacers included.

Also, potentially interested in the bars on the swift pending a little more info

Are they Crust Jungle Runners? Also potentially interested if MisterMikkel doesn't go for them.

Thanks both, bars are Ti Jones bars but sold and delivered to Mat-cr as I was 'passing' Bournemouth yesterday.

Yes I've put some road cranks on leaving too tight clearances for my liking. I've a few square tapers that I can play with just to get this in use.

Long term plan for the Swift involves repainting to the original blue

I expect you already know by now, but the original blue was meant to be this

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Actually, the orange was original. It came with a silver headbadge too. Long gone.

Actually, the orange was original

Ah, of course, it's the non-EBB version

Kind of glad to hear they weren’t the Crust bars - would have been kicking by myself that I missed them - even if they are too wide to fit through my front door.

But somehow the blue screams swift to me

Huge Singular fan here too, I've still got 2 Ospreys, and a Mk3 Peregrine, and also in Devon :-)

Depending on what your plans are for actually riding the Osprey...I would go the more classic route, although they are speedy and comfy they're not going to be a 'fast' bike so better built for comfort and reliability than modern performance parts.

Gratuitous Singular pic sharing:

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Lovely bike there! I've thrown what I've got from the spares bin to get a feel of fit and ride etc.

Helluva reach on this so I've knicked the stem off my daughters bike to try and make it rideable!

Chain and gears to go this weekend then out for a test ride. Still fels pretty darn light compared to the Stooge Scrambler but this Swift is going to have a much more cruisey life so that's OK.

Might change to an inline seatpost at some point, not sure I will be able to fit a dropper!

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The geo looks a bit odd, is the fork longer than the original one?

Funny you say that, I sent some pictures to Sam at singular who thought the forks were from a mk3 but they would be shorter than the original ones. He gave me a figure of 483 a-c so I'll give them a measure and see. It may just be the slack seat tube angle throwing things out of wack

Fork is original.

Hmmmm 🤔

Promise. I bought it new. I painted it.