Singlespeed chain tensioners

dogsballs £10 says murtle will have his new bike on the road b4 the armstrong ;)

you know it.

hippy £20 says I can throw the Armstrong in a skip quicker than murtle can build his bike.

awwwww, don't be like that

I need a bigger fscking flat.. :(

Hi

Looking for a chain tensioner and have seen whats on offer above.

However I also found this

Is it worth the extra cash over the others?

All thoughts greatly appreciated.

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that is only good for a single speed, but it should be prettty good

If you like how it looks, yes. Performance-wise, I'd look for comments on mtbr.com forums.
However a chain tensioner is just a fugly bit of kit to get you rolling ss so.. meh.

Hi

Looking for a chain tensioner and have seen whats on offer above.

However I also found this

Is it worth the extra cash over the others?

All thoughts greatly appreciated.

I have got one of these for sale, brand new - never used and silver like in your picture (Paul also do black).

Make me an offer I can't refuse.

Is it worth the extra cash over the others?

Probably not, they all work equally well, the Paul one may be better made and look nice but they all pretty much do their job - although I will have to say the spring in the Paul is very very strong which is good news for a tensioner.

Thanks

I am only planning on riding single speed for now. May go all out fixed next year, but i'll see how it goes SS first.

This is the frame its going on. Reynolds 753 and free.

tynan PM Sent.

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Thanks

I am only planning on riding single speed for now. May go all out fixed next year, but i'll see how it goes SS first.

This is the frame its going on. Reynolds 753 and free.

tynan PM Sent.

PM received, nice frame by the way, love the graphics, never seen a Peugeot like that before.

I got it of a guy who raced it in the 1990 Commonwealth games for the IOM team. It's getting a respray as we speak. The decals were stencilled on so not really sure what frame it actually is. but it should do for a first ss build.

I've searched, and this blast from the past was the nearest to answering my questions, but not quite. I wanted to run 16t/20t freewheels flip flop on my bike with vertical dropouts and was going to use a chain tensioner with it.

So there's going to be quite a bit of slack left in the chain when I flip the wheel over to the 16t, but I don't know what chain tensioners can deal with a lot of slack. On-One mention that the Doofer can only cope with "one link of chain difference" - thats not much. Do I need a tensioner with 2 jockey wheels or what? Anyone got any experience not covered above, and... a tensioner that fits the bill for sale? Ta.

I suspect that several sprung tensioners will be able to handle that tooth difference.

Set-up the chain so it is just long enough for the 20T cog. I have had better luck with upwards tensioners rather than downwards ones (more wraparound).

Personally I'm running a bodged 105 derailleur with 2 cogs - 18T / 28T.

If you want a pretty option go for Paul.

I tried many tensioners. They all did the job. The best in terms of functionality was a shimano alfine whaich looked like a derailleur but it was also the ugliest. da bomb rl4 (same as on one other doofer) did a very good job as well with no springs at all. it's just been designed for quick release wheels. IMHO paul one is ugly just as shimy alfine and quite sure it doesn't do any better job :-). recently sold my alfine to someone on here and the guy reported good results as well

Oh, also the chain is 1 1/8th, I'm not sure if many can handle that, being that they are designed for turning geared bikes into singlespeed. Ideally I think I just want something that screws into the derailleur hanger and is sprung so I can flip the wheel without any messing about and manual adjusting.

Also, seeing as I'll have quite a bit of slack, wouldn't I need to tension downwards? Otherwise, pushing the chain up, it would get pretty close to rubbing on the stays or even the upper line of chain...

i think for that difference your better off running a pull down tensioner rather than a push up one. a surly sinlgleator can work like this and with 1/8 chains.

Singleator it is then? Anyone got one 2nd hand? £30 seems a bit steep for half a rear mech...

Then use an old rear mech?

May do but I think the chain width might be a problem. I'll have a think and probably just stump up the cash for the Surly.

I've used the Surly on conversions before and was impressed with it's engineering and performance.

You just swap the side plates around the jockey wheel around for a 1/8th chain- easy.

Why do you think there will be so much slack? You should only ever have to take up a maximum of one links worth of slack.

You reckon? With 4 maybe 5 teeth difference? I had visions of riding a reasonable gear about town on, then flipping over to something tiny for polo - though that won't be happening for a while.