Convert Road Bike to Single Speed – Quick and Easy
![Convert road bike to single speed.](https://pedalmyway.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Trek-1.2-old-1024x768.webp)
The idea to convert road bike to single speed came after realizing that my Trek 1.2 road bike saw little use in the past couple of years. A solid bike, this. My first road bike which I rode all the time. I took it everywhere. Rode or in the city, by the shore. Did my first “hill climb” with this bike. I learnt a lot with this bike. Stock is a 9 speed Shimano Sora group set.
I have since bought a Cannnondale Carbon Evo 6, with the SRAM group set. Light as a feather; flies up hills. This is in a stable of other bikes in my house.
So the 1.2 saw little to no use as a result. So 3-4 years ago I had converted the 1.2 to a gravel bike. All I did was put on 28mm tires and was good to hit the gravel paths near my house. A blast this was on gravel and dirt.
Table of Contents
Mountain Bike to Monster-Cross Conversion
I kept playing around and started tinkering with my Trek 4300 mountain bike, which didn’t see much use since I use my StumpJumper for mountain bike rides. So I put some drop bars, a granny ring in the back, and converted that into a monster-cross bike which is capable of both off-road trails and gravel rides. A very capable 26″.
![mountain bike with drop bars - monster-cross bike](https://pedalmyway.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/4300-on-trail-1-1024x768.webp)
Single Speed Conversion – Trek 1.2
So now back to the 1.2 – Single geared, or single speed, bikes have been my only choice when I was a kid since geared bikes were more expensive to buy. I was introduced to geared bikes only in my adult years. So, it has a nostalgic feel to it. And the popularity of single-speed and fixed-gear bikes had always appealed to me. Simple in their setup, design, and maintenance, I now had the opportunity to go back to my younger days because I have an extra bike to play with. I started the conversion for the 1.2 to single speed.
The 1.2 came with a 9 speed Shimano Sora group set. When I swapped parts with my 4300 mtb, I changed only the drop bars for the 4300’s flat, and the mtb gear levers. And to my surprise, the pull ratio of Shimano was the same for their 9 speed mtb and road bike group-sets. Which means I will have no issue braking or shifting gears in both bikes.
Front Chainrings
Now that issue is no more, since will be a single speed. I had to reduce the 3 front chainrings to 1 (52 teeth). I got a crank puller and bottom bracket remover from Amazon and got to work. It was a simple enough job, when I realized I needed a lot more leverage to remove the crank arms to remove the middle and small chain rings. I got matching blue single chainring bolts for the big ring.
![Single speed conversion in progress.](https://pedalmyway.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IMG_5903-1024x768.webp)
![single speed - single front chain ring](https://pedalmyway.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IMG_5907-1024x768.webp)
Rear Derailleur
In the rear, the derailleur was removed, and the chain reduced to 90 links. Surprisingly the chain is taut, with slick within acceptable range. I retained the 9-speed cassette since i wanted to see how the whole process progressed work minimal spend.
![single speed - smallest cog in rear](https://pedalmyway.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IMG_5906-1024x768.webp)
Conclusion
This was a fun project; more for me to learn by tinkering, and to put new life into a little-used bike. The end result was as expected, and I learnt a lot in the process. I’ll ride this bike for some time until I change my mind about the rear single speed spacer kit, or till I find another use for it.
The transformed bike.
![single speed Trek 1.2](https://pedalmyway.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/single-speed-Trek-1.2.webp)
Hope you found this post useful. Check out my other cycling posts as well. Thank you!
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