Highball Converted to SS

On Friday last week I received the final parts to convert the Highball to single speed.  The dropouts arrived from Santa Cruz and the chain and 19 tooth Surly cog were waiting for me at Peninsula Bike Works.  I had planned on just picking up a Shimano SLX or Deore chain, but Sean hooked me up with a SRAM PC 1091.  Who am I to argue with such kindness?

SS parts and a new dinger.

 After attending an event with my wife for her work, I stayed up way too late (for a father of two children who don't understand the concept of sleeping in on weekends) to complete the conversion.  The most time consuming task was to file and sand the inside of the Gusset cassette spacers to fit on the DT Swiss 350 cassette body.  I couldn't find the Gusset lock ring, so I just used the one from the XT cassette.  Since it is for an 11 tooth cog, the diameter is a bit small so I'll be on the lookout for an orange 12+ tooth one now.

Saturday afternoon I was able to head out to the other side of Fort Ord to test it out.  It was nice riding over there since I hadn't been on that side in over a year.  Flogging a single speed on that side is a little easier since it has more of a rolling terrain with fewer extended steep sections.