Hey,
I thought that having piles of old freewheels might be a problem
common to bike collectives and wanted to see what folks did with them,
or any other non-standard uses for bike parts. We have just
"discovered" that you can pull apart a freewheel with two chain whips,
one on the outer cog and the other on the third (the second is
sometimes also threaded like the outermost) and apply opposite force.
This usually involves two people lots of grunting and yelling, then
the outer most ring will thread off (sometimes the second and third
are also threaded) then the rest just slide off. The lowest three cogs
are between 14-20 tooth which is perfect single speed range. So... we
have built up a couple bikes using a single chainring in front and a
14t and a 18 or 20t threaded back onto the freewheel to make what I
believe are called "dinglespeeds" which is basically a singlespeed
setup with the option of loosening the rear axle, moving the chain
over to the other cog and re-tensioning the chain in the dropouts
(have to be horizontal). This allows us to build up really basic, low
maintenance bikes that have both a "winter gear" and a "summer gear"
(since we are in the brutal north) or I suppose if we actually had
hills or trails, "on-road gear" and an "off-road gear". I know the
concept of a dinglespeed has been kicked around a bit in the SS world,
but usually it's done with respacing a cassette w/ two cogs, which are
a rare commodity in our shop. Have other folks experimented with this
setup? Good results? We have only built up a few, and thus far it has
worked out pretty well on the bikes we are testing it on. Also, what
kinds of other projects have folks done with either re purposing bike
parts in a creative way or modifying them to breath new life into shop
excess?
Thanks,
Andrew
FM Community Bicycle Workshop