Miles of verbage have been written by overly verbose, techno-dweebs extolling the over- intellectualized, over-engineered virtues of why singlespeed bikes are more efficient based on reduced revolving mass, gear ratios and chain tension………..My point exactly. The typical American thought process is to take something utterly simple and spend as much time as possible de-simplifying it. My point exactly.

Like a lot of people, my very first bike was a singlespeed bike. A Columbia 26” Cruiser. Red and white. The Easter Bunny brought it to me for my 6th Easter. I had out-grown my tricycle and the Easter Bunny thought it was time for me to evolve. Easter Bunnies are so cool. Dad forgot to put on the training wheels……or maybe he didn’t; either way they would have only been a hindrance. I didn’t need no stinkin’ training wheels…….so with an afternoon of skinned knees and scuffed up bike behind me, I was off and riding. One gear, one thought. Push on the pedal and make the bike go. Try to avoid pain and bushes be damned. How simple could it be. If it got too hard to push on the pedals, I got off and pushed the whole bike.

Adolescence and adulthood tend to complicate life, so it was years before the circle came back around…….31 years to be exact. In 1993 after I moved to Crested Butte, singlespeed mountain biking was starting to appear. Mountain Biking as a sport was maturing and riders were looking for more challenges. Or maybe the circle was coming back around. Some of the very first mountain bikes were old singlespeed cruiser/clunkers taken out of mothballs and ridden on dirt roads and trails. But this time around the industry was getting behind it and singlespeed specific mountain bikes were showing up. Wes Williams built my first singlespeed mountain bike. A custom titanium Willits “Townie” with horizontal dropouts and a bitchin’ retro look. It was a modern, high-tech version of my very first bike.

Wow…… Again. Wow. Life on a bike was simple again. Push on the pedals and make the bike go. When it gets too hard to push on the pedals, get off and push the whole bike.

That’s why I Singlespeed.