Todmorden based On-One have become the UK kings of singlespeed bikes, with hardtail, jump, BMX and even cyclocross frames for the singular of sprocket. Now they’ve turned it all its head with a geared bike.
The geared Inbred uses the same lightweight steel DN6 tubeset, complete with ‘De Kerf style’ pierced wishbone searstay arrangement, as the singlespeed. However, it now has vertical dropouts with a gear hanger, rather than horizontal ones.
Also in the same sample box are disc specific versions of the geared bike and the singlespeed. The geared bike just uses ISO disc mounts and full hose routing with no V brake bosses, but the singlespeed gets round the chain tension problem in a very cunning manner. By using an eccentric bottom bracket unit – normally used to take up slack in the crossover chains of tandems – the rear axle can be left in the same place for optimum disc brake positioning, while chain slack can be taken up by rotating the eccentric.
If you fancy a look for yourself, the prototype pictures are on the On-One website, which also has details of the newly arrived “Pompino” cross bike that we’ll hopefully be testing next week.