More (and better) pics of customer
SimpleOnes on Flickr here.
The SimpleOne, our one-speeder, is here and ready to be turned into a whole bike. It came out beautifully, with nice details to the bone. It is easily as nice a one-speed as we've ever made.
Price: $1,050 for frame-fork-headeset-bottom bracket. A whole bike runs $1900, typically with good parts. Without racks, fenders. If you have a saddle and pedals, you can save $150 or so. Can you assemble it yourself after we install the headset and BB? Save anothr $95 there. Then you'll get a 5 percent credit rebate next year, so...another $90 or so.
SIZES: 56-58-60-62cm. A narrow range, fits most riders between 5-ft 8 to 6ft-2.
The last time we got in this kind of a frame, we sat on the smalls and talls forever, while we ran out of the middle sizes.
That's not to say we'll never have a one-speed frame for smalls and talls, but its not happening right now.
Getting the right size:
We will ask you your height and PBH. Go by this:
PBH SimleOne Size
81-83.5 56
84-86 58
86.5-88.86 60
88.87 to 90 62
If you ride Albatross bars, you CAN go smaller on the frame, because Albatross bars rise up 6.5cm, making small bikes fit bigger. But there's no need to do this. You can get the size up there in the chart, and just not raise the stem as much.
COLOR: Mark picked it, so we call it Mark's Green. A dark, Valvoline green. Moody, sullen, fermented peat bog green. It looks great with the cream accents.
Rear Spacing: 120mm. A good width for a single-speed.
Tubing: Butted CrMo steel. The butts are 0.9, the bellies, 0.6, the seat stays are 0.9, so are the chainstays, and the fork is 1.1 x 0.8. If those numbers mean nothing to you, rest assured that they mean something to me/Grant, and they are good.
Top tube upslope: 2-degrees.
Other geologicametrical features: Like all of our bikes, the SimpleOne has a relatively shallow seat tube angle (72-deg in most sizes), and moderate head tube (also 72-deg). The BB drop is 73 when the wheel is centered in the rear dropout. This is a hair higher than our normal frames, but accounts for the possibility of a fixed gear and the higher clearance requires. And yet, it is still low-to-medium by industry standards.
The bb is a 107 Tange, and it works with any SimpleOne-recommended crank, of which there are two now, but there will be another.
Brakes. Uses cantilevers or V-brakes.
Complete bike price: $1800 to $1989.
It depends on the parts, and options abound, but the smart thing to do is build it up cheap and good and use it as a worker bike. We have basically two packages (but can mix/match/upspec/downspec all the livelong day, if you like.
The cheapo package is a mix of the normal super good stuff (Nitto bars and stems) with the cheapest good other parts we could find, the idea being to get you a fine new bike as cheap as possible, but still meeting our snooty standards.
It has a killer cheap crank with a steel 45t ring and an aluminum guard. The brand is FSA, the model is Metropolis, and the Q-Factor of the crank, when mounted on the included BB, is a noteworthy 145mm . That's as low as a Dura-Ace double, and wins the prize for the lowest Q-Factor-to-Price ratio of any crank made in the last 50 years.
Budget wheels are bolt-on high-flange classy looking hubs in polished silver, and with sealed bearings. These are less likely to be stolen quickly by an opportunist thief than are quick-release wheels, and they cost less. A good choice.
Headset: Tange sealed, aluminum.
Seat post: Taiwanese, kind of a Nitto knock-off, and 27.2mm.
Spencer found some Schwalbe brown-tread tires that look neat. They're listed as 700x35, but measure a bit over 33mm. The model is the Delta Cruiser, and they have reflective sidewalls.
There's a kickstand plate, and plenty of room for fenders, with tires up to 38mm.
It's rackable, with eyelets a-plenty.
The dropouts are slanted, which means you can run a 2-speedchainring setup with rings within 8 teeth. Then when you shift rings up front and retension the chain by pulling the wheel back or pulling it forwrd, the brake pads stay aligned with the rim. This is an unusual and smart feature on the SimpleOne, and rarely or never found on new single-speed bikes in the real world. There are no drawbacks.
Delivery: It takes about a week to 3 weeks to build one up and send it to you. If you order just a frame, its a day.
Some notes on riding a single-speed, for the benefit of those who haven't done it.
It's not just harder, it's different. You give up a lot by not being able to shift, but you get some things in return for that sacrifice:
Having no options means having no pressure to shift, or be in the right gear. You see the hill ahead, and you know the gears are in your legs, so you just go. You grunt more, yes, but it is mentally relaxing to not even have a shift option.
On flat terrain, you go easier. Why spin like the blades of a Waring blender? The gear and terrain dictate the speed, which is always proper as long as it feels good.
On steep hills, you have to get off. This is good for you. Rather than grunt like an overgeared fool, you get off and hoof it. It's almost, but not exactly, like being a duathlete!
Bike variety is a good thing, especially if you ride the same routes all year long. A different bike makes the ride different. Each bike makes it easier to appreciate other bikes even more. When you ride a one-speed, not shifting teaches you that you don't have to shift as much as you've been shifting on your 27-speed. When you really sweat it out on the one-speed, you really appreciate the gears on the 27-speed.
A one-speed is a good way to put together a really durable, high-quality, fun bike for not all that much money, and the SimpleOne is simply the grooviest, best-thought out, versatile, comfortable, One-Speed we're capable of making. You'll get tons of use out of it, for years.
Nice Bike! 
