How I run my 1x9er.

I've tried being trendy and running a single-speed but, d'you know what? It sucked! I think mankind scratched it's collective head and invented gears for a very good reason. I then decided that 1x9 was a cool idea but the chain kept falling off...

Next step was to source and fit a bash guard to go where the big ring once sat on my XT cranks (to avoid the chain rubbing on it, you need to source some 1mm thick washers to go between the bash guard and the tabs on the crank arm when you install it). This worked but of course the chain occasionally dumped itself around the bottom bracket shell...

 Much head scratching later, I found a guy on Retrobikes selling a second-hand Superstar chain retainer. One quick paypal transaction later and it was on!

Perfect - keeps the chain exactly where it belongs no matter how fast or rough the terrain and it just happens to look quite cool too. Job's a good'un!


*As a slight aside, the customer service at Superstar Components sucks. Being second hand, one of the tiny grub screws in the device was fairly mangled making future adjustment dicey. I emailed them expecting they'd probably post me one as a gesture of good customer service but instead I got an email that more or less just said "Duh, buy one from a hardware store!" I'm not sure if he was American or not but I don't fancy my chances at B&Q with that request...