Paradise Lost...

It goes to show, not everything that sparkles is gold. The great old singlespeed project that was supposed to eliminated all of the annoyances of gear bikes, from chainslap to skipping gears, from extra weight and added complication, is not all it was cracked up to be. After setting off toward class this week, I decided to detour and take a main thoroughfare up toward mid-Santa Cruz. I knew that at the end of a small street was access to Arana Gulch, and a few hundred yards of singletrack dropping me into the harbor and delivering me front door to class. In my mind it was perfect. Firstly, any time you ride singletrack right up to your class, place of work, etc., it's a good day! Secondly, I had it in mind that the quiet simplicity of listening only to the sound of my tires thumping the ground as I enjoyed this brief ride would simply make my insides shine. Finally I would be on a bike, no matter how old or used that would allow me to ride silently down a trail, without the usual "clack clack clack clack..." Not so, I'm afraid for as soon as the wheels hit the dirt I discovered that the very chain tensioner necessary to convert my vertically dropout equipped frame in fact jumps up and down just like a manic derailleur and in doing so slacks the chain just enough to allow it to work its devil music on my frame. My annoyance by this was quickly overridden by the maddening skipping that came from me trying to crank up a steep hill for alas that same tensioner pulls the chain off the sprocket just enough to let it skip as if it were stripped... Evidently more work need be done to establish peace and quiet in Jesse's world...