Check out all of our Project 1.1 posts here!
What better way to kick off a single speed build than with a single speed cog? That’s right, it’s getting cooler and with shorter days and the snowline creeping downhill, it’s single speed season! For this year, I’m retiring my too-small On-One Scandal 29er in favor of an appropriately-sized Tomac Flint 29. As with our other build projects, look for a series of posts on what (was chosen), why (it was chosen), and how (it works) for each piece of the puzzle. First, the part that makes a single speed a single speed:
Because Chris King were out of their steel Kogs in my preferred 19t size, I set out to find an alternative- and found Homebrewed Components’ 2-Piece Cog. It would be easy enough to justify Homebrewed’s cog on the basis of its broad base (better to protect aluminum freehub bodies), American manufacture, or light weight- but the fact of the matter is that I wanted a purple one to match my bottle cage and headset. Read on for more details and photos…
Homebrewed Components pin their stainless steel cog pinned to an aluminum carrier that is machined to remove some of the load -bearing responsibilities from the pins. The concern with multi-piece designs is always that they will creak -or worse- separate over time. In our limited time together, the Homebrewed cog has done neither. Because each cog is made to order, the only real downside so far has been the three-to-four week period between order and shipment- something that Homebrewed is up front about on their website. With higher end Chinese made cogs running $30 or more, the $50 purchase price seemed reasonable. Homebrewed make their cogs- and chainrings- available in eleven colors, so should have something for everyone. Stay tuned to see how it works over time…
marc
