Slick New Singlespeed Chain Tensioners from Vertigo Cycles
Sean over at Vertigo Cycles is getting into the pre-NAHBS excitement and sent over a sneak peek of the new single speed chain tensioner he made in order to build up a new belt-driven SS cyclocross bike he’s going to show off in Austin. Here’s the story:
I was prepping a CenterTrack driven single speed CX bike for NAHBS and couldn’t find any good looking chain tensioners that would fit the Paragon hooded horizontal dropouts so I whipped these up. They’re slick enough that I’m going to make a run of them and will have them for sale shortly after NAHBS.
On-the-bike pics and more design explanation after the break…
Non-drive side above, drive side below.
Sean says the end caps are bigger than they need to be, about 7/8″ versus standard about 5/8″, in order to make sure there was enough thread depth on the skewer ends for the tension screws. “The belt drive requires significant tension, I didn’t have any 7075 rod and I didn’t want to risk pulling the threads out of 6061 after spending a few hours making them.”
Want some? Contact Vertigo Cycles from their website.
Comments
Are those dropouts split tot get the belt in?
Got cut off……or did he use a tube splitter?
Either way, very nice looking tensioner.
It’s funny sometimes how something so basic can be so beautiful.
Beautiful, elegant, pertinent, and functional. Bravo!
Michael, there’s a split in the seat stay. Essentially it’s two nested cones with a bolt passing through. the cones take the shear load while the bolt is under tension. If you look closely, you can see the bolt in the bottom photo.