Between the snow, ice, and salt, winter can be pretty tough on a bike. Rather than ride your best rig this time of year, many of us hobble together something a little more rugged, simple, and less expensive.
This year I built up an old Slingshot frame I had laying around.
I originally bought this bike as a demo bike. It never really worked well for me as a mountain bike, so I rebuilt it as an urban cross bike. That didn’t work, so I had Scott Quiring build a custom fork and replace the rear dropouts with horizontal ones. We believe this was the second Slingshot with horizontal drops but the first to be built up.
I was a great singlespeed. I raced it at the Iceman and won the MMBA CPS singlespeed series on it (back before the super fast guys started racing singlespeed.)
As a winter bike, it’s still a singlespeed with the following features:
- 44mm extra wide SnowCats rims made in Fairbanks, Alaska
- the front rim is custom drilled with half-inch holes (Thanks, Eric)
- the rear rim is the SnowCat SL with one-inch drilled out holes
- the front tire is a Nokian Extreme with steel carbide studs
- the handlebar covers were made by Schroeder Sports
- Cane Creek Direct Curve brakes which work well with wide rims
- Softride suspension stem – the best suspension for winter riding
Many MTB front fenders attach to the downtube, which is really not an option on Slingshots. I’m using a fender that uses a star nut in the bottom of the steerer tube.