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We Ride: Niner One-9 2-9’er SingleSpeed

Posted: Apr 14 2010 in Reviews

Whether it is Jeff's daily mountain bike rides from his front door, Craig's regular commuting, hard off-road pulls, and epic mountain bike trips, or my general hacking-around, we ride. We ride a lot.

This year the majority of my miles have been on a 29" wheeled bike (My own Kona Hei Hei 2-9, or a demo Rocky Mountain Altitude 2-9) and in the last few weeks all of them have been on a Niner One-9 SingleSpeed.

Singlespeeds are not for everyone; they require a healthy mix of brute force and ignorance and that is especially true here on the shore where "flat" and "rolling" are adjectives rarely used to describe our trails.

The build is light-ish with an eye to durability and rideability featuring XTR cranks, Thomson post, Syntance stem and the fantastic new RaceFace SixC carbon bar. The tires are Schwalbe's 2.25 Racing Ralphs and the hubs are a mix of Stan's and King. The fork is a new 2010 F29 FIT with 15mm axle to stiffen things up.

As a nod to our local riding the gearing is a, relatively low, 33:20 and the bike sports a set of Stan's Flow rims vs. some of the lighter offerings on the market.

The number one complaint I hear about 29'ers is a difficulty changing direction while charging on steep technical terrain; a problem easily resolved by running Shimano's Saint 4-piston brake up front.

This is, by far, the most technically able hardtail I have ridden (and I have owned plenty of them) easily rolling down anything I would hit on my all mountain bike and then some. It will climb anything that my legs, lungs and arms can crank it up. It slays the Bridle Path (except that one climb I cannot make going West), rocks Squamish and it is a more then passable bike on technical descents from Fromme to Burke.

The Easton Scandium frame is stiff enough to efficiently lay down power but has a snap and flow reminiscient of Titanium and the bike is definitely comfortable for long days in (or more often out) of the saddle.

Niner's patented EBB system makes changing gear ratios a snap and makes removing the rear wheel the simple matter of opening a quick release.

Photo courtesy of MightyTed

Anyone else ripping on a singlespeed? Curious about Niner? Let me know.

Drew@NV

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