Single Speed By Necessity
Apparently, other people have heard about this race called Starcrossed Cyclocross. A couple years ago I raced my MTB with dropbars, suspension fork and all. This year I had a fully functional CX bike, but all the spots in mens cat4 were booked up by the time I got my act together to register. So I had to register for the single speed category. I converted my bike to single speed with the least amount of effort. I borrowed a bar and levers, swiped a stem off my track bike, and fished out my prized pre-indexed era DA rear derailleur. I stripped the shifter’ed bar and front derailleur off, and set it up again. Any rear derailleur can be rigged into a single speed chain tensioner by using a short stub of shifter or even brake cable with the end still on…I can even use the barrel adjuster to dial it up or down one cog.
After toiling to make Byron’s SSCX Raliegh frameset into an ubercool rig, my bike looks rather slapdash, but I’m rather pleased. However, a guy at the line had outdone me. He had SRAM Force and basically just removed the shift cables. One the officials seemed to have some difficulty comprehending how that could be a single speed but was eventually convinced. 
