So I found this oooooooold frame...

That fork

Earthpig said:

...and I made a singlespeed cruiser out of it. Why not? Ladies and gents, I present to you a 1983 Kuwahara Puma singlespeed!

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Looks bent. Either that or the picture angle is making it look odd.

the rear drops look a bit horizontal. you may be able to get by without the tensioner.

i see what you mean about the forks but i think many of those older bikes were pretty slack in the headtube angles.

wierd camera angle

Earthpig said:

...and I made a singlespeed cruiser out of it. Why not? Ladies and gents, I present to you a 1983 Kuwahara Puma singlespeed!

Click to expand...

the headtubes on almost all older bikes of that era and category are pretty slack. anyway, its a [email protected] bike man! Its the quintessential rebuilt SS worshipping traditionalist's bike...

why the tensioner?

pretty much the whole point of using an old frame like that is that back then they all had horizontal dropouts. so lose the tensioner.

fork and tensioner

OK, so I found the frame/fork under a pile of leaves and garbage behind a friend's house. The fork may be ever so slightly bent, but it is a 1983 frame, so I expect most frames/forks had that slack angle. As for the tensioner, why the heck not? I'm using a quick release rear hub, so the tensioner just worked. Plus, I had the tensioner laying around from my very first SS bike, so again, why not?

Because

Earthpig said:

OK, so I found the frame/fork under a pile of leaves and garbage behind a friend's house. The fork may be ever so slightly bent, but it is a 1983 frame, so I expect most frames/forks had that slack angle. As for the tensioner, why the heck not? I'm using a quick release rear hub, so the tensioner just worked. Plus, I had the tensioner laying around from my very first SS bike, so again, why not?

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You don't need it.
Singlespeed=minimalism.
Besides, it looks cooler without it.
This being said, if you already had it, and want to use it, go for it.

Nice bike, BTW. Not bad for finding it under a pile of leaves.

because you donit need it?

Tensioners were invented as a way to make singlespeeds out of bikes that don't have horizontal dropouts. The ideal for a SS bike will always be a straight chain run top and bottom with no tensioning device, because:
it looks cooler, no mistaking it for a derailleur at a distance
it offers the least resistance (no pulley)
it offers the least chance to derail (no slack chain tightened by a spring)
did I mention it looks cooler?
Run what you want, but I think most folks here would agree, if you can run a SS without any tensioner, that is aways desirable to having one.

Put BMX bar on them!

For the ultimate in cruising pleasure and jumping try them with BMX bars. It's much more fun than beachcruiser bars.

relax...you'll live longer

bulC said:

Tensioners were invented as a way to make singlespeeds out of bikes that don't have horizontal dropouts. The ideal for a SS bike will always be a straight chain run top and bottom with no tensioning device, because:
it looks cooler, no mistaking it for a derailleur at a distance
it offers the least resistance (no pulley)
it offers the least chance to derail (no slack chain tightened by a spring)
did I mention it looks cooler?
Run what you want, but I think most folks here would agree, if you can run a SS without any tensioner, that is aways desirable to having one.

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Who made you the captain of the friggin' tensioner police? It's a CRUISER for god's sake. I'm not going to be out hucking on the [email protected] thing. I don't even have the bike at my house - it stays at my in-laws' house 100 miles away and I ride it MAYBE once a month in the summer. Perhaps it would look "cooler" without the tensioner, but (1) I frankly have never really cared about how "cool" my bikes look, and (2) I have way too much of a life to waste my time calculating appropriate gear ratios and chain lengths to figure out how to get a bike I ride maybe once a month in the summer to meet the "coolness" approval of the friggin' MTBR SS board tensioner cops. I'm so sorry it doesn't get your coolness approval, but "I think most folks here would agree" it's not a bad reconstitution of a free, classic, old school mountain bike I found under a pile of garbage!!!!