Summer/Fall 2001. Well, it started as an idea between me and my good riding buddy, Allen Kelley. We wanted to transform our mountain bikes into pseudo single-speed mountain bikes, but not constantly drop a chain with the absence of a derailleur! Why? Well, my bike was falling apart piece by piece, including the derailleurs. And riding single-speed would get us in better shape! So what better way to be nerds and jocks at the same time?

After extensive searching, we found only one chainguide available for a 32T chainring. Most comercially-available chainguides are designed for the larger chainrings found on downhill bikes. So we decided this would be an excellent excuse to test our CAD and fabrication skills and have some fun with a summer project. Well, I was the first to sacrifice a bike for this chainguide. I promptly removed my other two chainrings (22T and 42T), and we began the process by taking tedious dimensions of my bike and modeling potential chainguides in both AudoCAD (Allen) and SolidWorks (me). Below are examples of a few revisions of the design. The first design was a set of inner and outer rings that bolted to the crank. This designed proved highly unsuccessful (to my demise) in testing on the trails. After several frustrating rides, I decided I needed a new design. We then changed the concept to the one shown here. The first picture is one of Allen's AutoCAD renderings; the second is one of my SolidWorks renderings...

   

Before we knew it, we had a much better chainguide! A few test rides later, I knew this was the one. This beta version is now the permanent chainguide for my bike. A few adjustments and nearly a year later, and I'm still running with this chainguide! Since then, I have seen that the availability of 32-tooth chainguids has increased. If I ever destroy this chainguide, I'll either build a newer chainguide or consider buying one of the guides now available. Though the design is not yet bullet-proof, this chainguide is still well-suited for crazy, downhill-loving riders with 32T single chainrings! After all we have gone through, Allen now seems convinced that he needs all three chainrings on his bike. So he hasn't of yet built one of the new style chainguides for his bike.