Singlespeed tensioner

[Steve Curtis]

I'm looking for a lightweight single speed chain tensioner.
Any suggestions ?

Most are around 100g which is too much for what they are.
Thanks

[fivethirtyonepm]

if you get a bit creative, you can make something pretty light.

if you are using a rear qr skewer, turn it round so the lever is on the drive side. if you then point it forwards and down, this can provide sufficient pressure upon whatever form of arm & sprocket you decide to use without the need for a spring system. i reckon a couple of bits of moulded carbon and a kcnc jockey wheel would do the trick quite nicely.

it's a bit difficult to describe, but i discovered the above method quite by accident when my ss tensioner spring died. as a trail-fix, i swapped the qr round to push the tensioner down and it quite happily stayed there through all type of riding. best of all is that it makes it very easy to remove the wheel as there is no spring to work against.

taking it one step further, i reckon you could even fabricate a qr skewer where the handle doubles up as an arm on which the tensioner jockey wheel can be mounted.

[BmanX]

Surly Singleator - I was able to get Fibre-Lyte to make me two carbon guides and of course carbon pulley with ti bolts I was able to get this pretty light.

I think is someone was very creative they could make one that works very well and very light.

[Steve Curtis]

I can't find anything off the shelf so it looks like I'll get creative.
I have plenty of kcnc jockey wheels to use

I use the controltech non qr skewers so you can get some serious clamping force if required.


My previous single speed ran a magic ratio, unfortunately it's not an option on this bike ah well
It's still under 14 lbs

[GripShifter]

I had good luck with the YESS Labs ETR-V tensioner and it runs around 70 bucks or so. Weighs around 110 grams without any tuning and they are great to work with. I think they also make one for full squish as well.

[BmanX]

The YESS Labs ETR-V tensioner is good and I have been in their facility as I live in Surrey Canada. Great guys to deal with and it was nice that they allowed me to visit. I own the YESS Labs ETR-V tensioner as well but you can not tune it as much as the Surly. It does work very well however.

[2002maniac]

The YESS tensioner looks nice, but 100g is crazy heavy. A true WW tensioner should be doable at under 40g I should think.

[BmanX]

I agree. Half the weight would be good.

[Steve Curtis]

I have a few ideas to make a sub 50 gram tensioner. I'll have a try at the weekend and post my results if successfull.

Agreed, off the shef tensioners are rather porky - absolutely nothing available