Ghost Project

This project was more for me than it was for Kieran.  He had outgrown his 20 inch bike and was ready for the next size up.  I was hoping that he would grow enough to move to a XS 26 inch bike.  So I wouldn't have buy the 24 inch since the 26 was basically an adult version.  But I was dreaming.

There was nothing wrong with the stock bike.  It's actually fairly decent.  Has great reviews. A little heavy for it's size but good quality build.  The MEC Ace was also a 24 inch and $50 bucks less, but the only problem was the rear hub was a 7spd.  And they aren't upgradeable to 10spd.  Only the 8-9-10spd cassettes fit on the same hub.  It also had mechanical disc brakes which worked great, but it was either get a new crank or get a new rear wheel.  The crank was way easier and cheaper.
And to be honest, Kieran doesn't really care.  He's happy with any bike I brought home.  If it had some blue in it he loved it even more.  In that way I'm pretty lucky.

I was really hoping to pick up a used one, but couldn't find a decent 24 bike.  Well I did, but it was in Calgary. Doh!


But then I found this YouTube video of this fellow that modified his son's Ghost bike from a 3x8 into a 1x10 drivetrain.  And it inspired me to do the same thing!  I had already done the same conversion on my 3x9 Norco Faze bike and have a 1x10 with a 40t extender cog.  And I could not believe how much weight I shed off that bike by going 1x.

The other big reason (other than the coolio factor) is that it simplifies riding, you lose the front derailleur and shifter, so you only have to think about shifting between the 10 sprockets at the back.  I took Kieran riding with me off road and sure enough the chain came off the front rings.  Not because the components are crappy.  They aren't high end, but dropping the chain off a triple is a common occurrence.  It's just the nature of where the chain is going from a bigger ring to a smaller one, I've done it a few times on my road bike with the double ring crank.

With off roading, this can happen a lot due to the rough terrain and the jostling of the chain.  Going to a single chainring doesn't automatically fix this.  You need to 2 specific components - a Narrow Wide chainring and a rear derailleur with a clutch.  These two components help to reduce the likelihood of the chain from falling off when the bike is bouncing over the trail.

The video was a great run down on how to do the conversion.  I wasn't sure if it was possible since many kids bikes have parts that may not be upgradeable.  Since they are on the cheap side.  But this bike was able to use much of the same parts I have on my adult sized bike.

I wished i had paid closer attention to the video, because i didn't realize that the stock crank was 1 piece.  I had to order a JR sized crank where the chainrings can be removed so that I can put on the 30t Narrow Wide chainring.  Luckily a phone call to Suntour saved me a lot of online frustration and $$.  I could get my technical questions answered and it was cheaper buying direct from them than from some eBay store that didn't even have the part physically there.  And I thought a local bike store would be better. But it was even worse.  No one stocks a 152mm crank.  And if you wanted it special order they were robbing you (neighbourhood of $150!).  So I was forced to go online.

The one thing the video didn't show was the effect of the chain line.  With the stock bottom bracket the crank is way out from the bike and the chain angle when on the largest cog is severe.  May not look it, but it is.  What that means in non-Bike-Tech-person speak is that, it works, but the gears will wear out faster.
So luckily for me, my neighbour noticed and said to get a shorter one, and even luckier, I was able to swap out the stock one with the one from my hybrid and install it on the Ghost.  And it works great. It's also quieter.  Which means in non-Bike-Tech_person speak - parts will last longer.


I've packed all the stock parts I removed in this conversion so that I can put them back on when I re-sell this bike once Kieran's out grown it.  I planned to use the parts on his next bike.  Since 1x10 will be here for some time.  (I saw they came out with a 1x12!)  So I went with the higher quality parts.

I even put on some better pedals that I had kicking around.  So it rides great!  The front chain ring may look tiny, but the stock crank came with 42-32-22 rings.  So take off the big and the small and you are left with a  32 which is what you use most of the time anyways.  So it's like just having the middle only.

The stock 8spd cassette was a 12-32t (8 gears going from 12t on the smallest to 32 on the largest).
Now this one is a 10spd 11-36t.  So with his 30t ring, he loses some top end and a bit on the low end (and even with that I can put a 40t extender cog and to make the hills easier).

At the end of the day, this wasn't exactly a cheap thing to do on a perfectly good bike, but i can reuse the parts on the next one, and the bike is lighter and pretty kick ass (just like his papa's), it'll make riding up Sir Sam's a bit better, but now I won't be getting my fingers oily putting his chain back on.

26 inch mtb are pretty much old tech now with 29'r and 27.5 bikes the current stuff.  I was gonna pass this bike to Kieran and get a 29'r or something, but what for.  This bike is great!  My fave out of the lot.