Mike: I own the 2-speed Cheviot "Scorcher" on the most recent Blug, so my
knowledge and bias will be from the tensioner side.
One thing I liked about the single-cog-on-freehub-with-tensioner arrangement is
I didn't have to worry about swapping bottom brackets to get the chainline just
right.
I ran a tensioner for quite a while on my old single speed mountain bike,
back in the day before single speedable frames were relatively common. And
I've run one now and again on frames with vertical drops. In my experience,
the only downside to the tensioner is that it's a tiny bit noisier, and
I have a Roadini frame that I am hoping to build up as an uncomplicated
bike such as a 1x8 or a single speed.
The way I see it my single speed options are to use a White Industries ENO
hub or a chain tensioner. I've noted a lot of attention in the BLUG on
single speeds, 2 x 1 speeds and a 1 x
