An Allday with gears – why would you want one?!

Why would you want to add gears to an Allday – our steel single-speed frame? It’s a good question, and one I hadn’t really asked myself until I started thinking about an Allday with gears.

I’ve always had an Allday in my bike lineup – the tight geometry and skinny steel tubes make for a really light and nimble ride. Perfect for all the local country lanes, coastal paths and gravel forest tracks down here in Kent. However, on longer rides with more elevation, I’d always reach for either a Kepler or Mehteh. However sometimes those bikes (always built up with chunky 650 x 2+” tyres) can feel like a bit too much bike for what I really need. This led my brother and I onto a conversation about how an Allday with gears would actually be a perfect bike – a really simple and light rim brake frame designed to take 700c wheels – fast on the road and comfortable on some light gravel.

When you’re into bikes and spend a lot (all) of your free time thinking about bikes it’s quite easy to convince yourself you need something new. A bike which fills the very small gap between two bikes you already own. The kind of idea that when run by someone who isn’t into bikes they think you’re mad

“you already have XXX number of bikes why would you possibly need another one?”

This did cross our mind and, although we’re in the business of selling bikes, we also don’t want to force things on people which they don’t really need. Which led us onto the idea of adapting the current Allday to be able to run gears – we could simply weld a gear hanger onto the rear dropout however this would ruin the clean aesthetic for those still using it as a single speed bike. And so this is where the idea of the Gear pack came from – a simple piece of CNC machined aluminium which slips into the horizontal dropout allowing you to, very easily, attach a rear derailleur.

What we love about this solution is that rather than encouraging people to do away with the old and buy something new, it instead breathes new life into something old. Dig out that old rear mech and shifter, find a use for those dusty old road wheels you’ve got hanging around, and build yourself an Allday… with gears.

I can honestly say, since fitting gears to my Allday, it’s been my go to bike for the last 6 months. Perfect for cruising up and down the coast but also a wonderful companion for longer rides… a 50km commute to the Brother warehouse taking in some pretty rough bridleways and trails. No problem.

The Gear Pack also comes with two double cable guides which attach to the Allday’s bosses under the top tube – allowing you to run the brake cable and gear cable alongside each other. You can then use two single cable guides (which already come with the frame) to run the gear cable along the seat stay. The result is incredibly satisfying!

The components for this bike were mostly taken from an old Raleigh road bike we had in the warehouse, with a lovely Shimano 600 groupset on it which has plenty of life left in it – importantly this had a rear hub with 126mm spacing which can squeeze into the Allday’s dropouts. The only new component on this bike was a very clever shifter mount – made by Velo Orange and bought from Freshtripe – allowing us to fit the downtube shifter onto the bars. Full build spec below…

Build Spec:
Brother Allday Size 58cm
Teravail Cannonball 700 x 35mm tyres
Sim Works Getaround Bars
Thomson Elite ‘Hidden Bolt’ Stem
Hope headset
Vintage Selle San Marco ‘Rolls’ Saddle
Vintage Showa ‘Made in Japan’ front rack
Shimano 600:
– Road hubs
– Cranks
– Rear mech
– Shifter
– Seat post

The Allday Gear Pack is a pretty niche product, but we had so much fun building and now riding this bike we thought we had to offer it to our customers. If it breathes life into some old bikes and components currently sat out there gathering dust then we’ll be happy!

The Allday Gear Pack is now available to buy online >> HERE <<