Mach City Munich Single Speed (2016) : ChooseMyBicycle.com Expert Review

The Mach City Munich Single Speed 2016 is built on a full steel frame. The steel frame is built using the Tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding method. This is also known as Gas Tungsten arc welding (GTAW) and is one of the popular welding processes usually employed in the fabrication of thin structures like bicycle tubes. Many of the weld processes leave a slag coating on the weld surface. TIG, being a clean welding process, does not leave any sort of deposition over the weld bead. This makes sure there is no excess usage of material and hence keeping the frame weight at check, which is very important for an already heavy material like steel.

Lot of thinking has gone into the design of the Munich Single Speed 2016 and that is evident when I had the first look of the bicycle. The Munich Single Speed comes in just 1 colour variant, a full black primary colour with sky blue secondary colour only on the fork and brake cables. The fork colour definitely stands out and the aero shape does add to the aesthetics. The Munichês tube shapes have been inspired a little bit from the iBikeês down tube and Montra Trance Proês seat tube and it does look good on the Munich, so no complaints there.

As the name denotes, this Munich is a single speed bicycle. With the rapidly growing number of riders going for geared bicycles, there is still a need for quality single speed hybrids mainly for commuting or general fitness riding. The Single Speed (44T X 18T Gear ratio) on the Munich is a standard single speed drivetrain setup and performed smoothly during the test ride. There was no discomfort in pedalling and even on a silent road I could not hear much noise from the crank which is commendable.

The braking department in the Munich Single Speed 2016 is taken care of by the SYPO alloy V-brakes. These are the same brakes found on the 21 speed variant of the Munich. On a single speed bicycle there is no relying on gears to slow you down and hence the slowing down or stopping requirements all come down to the dependence of the alloy V-brakes. These brakes did fulfil expectations during the test ride up to an extent. There is some balance in braking when I tried the interval method but do not expect the same reaction time or smoothness when sudden braking as the brake pads cannot handle the jamming of the brakes that well. The brake levers functioned well but if you are someone with smaller palms you might have to reach out a little extra than usual to grab on to those levers.

The Munich Single Speed had a wide handlebar with respect to hybrid bicycle standards. The evident raise from the middle makes sure the rider is always in an upright riding posture and open chested as well. The grips felt slightly rough, a little more cushion would have made it more comfortable on longer or bumpy rides.

The Ralson 700C x 25C nylon hybrid tires on the Munich Single Speed 2016 were well supported by a wide alloy rims. Lack of gears means, there is some extra weightage on the tires to assist the rolling resistance for the rider and these tires did exactly that during the rest ride on busy city streets. They had just enough traction from the evenly spaced treads to provide quick acceleration. The wheelset on the whole was lightweight which kept the overall bicycle weight in check. The Rexine PU saddle is the same in both the single and 21 speed variants of the Munich. They had enough cushioning to save the rider from buying a gel saddle cover but at the same time the cushioning did not transform into an ergonomical shape which may end up giving saddle soreness during longer rides. The overall ride quality was smooth in the city streets I test rode it on.