Gears are great. They let you climb hills and power along at speed with a more comfortable cadence and less overall effort. Yet there are good reasons for turning back the technological clock and choosing a bike with one gear instead – especially for commuting.

Other things being equal, singlespeed bikes are cheaper – as well as lighter – because they’re simpler. There are no derailleurs, shifters or extra sprockets and no complex meshing cogwheels inside a hub shell. Just one chainring, one sprocket and a chain that’s never shifted from either. This simplicity makes singlespeed drivetrains very durable. There’s much less to go wrong – and it’s far cheaper to fix if anything does. You can be fairly casual about singlespeed chain care; an occasional squirt of oil should be sufficient.

These qualities make singlespeeds a sound choice for anyone wanting a dependable workhorse for shorter, everyday journeys – as long as those journeys aren’t too hilly. Flat or rolling terrain is where singlespeeds work best.

As a singlespeed has just one gear, it’s important that the gear ratio suits your needs. For commuting, a middling-size gear is best. That’s somewhere between 55in and 70in if you know gear inches, or a chainring from 2 to 2.6 times as large as the sprocket if you don't (assuming 700C wheels). The gear ratio can be changed by fitting a larger or smaller sprocket.

Most singlespeed bikes have a freewheel, which enables you to coast along without pedalling. Some are fixed wheel. On a fixed-wheel bike, the cranks turn whenever the rear wheel turns. You cannot freewheel. You can, however, slow down the bike with back pressure on the pedals. Legally, this counts as a rear brake, although you must have a front brake as well. Fixed-wheel riding takes a little getting used to; practise away from traffic before commuting on fixed.

All singlespeed bikes, freewheel or fixed, need a way of keeping the chain under enough tension that it doesn’t sag and fall off. The most common way is horizontal dropouts, open to the rear. To tension the chain, you undo the wheel nuts, pull the wheel back in the frame, then retighten the nuts. Some singlespeeds employ sliding dropouts, which do essentially the same job. Others have an eccentric bottom bracket, which enables the bottom bracket axle to be repositioned instead of the rear wheel.

Elops Single Speed City Bike 500 £269.99

Decathlon’s messenger-style singlespeed is one of the least expensive bikes suitable for daily commuting. Frame and fork are hi-ten steel, which can last a lifetime. Although steel is relatively heavy, this bike’s narrower-diameter tubes and stripped-down build mean it weighs only 11.6kg, making it easy to spin up to speed. The gear ratio is 44/18 (66in), which suits sporty, urban riding. While it’s supplied with a freewheel sprocket, the double-sided (‘flip-flop’) hub enables you to switch between freewheel and fixed by flipping the wheel around. Deeper-drop sidepull brakes accommodate wider (32mm) tyres, and there’s also room for mudguards – although no eyelets at the rear, so you’ll need P-clips or road-bike-specific mudguards.

Cambridge Dutchbikes Amsterdammer £499

A traditional Dutch bike, built in the Netherlands and available in the UK. It’s the polar opposite, in singlespeed terms, of the Elops above: a heavyweight roadster for sedate riding on flat terrain only. The steel frame and fork are equipped with mudguards, an enclosed chaincase, skirt/coat guards over the rear wheel, and a rear rack with an integral stand. There’s even a wheel lock, although hub dynamo lighting is £30 extra. Both brakes work well in all weathers; the rear is a back-pedal coaster brake, the front a roller brake at the hub. It comes in both ladies’ (open) and gents’ (top tube) frame designs.

Dolan FXE £699.98

As you might guess from the name, the Dolan FXE is a fixed-wheel bike (or ‘fixie’). You could fit a freewheel sprocket instead if you wanted – or both fixed and freewheel sprockets with a flip-flop hub. The FXE’s design harks back to the fixed-wheel winter bikes that club cyclists used in decades past but it utilises up-to-date components, such as a lightweight aluminium frame and carbon fork, and more powerful sidepull brakes. There’s a long a la carte menu to pick from when buying, so you can add full mudguards and a rear rack (there are mounts for both) and choose your preferred wheels, tyres, handlebar, saddle and so on. It will take 25mm tyres with mudguards or 28mm without. Gear ratio? Try 46/19 (65in) and learn to spin!

Temple Cycles Classic Singlespeed £895

Classic refers to the bike’s looks: the steel fork has a lugged crown and is paired with a tidy Reynolds 520 steel frame, plus a quill stem with a traditional threaded headset. There are fittings for full mudguards and racks front and rear. As the gear is fairly high for a singlespeed (39/15 or 70in), you’ll likely want one rack or the other, not both. It’s available with either a flat or drop bar, and brake levers to match. The Tektro R539 brake callipers are the same either way and have room to clear 28mm tyres and mudguards. Wheels have 36 spokes apiece, so should survive pothole strikes without buckling better than most.

Cube Editor One FE £999

FE stands for fully equipped, which is just one of the ways in which this carbon-fork, aluminium-frame Cube is different from most singlespeeds. It comes with hub-dynamo-powered lights, full mudguards, a rear rack and a kickstand. Difference number two is the drivetrain. Instead of an oily chain, the Editor One FE has a clean and quiet belt drive, which is slightly less efficient but much easier to live with. It’s essentially maintenance free and you don’t need to worry about oil on your clothes either. The third difference is the overall design: it’s an urban mountain bike with powerful hydraulic disc brakes, stable handling and huge 55mm-wide tyres that will be untroubled by even the roughest of roads. The gear ratio is a little high (55/22 or 72in) for a 14.5kg bike, so it suits modest gradients even more than other singlespeeds.