29ers are the darkside but . . .

oops, somehow I managed to read "sporty position" as "suspension". I'm not dyslexic though, so no idea how that happened. My bad.

Feel free to ignore my posts, carry on.

i miss read like that all the time

Ooops, I side tracked the convo, sorry chuck..... for the record JonnyBoy's street bike is gonna be hard core and hard tailed!

been thinking more about this build, went to see Tom, discussed a few specifics, leaning back towards Alfine gearing now,

the thing i'm stuck on though is the brake choice, running an alfine hub it seems sensible to run discs but disc on a single speed drop out always seems a pain.

any thoughts? advice from those that run single speed/hub gears?

also thinking about a gates belt drive system, thoughts there? anyone got one?

Discs on a SS don't have to be a pain. You just need to position the caliper so that it doesn't interfere with the removal of the wheel.
So if you have rear-facing dropouts, the caliper needs to be ahead of the rear axle. That only really leaves the area between the chainstay and seatstay as a viable mounting area.

that's fair point regarding the disc mount position, i assume you're suggesting a disc mount inside the triangle, like a paragon drop out, possible but i'm not sure what Tom thinks of that, his singlespeed/hub geared drop outs (without disc mount) are lovely, i think a disc mount would almost ruin them aesthetically in or out of the triangle, might have to talk about another design option.

here are the 2 drop outs, the reason i'm not a fan is specific to the sliding disc holes, are these really needed?

Yeah, I meant inside the rear triangle.

Looking at the pics, it might be possible to mount the caliper below the off-hand chainstay as well.
I'm jut not too sure about hanging a caliper there. That might require some calculating on Tom's part, seeing as the forces will pull the caliper away from the mounts rather than pushing it towards them.

to be honest i think disc is the best way to go, mainly because both Tom and myself like a neat and tidy design, what concerns me about the sliding disc mount is the possibility of it moving and potentially being a pain to get the wheel in or out.

inside the triangle i think would work better but Tom hasn't done that design before and it would mean him designing a whole new drop out as i know he would not want to use another makers part (which i agree with) i think the issue is making the drop with the mount inside the triangle AND making it look good. we looked at this when i had the mtb builtand he didn't like the aesthetic of it, and neither did i at the time, singlespeed/hub gears change my thoughts a bit because a different kind of practicality come in to it.

Could always go for a roller brake on the rear if you ran the nexus, or drum on a SA.

Eccentric bottom bracket. Standard dropouts. Problem solved.