smasha

Gravel bikes tend to be drop-bar, which tends to change the geometry. Perhaps more importantly, the only gravel-bike I can think of with a fork that would be good for a low-rider rack is the Giant Revolt, but that's a carbon fork.

MinnesotaSteve

Well I got further with my 2020 Trek FX3 improvements...

I replaced the crankset with the M4100-2 to get the lower gear ratios. Had to shorten the chain for this, but no big deal. I haven't had a chance to ride this yet as we still have a ton of snow on the ground, but the weather has warmed up and I'm hoping in a week or so it'll be better.

So in looking at the rear shifting and why it appeared sluggish, I did get the Alivio M31000-R shifter. Someone else here in this thread mentioned it was snappier than the Acera, and I'd have to agree. But I also think I found the source of the issue I was having. The old shifter cables, as they went down below the bottom bracket cable guide, Trek had placed a short piece of inner housing liner, like 6" long or so. Anyway that liner was torn and was kind of jammed in there constricting the cable. I'm not entirely certain what the point of this was, I don't think it's needed. Anyway, after having done that I decided to just go ahead and also get the Alivio M3100-L shifter. That's a single lever shifter, also works really well.

I then looked at the front derailleur and wondered if I should upgrade that, but this is where my research gets weird. The current generation MTB like Alivio and Deore front derailleurs are side pull, which means the cable has to come from the front rather than the bottom. That's not how the cables route on the FX, so that was out. I looked at some older stock shifters, but eventually decided to just keep what I had. I had to lower it and realign everything and I got it working.

I went through the process of readjusting everything on the rear derailleur and it seems to be working really well right now. I'll have to check it again after riding it as the cable will likely loosen up a bit. But I want that snow gone.

hokiefyd 

I don't think you'd really gain anything by changing the front derailleur. You're right that you'd need a down-pull derailleur (or at least a dual-pull, capable of either top-pull or down-pull), but there really isn't much to the front derailleurs -- they're just a brute force mechanism to force the chain to certain chain rings. If you can get your current setup tuned so that you don't have much, if any, chain rub on the derailleur cage, then you're doing well and I'd leave it as-is.

MinnesotaSteve

Yeah, after I took the time to really dial in the front derailleur it's working very well.

I'm still curious why they had that liner in there. There was also one on the front shifter cable too, and it had also split, but hadn't torn and gummed it up.

MinnesotaSteve

(42-11) + (40-22) = 49T... I don't know if there are any rear derailleurs that can manage that. Looking at the specs they are like 45T capacity and max of 36 in the rear if running a triple. At that point, I'm not sure what 10 speed would gain you over classic 9 speed, you'd just lose that one gear, but 22/36 is still pretty good ratio. 9 speed stuff is extremely common, utterly compatible and bullet proof. That'd still give you quite a range. So anything new or used with 8/9 speed rear hub could be made to work.

Any of the Trek FX2 going back many years would work, if you can find the right bike. But they had alloy front forks with rack mounts.

hokiefyd 

What's under the bottom bracket now that the liner is removed? Does it have a plastic cable guide that screws to the bottom of that housing? If so, you should be fine -- I presume they added a small section of liner for even smoother action, but that apparently aged poorly. Many bikes don't have the liner (they just have the plastic guide).

travbikeman

I remember a few years ago I did purchase Alvio M4000 shifters to replace the Acera M390's I had on my prior Specialize Crosstrail. I did notice a difference in the tactile feel, partly due to the better shifter and partly due to the Acera was kind of worn out already after a few years usage. Also remember liking that I could up shift 3 gears at time over single at a time on the Acera.

Noticed the specs on the Trek FX 3 Disc had the Acera M3000's. Always thought those were same or at least very similar to the Alivio M3000's, so interesting to hear it does have a different feel to em.

MinnesotaSteve

Honestly, it could just be that the Alivio shifters came with optislick coated cables. But it does feel just a bit more solid.

smasha

RD-M5120 is working well with this setup, on another bike. Specs say 2x, but no problems at all with a 3x.

If I could find a 3x9 crankset with a 20 or 22T low gear, I'd consider that, but the closest thing I could find was a 3x10 crankset. And I'm happy with how the 3x10 is working out on the other bike, so it'll be nice to be able to have spare parts that can fit two bikes.

Not a good idea to cross-chain it, but it's never a good idea to cross-chain, anyway. So maybe the caveat is that it works fine, when the gears are being shifted properly.

Barry2 

Wife had a NBD today.
Trek FX 4

But what were Trek thinking when they stripped all the good Shimano stuff off the current FX4 ???
No more Shimano brakes, no GRX RD & Crankset. And what's with ditching Thru-axles for thru-skewers (whatever those are) ?

I did manage to find local shop that still had the prior model, and I grabbed that one.
Now to see if she'll let me install the Reserve 34/37 carbon wheels that came with my R5 on the Trek.
That'll lighten it up a bit more.


Barry

Not2worried

Could be supply chain issues?

MinnesotaSteve

I think that older FX4 Sport carbon you're looking at was kind of a oneoff, it was only made in 2021. In 2020 they were using an aluminum frame, and then in 2021 they introduced the carbon frame and a massive price increase. They'd been using Tiagra components on the Sports and that was the first one with the new GRX stuff. In 2022 they redesigned the carbon frame across the whole line and put GRX on the 5 and 6 instead of the road bike components. I think the new lineup probably makes more sense and is more consistent with differentiation going from the FX3 to the carbon line, although maybe they should have dropped the price on the FX4 to be more in between.. There's a big price jump from the Alivio components on the FX3 up to the GRX line. The GRX crank by itself is like $150. So I can see where they might want to use the Alivio line, and that prowheel crank to cut costs. Just not sure the carbon frame alone is worth the $800 increase over the FX3. Probably makes the FX4 not as good of a deal, like just stick with the FX3 or go for the FX5. If you can find an old FX4 Sport carbon on clearance, it's a really good deal.

And I really don't understand the Promax brakes though. The FX3 is spec'ed with MT201, and the FX5 has MT201... why use something different on the FX4 that is basically the same cost?

As for the Thruskew... yeah, I don't understand the thinking. I presume it was a way to get around adding "lawyer lips" to the fork. I actually prefer the old style QR though as it's a lot easier to use. Really not sure what value this adds, but thankfully I don't remove my front wheel that often.

Barry2 

Sure did... FX4 with full Shimano/GRX/Thru-Axles, in a Wife acceptable Blue color!
If I'd been unable to find one with this spec, I'd be looking for a completely different bike.

Who wants a light weight carbon framed bike with cut-price components.... Nope
it makes no sense as a consumer, obviously the manu saves money, but they would not get my dollars for it.

Barry

sh00k

hi folks, been on the forum for like over a decade now i think hah. have owned 4 fx's in my life and now im down to 2 - this 2011 fx 7.3 (or fx3) and a 2015 fx 7.4 (or fx4). been relatively quiet posting wise but always follow this thread. i love seeing what people are doing with their fx's - their mods, where they're taking them and looking at the entire RANGE of what people do ON their fx's.

below are pics of my 2011 7.3. likely has around 1k miles on it. never ridden in rain, never off-roaded, always garage kept, never locked up outside. as a result, the bike still runs perfect despite never being serviced. shifts are crisp, no issues up or down shifting. pads need to be replaced but what's there now works fine for the slow-town rides i do. i have a bike computer on there that im going to take off bc i dont need it anymore. just going to ride and not worry about numbers or stopping power (i ride on quiet streets with practically zero car traffic). streets by me are new with barely any bumps/pits so the ride is silky smooth. I even installed 25c tires and my knees thank me for it. when i mash on the mountain pedals, the bike lurches forward and i absolutely love having that level of responsiveness that comes with thinner tires. i also have 25c on my fx 7.4. no offroading or gravel rides for me. just cardio on buttery smooth newly put down tar streets.

i love the 2011 and 2015s i have bc these bikes are from before trek starting cheaping out on many parts. even my 7.3 which was about $550, and my 7.4 which was about $680 - have nicer parts STOCK than what's coming on the treks now. plus, i absolutely hate the limited color choices in FXs. my white and gray bikes are ideal and wish trek made more colors of these bikes.

love the fx series and love seeing what you folks are up to. keep on driving these things hard and post pics of your adventures!!!

FrozenBiker 

Wow, those are expensive wheels Barry So you found a blue bike for the wife, nice! Blue is unobtainable in my size here, but I dig silver anyways. It will be ready in a few days.

I'll be looking at changing the tires to something more suited to rail trails. The bike is spec'd at 35mm max unfortunately, but I'm used to 35's on the Nishiki already.

Barry2 

wife rides paved trails and those wheels and some 25mm GP5000 took ~3lb off the bike.
Her FX4 now weighs about 18lb. 🙂

Barry

sh00k

this is awesome - removing weight from the FX's make them rocket ships. on my 2014 trek fx 7.4, i replaced the 32c tires with 25c and now the bike is so much more responsive. easily took 1.5+ pounds off the rotational mass of the wheels and it's so much easier on the knees now! i ride 99.9% on newly paved tar roads and flying down a hill on them is buttery smooth! also removed all reflectors as i dont ride at night.

sh00k

I'vebeen on the forums for a while now and wanted to share one of my most favorite trek fx "conversions."

https://www.bikeforums.net/hybrid-bi...road-bike.html

Long story short, dude upgraded his 7.5 fx to a "road bike" with some pretty high end parts for the time. would love to have a ride like that considering my streets are newly paved and i never ride on gravel/bad streets. my 7.4fx with 25c tires is close but i could never go to 2 chainrings up front - i need my granny gear lol

tenrec

I ride my FX3 on local streets and mostly on a nearby bike path. The paving is 90% good, but there are a fair number of rough patches. I prefer the FX3's wider 32mm tires to the 25mm tires I have on my road bike for this sort of riding. I have to say the bike is heavier than I expected -- mine is an XL size, I changed the original plastic pedals to steel with toe clips, and I added lights and a kickstand. It's probably at about 30 pounds right now.

bobthebike

Just bought the wife a new FX 4 Carbon. Surprised to see the Isospeed decoupler has been dropped. Was there a reason, even though I personally would much prefer it being gone. Also, this is the first threaded skewer axle of ever seen. Lastly, I had her ride my Specialized Sirius X 5.0 for sizing. Come to find out, a Specialized medium is a Trek large.

t2p

mrs t2p fx can find the ice cream

sh00k

likely they dropped the iso coupler as the frame is now carbon (previously it was aluminum) and the carbon does a good enough job at smoothing out the roads.

I had a 2011 trek fx 7.7 and the iso coupler on there was amazing - it made every surface i rode on feel like i was riding on glass or like the tile floors of a mall. such an incredible experience.

also trek has been cheaping out on bikes in recent years so likely dropped the isospeed decoupler to simplify production / produce less parts and charge higher prices for the bikes. my ongoing theory

Barry2 

FX 4 frame was always Carbon.
The decoupler was likely dropped along with the GRX drivetrain & Shimano brakes to reduce the cost of production.

Barry

bobthebike

You can definitely sense the switch in direction that Trek took. For me, it’s more of a city bike than a hybrid. Yesterday, I had the LBS fit the bike for the wife. Having a MTB width bar, I had them cut it down 1 1/2”. There, we discovered a foam insert, which resided under the grip. No biggie, because I personally love the comfort that the grips and insert provide. Lastly, comparing this bike to my Sirius X 5.0 was enlightening. The Sirrus feels like a hotrod in comparison. Much faster and smoother.

FrozenBiker 

The 2021 was also carbon (I just bought one as a two-year leftover). Not sure if I feel anything from the coupler, but carbon frames in general are amazing.

Indeed. In order to get the GRX, you have to buy the Sport 5 or 6 now. I've ridden both of those, and they were very comfortable with the 40mm tires.