Rigid fork fat bike for bikepacking???
12-12-20, 01:40 AM
#26
Full Member
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: '16 StumpJ, Salsa Mukluk, Soulcycles SS, Dean Colonel HT, BMC FourstrokeTrail, Dean Torres CX, Santana Visa Tandem, Trek T2000 Tandem, Cupertino MTB Tandem, FreeAgent26"Xtracycle, Dirt Drop Dingle, Jamis Dragon Dingle, Airborne Skyhag SS, SSDean Cols
Posts: 219
Mentioned: 0 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 70 Post(s)
Liked 116 Times
in
61 Posts
The rigid Salsa Enabler fork on my 2012 Mukluk continues to be a great place to carry stuff for bike packing. It's old stuff now.
It wasn't until after writing on this forum that I found out my Mukluk is a Mukluk 3.
I'm aware that the Mukluk 3 is not anywhere near the top of the heap in fat bikes. It's probably closer to the bottom. Still it has a pedigree.
The 135/170 hubs , straight steerer tube, and the Howitzer/Hussefelt BB/ crank combination, all lead to unique compromises.
After much deliberation in the garage which contains many mostly useless bike parts I found a brand new 32 narrow/wide chainring which fit the 94bcd 4 bolt Hussefelt Crank spider. And so rather than buy 2 cheap chainrings to make a double, I decided to make the bike a 1x drivetrain.
One thing I wanted to get ride of were the two Grip Shifters on the handlebars whose grip rubber waselting off and for the last 3 years was made tolerable by wrapping some hockey tape around them.
The bike is a 9 speed, and somewhere along the way I found an X5 9 speed shifter.
I am trying not to buy more parts for this build because we've been going nuts lately on our other bikes which get ridden much more than this fat bike.
One of the chief problems with this model's build is that as built the chain rubs the rear tire in the 2 lowest gears. I used the bike this way ever since I got it. This needs to change.
After much scrounging I was able to find the right chainring bolts and spacers to mount chainring in the middle zone of the spider.
Bummer is that 32 is actually too tall of a gear for loaded touring on single track.
Here's where things get unorthodox and a potential disaster.
There was an XT 11 Speed rear derailleur with a Goat Link in the garage taken from one of my wife's bikes that I could use.
There was also a slightly used Sunrace 11 speed 11-46 cassette.
Here's a risky thing, a 9 speed cassette is cobbled together using the 7 large sprockets from the Sunrace, and then add two sprockets to make 9.
The reasoning here being to use the extra space from using 7 of the sprockets from an 11 speed cassette to move the cassette away from the tire and chain rub situation.
I used two 9 speed spacers on the inside of the cassette.
The other two sprockets I used ended up being a Shimano Umeya XTR titanium 17/20 spider. I have two of these unused pieces of jewelry in the garage.
Used the extra deep threaded Sunrace lock-ring to hold it together on the freehub.
Next was the test to see if the rig would shift and run using these components not designed to work together.
I didn't bother to clean the filthy derailleur until it was tested to see if it would work. Luckily the limit screws
accommodate the limits needed. The low screw was nearly bottomed out.
Lucky too, I had a new spare 11 speed chain around - a SRAM PC-1.
0n the workstand, okay! It feels like it's going to work. But I need to test it tomorrow as it was pouring rain when I finished this evening.
One more thing was added: a new gold anodized 64 bcd 24t chainring. This doesn't add much weight. Because the 32x46 low gear might not be low enough, in emergency I could manually shift to the 24. An additional annoyance is that the dreaded tire rub ce back. Might be able to move it more outboard though since I spaced inwards to standard space for a derailleur to shift with.
Hack or bodge?
It will get tested before I commit to this.
If the above isn't up to the task of grinding heavy loads up mountain tracks then I'll revert to a proper 11-34 9 speed cassette, chain, rear and front derailleur, and order the 34/22 chainrings. I have a spare 9 speed chain.
In the rummaging around for parts I found a nice XT front derailleur that would mate to the Problem Solver fat bike front derailleur mount.
The original X7 9 speed rear derailleur was in good shape,.except the guide pulley was cracked all the way through. Not good. Luckily I had some spare new Shimano pulleys I keep on hand for the road tandem, one of which swapped perfectly into the old SRAM CV mech.
I've got a NOS Shimano Saint front derailleur shifter that would work great. However I wanted to not have a front shifter on the left, and put a seat dropper control in that space.
That was a lot of explaining to do. Once I arrive at what I think is the final arrangement for next year's ca.ping trips I'll share some photos.
Whatever I end up with, it will be unusual.
I've never thought it possible or worth trying to mix 9 and 11 speed stuff before. Maybe it won't work well enough with the indexed click shifter. If it doesn't I could get a thumb shifter set on friction mode to make it work.
The thing that encouraged me was a possibly ill informed comment somewhere that the cable pull on 9 vs 11 speed shifters was not a large amount different.
I spent a rainy afternoon on this experiment. If it works. I'll clean the derailleur and cassette and then go to work on the seat dropper.
It wasn't until after writing on this forum that I found out my Mukluk is a Mukluk 3.
I'm aware that the Mukluk 3 is not anywhere near the top of the heap in fat bikes. It's probably closer to the bottom. Still it has a pedigree.
The 135/170 hubs , straight steerer tube, and the Howitzer/Hussefelt BB/ crank combination, all lead to unique compromises.
After much deliberation in the garage which contains many mostly useless bike parts I found a brand new 32 narrow/wide chainring which fit the 94bcd 4 bolt Hussefelt Crank spider. And so rather than buy 2 cheap chainrings to make a double, I decided to make the bike a 1x drivetrain.
One thing I wanted to get ride of were the two Grip Shifters on the handlebars whose grip rubber waselting off and for the last 3 years was made tolerable by wrapping some hockey tape around them.
The bike is a 9 speed, and somewhere along the way I found an X5 9 speed shifter.
I am trying not to buy more parts for this build because we've been going nuts lately on our other bikes which get ridden much more than this fat bike.
One of the chief problems with this model's build is that as built the chain rubs the rear tire in the 2 lowest gears. I used the bike this way ever since I got it. This needs to change.
After much scrounging I was able to find the right chainring bolts and spacers to mount chainring in the middle zone of the spider.
Bummer is that 32 is actually too tall of a gear for loaded touring on single track.
Here's where things get unorthodox and a potential disaster.
There was an XT 11 Speed rear derailleur with a Goat Link in the garage taken from one of my wife's bikes that I could use.
There was also a slightly used Sunrace 11 speed 11-46 cassette.
Here's a risky thing, a 9 speed cassette is cobbled together using the 7 large sprockets from the Sunrace, and then add two sprockets to make 9.
The reasoning here being to use the extra space from using 7 of the sprockets from an 11 speed cassette to move the cassette away from the tire and chain rub situation.
I used two 9 speed spacers on the inside of the cassette.
The other two sprockets I used ended up being a Shimano Umeya XTR titanium 17/20 spider. I have two of these unused pieces of jewelry in the garage.
Used the extra deep threaded Sunrace lock-ring to hold it together on the freehub.
Next was the test to see if the rig would shift and run using these components not designed to work together.
I didn't bother to clean the filthy derailleur until it was tested to see if it would work. Luckily the limit screws
accommodate the limits needed. The low screw was nearly bottomed out.
Lucky too, I had a new spare 11 speed chain around - a SRAM PC-1.
0n the workstand, okay! It feels like it's going to work. But I need to test it tomorrow as it was pouring rain when I finished this evening.
One more thing was added: a new gold anodized 64 bcd 24t chainring. This doesn't add much weight. Because the 32x46 low gear might not be low enough, in emergency I could manually shift to the 24. An additional annoyance is that the dreaded tire rub ce back. Might be able to move it more outboard though since I spaced inwards to standard space for a derailleur to shift with.
Hack or bodge?
It will get tested before I commit to this.
If the above isn't up to the task of grinding heavy loads up mountain tracks then I'll revert to a proper 11-34 9 speed cassette, chain, rear and front derailleur, and order the 34/22 chainrings. I have a spare 9 speed chain.
In the rummaging around for parts I found a nice XT front derailleur that would mate to the Problem Solver fat bike front derailleur mount.
The original X7 9 speed rear derailleur was in good shape,.except the guide pulley was cracked all the way through. Not good. Luckily I had some spare new Shimano pulleys I keep on hand for the road tandem, one of which swapped perfectly into the old SRAM CV mech.
I've got a NOS Shimano Saint front derailleur shifter that would work great. However I wanted to not have a front shifter on the left, and put a seat dropper control in that space.
That was a lot of explaining to do. Once I arrive at what I think is the final arrangement for next year's ca.ping trips I'll share some photos.
Whatever I end up with, it will be unusual.
I've never thought it possible or worth trying to mix 9 and 11 speed stuff before. Maybe it won't work well enough with the indexed click shifter. If it doesn't I could get a thumb shifter set on friction mode to make it work.
The thing that encouraged me was a possibly ill informed comment somewhere that the cable pull on 9 vs 11 speed shifters was not a large amount different.
I spent a rainy afternoon on this experiment. If it works. I'll clean the derailleur and cassette and then go to work on the seat dropper.
12-12-20, 02:14 AM
#27
junior
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Fresno, Calif.
Posts: 282
Bikes: 2020 Surly ECR / 2018 Norco Search XR steel gravel bike with GRX / 1983 Bianchi Campione D'Italia / Gary Fisher Wingra / Motobecane Nomade mixte (daughter's)
Mentioned: 3 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 72 Post(s)
Liked 12 Times
in
11 Posts
If you're still looking for hubs, i've used Bitex hubs on my drop bar gravel bike and they have been great. going on 2 years now i think.
Bitex offers fat bike hubs, in 170-177 with QR: BITEX
Also: https://www.bikehubstore.com/product-p/fb170.htm
eric/fresno, ca.
Bitex offers fat bike hubs, in 170-177 with QR: BITEX
Also: https://www.bikehubstore.com/product-p/fb170.htm
eric/fresno, ca.
12-12-20, 08:29 PM
#28
Full Member
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: '16 StumpJ, Salsa Mukluk, Soulcycles SS, Dean Colonel HT, BMC FourstrokeTrail, Dean Torres CX, Santana Visa Tandem, Trek T2000 Tandem, Cupertino MTB Tandem, FreeAgent26"Xtracycle, Dirt Drop Dingle, Jamis Dragon Dingle, Airborne Skyhag SS, SSDean Cols
Posts: 219
Mentioned: 0 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 70 Post(s)
Liked 116 Times
in
61 Posts
If you're still looking for hubs, i've used Bitex hubs on my drop bar gravel bike and they have been great. going on 2 years now i think.
Bitex offers fat bike hubs, in 170-177 with QR: BITEX
Also: https://www.bikehubstore.com/product-p/fb170.htm
eric/fresno, ca.
Bitex offers fat bike hubs, in 170-177 with QR: BITEX
Also: https://www.bikehubstore.com/product-p/fb170.htm
eric/fresno, ca.
Bitex, what a great name for set probably decent hubs!
I went to the website. No direct sales but some interesting pages.
I'm betting that the funky sound I thought was coming from the rear hub was the cracked guide pulley. So hopefully I don't have an excuse to spend more money on bike stuff.
Some pics. It will probably work.
