My internal gears are second to none: Part II

It is done.

The single speed is no longer a single speed (for a while at least). I had the wheel built at Gateshead using Stans Arch rims and DT swiss comp spokes (and red nipples!). It looks great. Thankfully there weren’t any scales for me to put it on at home since the whole package including tyre would likely weigh somewhere North of 2.8-3.0kgs (the hub is around 1.8kgs).

I used a Stans rubber rim strip to convert to tubeless and somehow managed to get a very heavily abused Ardent to inflate on the first attempt with a track pump. No soapy water, no swearing, just a lot of pumping and a few sealant geysers where old holes in the tyre carcass slowly sealed. I don’t intend to run the Ardent on the rear long term, however it was the only spare tyre I had kicking around that I though was even a remote chance of sealing. The much newer Aspen that was lying next to it has a sizeable cut in the sidewall which looks to have ended its tubeless days.

The Alfine 11 is installed and so far all appears to be going well. It took a little bit of head scratching to get it set up correctly after I made an error with a lock ring and was left with a hub full of neutral as the sprocket freely spun independently to the gearbox. It didn’t help that I was rushing things to try and have it ready for yesterdays coghead ride. In the end I decided it was late, I was tired and it could wait another day. Hindsight tells me it was definitely the correct decision.

At this point, I don’t have any ride time on the bike other than a lap or two around the block so I won’t prematurely offer opinions about it. I’ll leave that up to subsequent posts. I’ll definitely be taking it for a spin today however – lets just hope I like it!

Parts to make a whole

 

In search of chain tension

The boys were about 10 -15 bike lengths in front of me. I’d been trying to keep up as we hummed along the asphalt road but i’d run out of RPM on the single speed and they were effortlessly pulling away from me. I knew the dirt started soon and it was straight into a descent so I felt fairly comfortable that I could close the gap through the first turn. I pelted down the hill hot on their tail and watched as they drifted wide in the corner while I cut the apex and pulled along side. I let out a few expletives letting them know that they were getting passed by a single speeder and proceeded to spin like a man possessed to make the pass stick. Mid profanity, I was silenced by a “pop – tink” as the chain came off yet again and was left to fiddle with my bike for the umpteenth time that day as the cries of laughter from the other riders faded into the distance. I cursed and not for the first time that day thought to myself that it was about time i fixed this problem.

No matter what I have done in the past, I have never been able to keep the chain tensioned on the KHS for longer than a single ride. In fact, I tighten the dropout bolts like a gorilla trying to crack a walnut and ride for 3 minutes down the road and the chain is flapping around in the breeze again. The steel washer/shims I installed a while ago have gone some way to correcting the problem, but not well enough to make the bike as reliable as I would like.

Today I spent some time fabricating a different sort of shim – one that won’t allow the dropouts to slide any further forward. I firstly made one out of aluminium since it is so easy to work with and when it seemed to function quite well, I then progressed to a steel version using the original as a template. Since this shim is actually quite a bit thicker than the steel washers I was originally using, the bolt no longer uses the full thread of the sliding drop out. So tomorrow I will get some longer bolts to make sure I don’t strip the threads. I have some reservations about this technique since the frame wasn’t designed to accept a load in this manner and it may well result in a crack appearing at some point, but with a frame that won’t tension (and I refuse to use a chain tensioner), it was pretty much useless anyway so I have nothing to lose.

The Pie Eater 1.0.4 will be a solid test and hopefully mechanically uneventful.

The new shims

Shim in situ

Pie Eater 1.01.SE – Ride report: Part 2

Continued from part 1:

We followed the GNW through to Millfield and then did some road touring as we rode through to Congewai. There was some beautiful scenery along the way with wide open pastures, lagoons and amazing escarpments that hemmed in the valley.

Ellalong lagoon

Some 12 years earlier, Brad had ridden a section of the great north walk from to top of barabba spur down to Congewai and remembered that it was going to be “uppity” with some hike a bike sections. Engrossed in conversation, we were thoroughly distractred by the scenery and sailed right on past the turn off.

We stumbled across a little stream which looked postcard perfect so Brad decided it would be suitable for drinking water. I was a little dubious and refrained from drinking any since I didn’t really want to get sick so soon into the journey. Brad was washing his face, filling his bottles and telling me how wonderful the water was when an unholy racket started up across the paddock. It sounded like a donkey trying to excrete a watermelon. To top things off, it was coming from upstream. I quickly decided that the disgruntled donkey was sick due to the water and left Brad to frolic in the stream while I attended to my front tyre this time…… DIY tubeless be damned!!!

Donkey stream crossing

More pumping

We motored on and were now on the hunt for the trail junction (not knowing it was several kilometre behind us) and rode until the fire road petered out. A quick cross check of the topo map and the GPS soon showed us the error of our ways and we made our way back to the trail junction.

We climbed the fence to access the GNW and there was a barely discernable trail meandering through the paddocks. It was amazing riding! From this point, the trail began climbing. Slowly at first, as we followed the invisible trail through the paddocks and then more steeply as we linked up to a fire road. I managed to clear most of the climbs on the fire trails however, there were a couple of spots where I stalled and had to push up.

Trail by brail

GNW fence crossings

Soon the fire road gave way to what can only be described as a goat track. This bit was a killer. There was no other option than to get off and push. We climbed a couple of hundred meters and eventually approached the summit where the climb eased off and we could re-mount and continue riding.

Hike-a-bike

The photog using a photo as an opportunity to have a rest from pushing

Finally we could start riding again

Late afternoon sunshine

Mid trail obstacles - quite a challenge in full bike packing kit.

In the late afternoon, we reached barabba trig camp ground. We ate some food, put on some warm clothes as the evening chill was beginning to descend and I re-inflated my front tyre yet again. Brad had decided by this point that he was going to photograph me everytime I got the pump out so my humiliation was complete.

I'm starting to get a bit camera shy with a pump in my hand

Barraba spur was our first camping options as it has the most amazing lookouts and one of the best campgrounds I have ever seen! Since there was still plenty of light left, we decided to push on to Awaba and get some water along the way from one of the tanks at Heaton camp ground.

View from the main campsite on Barraba trig

The fire trail to Awaba was up and down as it followed the ridge line and there was some tough climbing mixed with some fast rocky descending. I burped my front tyre yet-again and needed to stop and pump it up – much to the delight of a Brad with camera in hand.

Not funny anymore!

to be continued…

To Part 3

Pie Eater 1.01.SE – Ride report: Part 1

Another epic ride was had and hence, another epic write up should ensue. The last pie eater was a single day ride with an ambitions agenda of linking three well known local XC trails. This time, the ‘special edition’ of the pie eater was an overnight bike packing adventure as we aimed for a big loop that would include Awaba and Killingworth.

I arrived in sunny Weston around 8am much to the delight of Rocky who showed off his beloved racing Ralph which he adopted on the last pie eater. Amazingly, I am pretty sure you could still get this tyre to inflate despite Rocky chewing on it daily for the last month. This is a dog who can chew through anything! Who said Racing Ralphs were flimsy?

Rocky checking the integrity of the tyres' sidewall

My bike and associated kit

Brads weight weenie kit

We set out into the brisk morning air with the plan of making awaba by night fall. Brad showed off some more of his local trails including Kitchener reserve which is signposted as a MTB friendly site. It may well play host to a HMBA social ride at some point soon as the trails were amazing.

Hooray - a national park area that actually permits mountain bikes

Getting closer to Cessnock

Tom foolery

Brad powering ahead

I was having trouble keeping up with Brad as my bar bag was impinging on my brake cables and levers. I could pull brakes on, but would have push the levers back out by hand to get them to disengage. This was proving to be a tad hairy in some of the tight technical sections (lets face it, most things are ‘technical’ when you have 5-8ks of gear hanging off your bike) so we stopped to sort the problem out.

Cables on the wrong side of the bars but at least they were working again

Testing the new brake setup

Some impromptu cable re-routing and some quick lube to the cables and we were in business. Now I could keep up with Brad again as we made our way to Bimbadeen lookout. We zig zagged through all manner of bush trails, a short tarmac stint or two and tonnes of single track. Somewhere admist this, we followed the moto trail which went over a damaged fence. I looked down as I was riding over it to notice it was barbed wire. 30 seconds later and I was riding on the rim. Cursing my own stupidity, we stopped for tyre inflation number one. Not realising at this point what an omen this presented for the remainder of the trip.

The first of many flats

As it later turned out, the barbed wire had nothing to do with my flat. It was the high speed kookery that immediately followed which pinch flatted my tyre, I thought the trail went right, set myself up for a high speed turn, only to realize that wasn’t the trail at all and proceeded to plow my way through all manner of debris trying to get back on track.

Our first serious climb for the day was up to Bimbadeen lookout. Brad had warmed me that this climb was pretty horrible, some of the steeper sections were walked to save the legs, but it was actually a lot better than I had expected. At this point, we had ridden ‘off the map’. We knew there was a section of the Great North Walk (GNW) that linked through to where we wanted to go but we hadn’t ridden it so were unsure what to expect. As it turns out, this was one of the highlights of the trip.

sunshine and wide open spaces

Half way up Bimbadeen

Food time at the top of Bimbadeen : We were heading for the mountains on the horizon

We were expecting to find narrow hike a bike walking trail with stairs and unrideable sections everywhere however we stumbled across a long downhill section that had everything. Wide open flowing fire trail, water bars, rock gardens, tight single track i.e It might turn out to be a suitable super D course!

To be continued.

29er DIY Ghetto tubeless rim conversion

I think I will call this conversion ‘the sans kit’.

Why? Because it was done without rim strips!

First off, my rims had a plastic spoke cover strip in situ already. I left this in place.

Next I used electrical tape and ran three loops – one on each side of the rim and a final loop up the middle. I was extremely careful to ensure the tape went partway up the sidewall but didn’t interfere with the bead hook. I ran the tap directly over the valve hole.

I next made use of some liquid latex that I had laying around from my DIY tyre sealant and painted two thin layers of latex over the top of the tape. Again, i was extremely careful to ensure I didn’t get a big blob of it under the bead hook that would interfere with the tyre sealing against the rim.

I had a couple of spare mavic tubless valve kits from a previous ebay order which I used for the valves. While the latex was still wet, I poked the valve straight through the electrical tape and snugged it up tightly. Hopefully the liquid latex will dry and seal the rubber valve base against the tape. It certainly looked very promising while I was doing it.

I left the latex to dry for 10 minutes or so and then mounted up the tyre. The tyre i chose for the first experiment was a maxxis Ardent 2.25 folding bead tyre for the front. I have heard good reports and it looks like a nice compromise between rolling resistance and cornering grip. It certainly looks so much faster than the Kenda surprise (read: Nevegals) that came on it.

I was very disconcerted when I tried to fit the tyre to the wheel – The bead was quite loose and I could comfortably get the tyre on by hand. In fact, It was close to being described as a ‘loose’ fit.

I added 100mls of sealant – since I had some ‘true blue tyre goo’ from a swag bag at a race, it was my sealant of choice.

Somewhat foolishly, i decided to have a go with a track pump to see if i could inflate it. I pumped like a madman – nothing. Not even close. Next I tried laying the tyre on its side and swirling to get the sealant to contact the tyre bead ( i repeated on both sides). Then I pumped like a madman again. Sealant was bubbling out everywhere, but before I knew it, I had pressure! I actually aired up a loose fitting 29er tyre with a freaking track pump! Especially since I didn’t need to resort to the soapy water trick. Incredible!

So I pumped it up to 60 psi and left the tyre on its side to seal one of the beads, I turned it about 15 minutes later and repeated several times. There was quite a bit of bubbling of sealant around the bead at first, but with each turn, the amount of air leaks decreased until there was no more. 8 hours later and the tyre is still as hard as a rock…. WIN!

So onto the small block 8. Track pump – no success. Car compressor (37L/min) – no success. Garage compressor (lots L/min) – no success. Small block 8’s are not meant to be tubeless….

First ride on the single speed

My shiny new bike is now filthy and muddy. Foot rub has taken some of the paint off the crank arms and cable rub has marked the paint aswell. In short, it isn’t new any longer.

Since I am still on annual leave, I took the single speed for a maiden voyage in the pouring rain. There was a section of trail near awaba that I wanted to check out after briefly visiting it with B-rad during the Pie Eater 100. It was a hoot, my biggest complaint about the whole mornings ride was the amount of mud I got in my eyes from the Nevegals. My lord they can throw some clay around!

The bike was faultless and the full rigid didn’t take too much getting used to. In fact, it was just like being a kid again since I started out mountain biking on full rigid steel frames in the early 90’s. Halfway through the ride I stopped and inverted the stem and rolled the handlebars forward a little to try and lengthen the cockpit a little, it seems a KHS medium frame is a relatively small medium. This small change made a world of difference and now the bike has gone from feeling far to upright, to fitting like a glove.

The big wheels do a great job of smoothing out trail chatter and go a little way towards compensating for the lack of suspension. In fact, I think i might call this bike ‘Proud Mary” after the CCR song which gets stuck on repeat in my head while riding this bike.

With the weather not really looking like improving, there is a small chance I might be running single speed at the next club round to save the drive train on the anthem….. we shall see.