Got Gears?

[Spike Spiegel]

Hi everybody! I'm posting from my spare account since my main account SpikeFC was probably blocked (maybe due to spam writing or something like that. I had a problem when my email was hacked, and I can't get it running again since the subscription for Google Workspace was suspended).

Haven't posted in a while (and sadly participated in any Build-Offs ), but more about it later on.

I didn't even had a plan in participating this year in any Build-Off, but I saw in one of the recent posts on Facebook that a category that I started a build on 1st of November would match the Offroad category.

This idea was lurking in the back of my head for a while now, and since this year I obtained a donor bike with the most important stuff for the build - the rear hub, I decided that the time has finally come to make it a reality.

First thing I started with was as always - The wheels.

Ofcourse I had a little help from my favorite helper...

Goal of this bike is to put it together using as much used parts that I can find.

Again my favorite Reusable Junk Box (or multiple boxes right now) is a gift that keeps on giving!

 

[Captain Awesome]

Your @SpikeFC account appears to be just fine. If you don't have access to the registered email for it then maybe @Cyclist can look into that for you

 

[Spike Spiegel]

So first things first... You may know me from Build Off 14 from 2019 when I made This Thingy

It wa based on a XB3 Ukraine bicycle from '79 made in the ex-USSR bicycle factory in Kharkov Ukraine.

I took it for a spin on an abandoned concrete velodrome in Warsaw called Nowe Dynasy (New Streets).

Since then I had little to no time to build anything, and even started a few new projects that I didn't quite finish up till now First due to COVID pandemic that generated a HUGE demand for bicycles here in Poland. I literally sat in my shop for 9-11hrs that was filled up with service bicycles almost up to a breaking point (We literally had to build a special shelve for storing bicycles in one of our workshops so they wouldn't sit on heaps).

And just after we thought that everything will be returning back to some form of normality came the 24th of February an the war between Russia and Ukraine started on a full scale. Since a lot of my friends are Ukrainians I just couldn't get myself do do anything with my projects. My mind was with the people who suffered and fought bravely just around our border (Kyiv is only a 9h drive from Warsaw).

Another reason was my moving to a new flat. The previous one where me, my girlfriend and our two cats lived in for almost 5 years was listed for sale by our landlord (He's an older guy that lives in Toronto, so he probably thought that if a war is raging near Poland it may soon reach our country). It took me a long 2 months to move. Good thing is that I lost almost 15 punds moving our furniture, clothes and literally tons of books.

But enough of my blabbering about recent events. Back to the build!

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Your @SpikeFC account appears to be just fine. If you don't have access to the registered email for it then maybe @Cyclist can look into that for you

Sadly it shows me message in any thread that I don't have enough priviladges to post Maybe it's due to email problems.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

So the next day these babies were trued and ready for use. The front one was made from a rebuilt Shimano HB-M435 hub with a centerlock disc brake and a Kross rim taken from a wheel with a completely destroyed hub (broken axle, trashed bearings). 32 spokes, mostly black four of them silver.

Rear one has the thing that makes this wheel special. Rim is a Kellys Double Combat that was orignally silver but I spray painted it black to match the front wheel. Sadly I had only silver spokes on the non-gear side, but nothing a black paint marker can't deal with. The special thing is this:

It's a '93 Sachs Torpedo 3x7 hub taken from a ladies trekking bike. Later sold as Sram Spectro 3x7 it combines the Sachs Dreigang 3spd hub & a standard Shimano 7 speed freehub. It was designed so that you would run a 1x7 setup and use the hub instead of the front derailleur. It would give you a perfect setup with 21 speeds since every position of the rear derailleur could have 3 speeds from the rear hub. But to run it with a 1x7 setup would be too easy for me

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Next step was finding a suitable frameset for my wheels. And here goes a big thanks to my friend Adam who is responsible for starting our small comunity of Retro MTB enthusiasts.

He has a great talent in searching the web for great occasions, and found this badly mistreated wreck-of-a-bike:

It was a Specialized Hardrock from '99. The weird part was that all the info we could find in old catalogs listed it as having Sram grip shifters. This one looked like it came from the factory with shifters matching the Acera M330 derailleurs. Price? around 12$ + shipping. Adam also being a very good friend that he is, decided after picking it up after work that he can't just pack it into a box and send it to me "as is".

This bike saw a lot of mistreating in the last 23 years due to a lot of scratches and was left outside for a very long time (the frame was covered in moss in some places, chain was rusted so badly it wouldn't move on any of the links). He tore it down to bare frame, cleaned & polished.

The bottom bracket came out with a lot of swearing, a solid portion of Pierogi & a little help from a pneumatic wrench. And after a few days I finally had my frameset with a few additional parts in my shop.

Size is around 21.5" so perfect for a 6 feet guy like me, and the tubing is Cro-Mo, so it will handle a lot of offroad beating

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Next step was to collect a lot of parts from the Reusable Junk Box(es). In my previous flat I had a basement to store bicycles & parts, and an attic to keep all the other stuff. My new flat had only a real small room in the basement, so I moved most of the normal stuff there and had to store most of the bicycle related stuff in my garage. Being that my garage is kind big, but still has a car parked inside (a '77 Trabant) that is stripped down to bare body for renovation it quickly became cluttered to a point where you can barely fit anything more there.

It took me almost two hours with a big checklist to find everything that I needed for the buil and moving a lot of stuff - whole bicycles, boxes filled with parts, furniture, and parts for both my cars.

The most important stuff was the fork.

A Rock Shox J3 from '04 that was originally designated for scrap due to it being rusted stiff. Gladly Rock Shox are very easy to take apart and service.

And here is the reason why servicing forks that use oil is a kind of "love-hate relationship" for me. I love how they work, but hate when you take them apart and literally everything gets covered in oil.

Here is also a great tip on how to clean the fork from rust without trashing the chrome plating:

I use grinding rubber normally used for skis & snowboards. It takes some time but cleans the rust into a clean surface without trashing the chrome like with sandpaper.

My first idea was to use a front disc brake that I took from an old wrecked enduro bike.

Sadly I had to change my plans after I put the steering bearings and made a mockup of the framest.

This fork was taken from a much smaller frame and thus requiers an extender to be used safely. So back to the stock Specialized fork it was.

 

[Captain Awesome]

Where are you currently at in the build process? What's it look like today?

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Next step was the steering bar, stem & all the other stuff that came with it.

I traded with a friend of mine a stock battery from my e-bike for a set of a Manitou fork & a Club Roost I-Beam stem.

Fork was already used in my girlfriends heavily modified GT RTS-2 from 1993

At first she wanted that stem on her bicycle since it look really old-school, but since she is shorter then me it wasn't a very good idea. So I could gladly use the stem in my crazy project.

The bar came from a bicycle that was designated for scrap due to a broken frame. I decided to use it since it's a little wider than the original one. Also - I hate the look of straight bars during my teenage years I saw them mostly on wallmart bikes, and really cool people had riser bars back in the time. Bar ends are taken from a Scott bike.

And complete steering bar. At first try I decided to ditch the bar ends in favor of clamped grips from a Merida bicycle. The red shifter is a Sachs Dreigang shifter. Originally the rear hub used a left side grip shift with an additional gear lock. Problem was that was desgined for much bigger trekking type brake levers and not more compact EF-51 shifters/brake levers.

As I wrote before - 1x7 with a 3 speed hub is just not how imagined this crazy MTB, so yes - it will have 3 shifters - for both front & rear derailleurs and for the hub

Why such a crazy setup? Let's do some math!

Theoretically if you would use the whole range of the casette & crankset it would have 21 diferent speeds. Each one of those settings can be multiplied by the 3 speeds of the hub giving the bike... yes you guessed it! 63 speeds

That is the theory. In practical terms you can get 9 speeds from a 3x7 setup without bending the chain line too much. Still 9 speeds times 3 settings of the hub gives 27 reliable speeds.

The rear hub has the following gear ratios:

1st - 0,73:1
2nd - 1:1
3rd - 1,36:1

So basically the rear hub works as a reduction gear on the 1st (like a reduction gearbox on an offroad car), and as an overdrive on the 3rd gear.

That combined with a 14T-32T casette and a 42-32-22 crankset gives a range of gears from 0,5:1 on the lowest gear (1x1x1 - (22 / 32) * 0,73 = 0,501875 ) and 4:1 on the highest gear (3x3x7 - (42 / 14) * 1,36 = 4,08).

And without all the science? The gear ratios work almost the same as I would have a 12T-44T casette and a 48T-22T crankset

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Where are you currently at in the build process? What's it look like today?

I did the first test drive 3 days ago. It took me almost a week since I got the frame to put it together. And I realised only two days ago that an actual Build Off had an Off Road category

 

[Captain Awesome]

I did the first test drive 3 days ago. It took me almost a week since I got the frame to put it together. And I realised only two days ago that an actual Build Off had an Off Road category

Let's see what some of the other builders have to say because the rules do state that you cannot enter with an already finished bike




Standard rules:

* You are expected to start a build thread in the appropriate class “Build Journal” section and post progress pics as you go.

• Please don't just build away and expect to jump in at the last second with a finished bike. You can enter at any time before the deadline, but the build must not be finished when you enter!
• This will be enforced

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Let's see what some of the other builders have to say because the rules do state that you cannot enter with an already finished bike




Standard rules:

* You are expected to start a build thread in the appropriate class “Build Journal” section and post progress pics as you go.

• Please don't just build away and expect to jump in at the last second with a finished bike. You can enter at any time before the deadline, but the build must not be finished when you enter!
• This will be enforced

Here's proof that I took the first photo before lacing the wheels on the 1st of November (Listopad is November in Polish) at 12:48. I just didn't know there even was an Offroad category in the Build Off, but technically I started that day with the build. I just posted it on my local Facebook group called Retro MTB - grupa sympatyków klasyki MTB since my friend Adam was torturing me to post there as I went on with building this clunker

But I'm cool with that - Let's hear what others have to say in this matter.

 

[Captain Awesome]

View attachment 217027


Here's proof that I took the first photo before lacing the wheels on the 1st of November (Listopad is November in Polish) at 12:48. I just didn't know there even was an Offroad category in the Build Off, but technically I started that day with the build. I just posted it on my local Facebook group called Retro MTB - grupa sympatyków klasyki MTB since my friend Adam was torturing me to post there as I went on with building this clunker

But I'm cool with that - Let's hear what others have to say in this matter.

I get that and I appreciate you posting that however it is still finished at the time of entering so let's see what everyone else has to say. If anyone objects we'll have to deal with it then

 

[Son of Kradus]

I get that and I appreciate you posting that however it is still finished at the time of entering so let's see what everyone else has to say. If anyone objects we'll have to deal with it then

after being involved with RRB ive come to the realisation that everyone has a different build speed, I myself take a month or so, others 3 months and theres some who can literally knock a complete bike together in days,
after looking at these pic's I rekon this guys genuine, he has cycling attire on a rack in his lounge and his mrs is a keen biker too, I think he could very well be capable of knocking a great machine up within a week, maybe even days!, im cool with this...very jealous but im cool with it!
Also he has a cat...cat lovers do not lie! LOL

 

[Cyclist]

Sadly it shows me message in any thread that I don't have enough priviladges to post Maybe it's due to email problems.

It's fixed now. I did find an issue. Give it a try.

 

[SpikeFC]

It's fixed now. I did find an issue. Give it a try.

Thanks! Now everything works perfectly

 

[SpikeFC]

after being involved with RRB ive come to the realisation that everyone has a different build speed, I myself take a month or so, others 3 months and theres some who can literally knock a complete bike together in days,
after looking at these pic's I rekon this guys genuine, he has cycling attire on a rack in his lounge and his mrs is a keen biker too, I think he could very well be capable of knocking a great machine up within a week, maybe even days!, im cool with this...very jealous but im cool with it!
Also he has a cat...cat lovers do not lie! LOL

First Build Off bikes took me about the same. Since the RRBBO's are happening in the time when bicycle season is at it's height I have very little time to work on my bikes. On the other hand during October & November bicycles are slowly disappearing and it's still too early for people to rent & service skis.

Working in a bicycle service also helps to build bikes quicker

 

[GeePig]

Well, I am not sure what happened there, but, anyway, hello from Lublin!

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Welcome back Spike, I was wondering where you'd gotten to! I don't know about rules for the contest, I'm not in the off road category, I'm just glad you are around again.

 

[SpikeFC]

Welcome back Spike, I was wondering where you'd gotten to! I don't know about rules for the contest, I'm not in the off road category, I'm just glad you are around again.

As we say in Poland: "Życie..." (or "Just life..."), that's where I was gone. As I wrote above - Covid, work, moving, recently the war. I also didn't mention that in 2020 me & my girlfriend said goodbye to her father who died of post-Covid complications (he was in a very bad shape already and he got the virus during a hospital visit ) and that added some additional problems on the way. In general - Last 3 years weren't that great...