KMC Chain power link broken

Cleaning the bike today (well, the chain anyway, couldn't be bothered doing the rest of it) and whilst I was using the Park Tool cyclone thingamabob / chain cleaner I noticed the chain had got stuck.  On closer inspection it turned out the KMC 'power link' had snapped!

Not very impressed really, only done about 500 miles on the bike so far so for it to snap like that so soon is a disappointment.  Thankfully I have loads of old SRAM powerlinks knocking around so I just used one of those, seems to be fine (although not ridden on it as yet, should be fine I think).

Generally re the bike... well, very very happy with the bike generally, as above, must have done a few hundred miles on it now and it's very solid/sturdy/stable and surprisingly agile if you want to put your foot down.

Really need to sort out some tires though for winter, the ones I've got on at the moment were originally only meant for summer and with this winter weather it's getting a bit tricky at times with sliding around - already had a couple of near falls with wet leaves and mud, let alone snow/ice which is bound to arrive at some point soon. Need to research some decent winter tires.

The mudguards have been a godsend though in the last few weeks with all the rain/mud knocking about.  The only minor quibble maybe is that the guards are a bit too big and so mud / water can sometimes spray outwards off the inside of the mudguard... but really it's nothing much.  But then again they do look the business and don't exactly look too big.

Have tested the panniers out quite a few times now with shopping, done a couple of quite large shops as well with 10-20kg loaded up.  Was quite surprised actually to read on the rack that the max weight is 35kg... despite having the rack for years and the 35kg thing being visible for years, I never really thought about it too much... but having done some concrete work and having had to buy big bags of sand, I know each big bag of sand is 20kg... not quite sure I'd want to lug ~two of those on the rack, that's quite a large load!  Nice to know it can take it though.

Adjusted riser bar

Adjusted the riser bar today.  As it was it was awkward when getting up out of the saddle when climbing because the handlebar grips were kind of in an odd position - closer to your waist than chest which isn't comfortable for climbing out of the saddle.

Anyway, I undid the stem and flipped the riser bar over 180° and readjusted all the shifters etc.  Felt slightly odd at first but actually seems to be a bit better like that, especially when climbing, so will probably keep it like that for a while.

Managed to get a chunky twig/stick stuck in the chainrings today though, not had that happen before.  Was a bit dodgy because it was when I was going uphill and putting a lot of pressure on the pedals, nearly snapped the chain!  Don't think there's too much damage done though, the stick came out easily enough and rings didn't seem too bent out of shape.

Lezyne Alloy Drive Bracket Mount / Jagwire Non Crimp Cable Ferrules

Got a couple of items today:

Lezyne Bracket Mount for Alloy Drive Pump

I bought the Lezyne alloy drive pump about ... 2-3 years ago now(?) and it's been absolutely brilliant.  It originally came with a bracket to fit the pump to the water bottle bosses/lugs, so I fit it to the CX bike I have and it's been great on that.

Rather than buy a brand new pump for the new Surly LHT bike, I thought I'd just buy a spare bracket so I could use the same pump on both bikes.

Have to say Lezyne are great in terms of the spares you can buy for their products - whilst I was looking for this bracket (which was available everywhere by the way), I also noticed they even have a seal replacement kit for the alloy drive pump.  I don't actually need one of these right now but it's good to know they do exist.

Compare this to Crank Brothers... I have numerous complaints about Crank Brothers products that I could mention but don't really want to get started here... but just relating to the pumps that Crank Bros sell - I had a couple of problems with a Crank Bros pump I bought - a. the bracket broke due to a design fault and b. the pump itself broke (again, mainly down to the poor design of the pump).  Crank Bros don't sell any spares at all for their products (or at least they didn't do at that time 2-3 yrs ago and I'd be surprised if they sell them now) so you either have to try and complain to the manufacturer / distributor to get a spare part outside of warranty (which was useless in my experience), or stump up for a new pump (when the pump actually would work fine if you could just get the one replacement seal for it which probably costs pennies to produce)... a great deal of style over content I'm afraid with Crank Brothers.

Anyway... yes Lezyne are a preferred alternative in my opinion to Crank Brothers particularly for pumps(!)... great build quality / usability, plus great after sales support in terms of spare components available.

The bracket cost a fiver or so... which isn't totally cheap but at the same time saves having to fork out at least as much for a cheapo alternative that would probably last 5 minutes:

Fits perfectly to the side of the water bottle:

My only issue is I would have preferred to fit it to the seat tube so that it's out of the way of my feet as I'm cycling (I can just see the pump getting caught in the leg of my shorts in summer time!).  Unfortunately I couldn't fit it there because I'd already fitted the Abus lock case, and the pump bracket wouldn't fit alongside the lock case.  It'll probably be fine though.

Jagwire Pro Non-Crimp Ferrules

Hah well not a lot to say about these really (but I'm sure I'll end up waffling on anyway!).  I didn't have any ferrules to finish off the cabling (the little 'end caps' you cover the ends of the brake and gear gables once they've been fitted to stop them fraying).  I was going to go for the pennies option of buying regular ferrules, but then saw these snazzy red anodized ferrules from Jagwire and just couldn't resist.

They were a relatively eye watering £3.50 (compared to normal ferrules where you can probably buy 100 for the same price!)... although in my defence, they are re-usable... so if I manage to not lose them by catching them with a foot then they should last a while.

They have little rubber 'grommets' around the ends which you poke the cable end through and are meant to hold the ferrules in place without you having to 'crimp' them on with pliers:

All of which is fine in theory but like I say above I can just imagine them getting snagged on something and lost forever... time will tell.

SKS Chromoplastic Mudguards

Fitted some SKS Chromoplastic Mudguards to the bike today.  I'd ordered/received these quite a few weeks ago but decided to just leave them off for a while just to try the bike out as it was without guards whilst it wasn't raining.

Fitting them wasn't as bad as the last time (I have the same guards on the CX bike I have) thanks to the more relaxed touring frame design on the Surly and the touring specific lugs available for mudguards.  That said, I had forgotten how fiddly fitting mudguards can be and only left an hour or so to do the job yesterday before it got dark, so gave up half way through and waited until today to finish them off.

The SKS Chromoplastic guards are excellent though, high quality guards that feel pretty bulletproof thanks to the design of (what I presume based on the name 'Chromoplastic' is) the metallic guard shrouded in plastic.  They're not that heavy though, very light indeed.

The mudguard 'stays' are solid both in terms of materials and fittings - at the front they have a secure clip system that allows the stays to 'snap' into the clip, which in turn is then attached to the front fork lugs with a hex bolt (I think the main point of this system is if the front guard gets knocked hard or 'trapped' by a foot or something, the mudguard just unclips and is left loose of the forks, thus avoiding any further damage or accident that could otherwise have happened - can just imagine if you got your laces trapped in the mudguard stays you'd be in trouble!):

The stays are attached to the mudguard at the top with some quality little bolts, and the stays slide into plastic top 'caps' to keep things neat and tidy and avoid the stays getting snagged on clothes etc:

The only downside of that is you need to really cut the stays to length with a hacksaw to make the top caps worthwhile fitting, but it doesn't take a lot to cut them so it's no bother really and worth it to make the thing look neat.

I went for the largest set of mudguards that SKS do in the Chromoplastic model - 65mm:

Chromoplastics P 65 then.  According to Chainreaction these are suitable for 26 x 2.10 - 2.35 wheels:

SKS Chromoplastic Mudguards Sizing Information: 

Section	Rim	Tyre
35 mm	28	700x20-28
45 mm	28	700x28-37
50 mm	28	700x38-45
55 mm	26	26 x 1.6 - 2.10
65 mm	26	26 x 2.10 - 2.35 (suitable for Big Apple)

I though the tires I've got on were only 26 x 2.00, but looking at the lack of clearance between the tires and the guards I'm not so sure now, maybe they're at least 2.10...  mmm just checked Wiggle who seem to have them in and they look like they're probably 2.00... very wide then for 2.00.  Will be interesting to see how larger tires actually fit in these guards then.

Anyway the foot/pedal clearance at the front seems OK (see photo below), certainly a lot better than on the CX bike (where my foot regularly hits the mudguard quite dangerously sometimes!) - the way the frame/fork is designed, your front foot passes right in between the two guard stays and just misses hitting the guard itself, so just about perfect as far as I can see so far.  Haven't used them in anger much yet though so time will tell, so far they seem just right though:

Generally the frame lugs for attaching the mudguard 'bridges' (if that's the right term, the bits that bolt onto the frame) are excellent.  The lugs are threaded, which means at a pinch you don't actually need a nut to attach them at all, just a threaded bolt.  I added washers and nuts on anyway though just to be on the safe side.

The clearance between the seat post tube and the rear wheel is huge as well thanks to the touring designation (the extended chainstays for increased pannier space mean the rear wheel is about 2 inches from the seat post tube).  As a result, attaching the rear mudguard to the chainstay bridge was very easy and still left a lot of room between the guard and rear wheel:

Have to say though these mudguards really are an excellent combination with the Surly LHT frame.  I remember after fitting the rear guard, I had the wheel out of the frame and was adjusting the tightness of the bolts and I just though 'these are rock solid' - there's not much movement at all on the rear mudguard once it's adjusted properly, it feels like it could easily just stay attached to the bike forever without needing too much attention, would be ideal for long distance touring I think.

SKS Chromoplastics - highly recommended mudguards. :)

First Mud!

Got out in the mud for the first time today, those tires on the bike are real mud clingers, need to sort that out because it was like riding on ice rather than mud:

 Took some absolutely stunning sunset photos as well, absolutely awesome sunset, hard to believe these photos are actually not manipulated in any way (they're not!) - click them for the full version:

Fitted rear pannier rack / Abus Granit Bordo X-Plus Lock

Spent today adjusting stuff and adding on a few bits to make it easier carrying stuff.

Pannier rack

Fitted the rear pannier rack to the bike today.  Went on like a dream, no faffing around like with the previous two bikes I've tried to fit pannier racks to - must have taken about 15 minutes to fit (compared to literally hours with the other bikes).

The rack braze-on on the Surly LHT frame is perfectly positioned and a rack can be attached in either of two ways to them which is handy.  You can kind of make this out in the image below - the two 'struts' with those stoppers on can be attached either on the outside or on the inside, so in theory you have an extra set of 'lugs' to attach something to (not quite sure what that might be though, maybe a ... trailer or something? No idea.

(Incidentally on the image above you can see the damage I had to do to the 'struts' to make them fit on my old Marin bike!  That was a major PITA, took literally hours to get them to fit properly and I remember having to even take a file to the frame to file off back one of the cable stops... quite odd really, why did they (Marin) bother putting lugs on a bike for a rack if the frame clearly isn't designed for a standard rack?!)

Here's a better picture of the 'two way' braze on (bottom left of the picture):

There's tons of clearance between the rack and the wheels on this Surly build though - I can remember having issues on old bikes where the rack was dangerously close to the wheels and occasionally you could hear the rack rubbing on the tire which was less than comforting when you had a couple of fully loaded panniers flying down a hill at 30mph!  But on this frame that's not going to be an issue at all.

Strikes me in the picture above you can't actually tell what the clearance is like 'laterally' (ie from the rear) between the tires and the rack.  Trust me, it is HUGE!  Probably 1-2" at least, absolutely zero chance of the rack rubbing on the tire unless the wheel fell off or something. ;)


Another nice thing about having the rack on the bike is that I can use the rear light adapter on the pannier rack to attach the light to, saves having the rear light attached to the seatpost - which is always awkward when using a saddlebag as well and can end up hiding the light completely if you're not careful.

Seatpost

Still having issues with the damn seat post clamp (the Hope one).  I removed all the anti-seize grease that was on the shim/seatpost thinking that might have been what was causing the post to slip, but it doesn't seem to have made any difference and after an hour or so of riding the seatpost has slid right back down again into the seatpost tube. :(

I'll probably replace this Hope clamp with a more substantial steel version and give it some proper tightening, up to 20-25Nm or so.  Which is probably less than I used to do on the aluminium frame and it was fine on there, so with a steel frame it should be equally fine.

(EDIT: in the end it turns out I managed to get enough torque on the clamp to secure it without the clamp bolt snapping - from memory this was about 16Nm, maybe a touch more)

Brake Toe-in

Had some brake screeching at the front yesterday so I adjusted the toe-in on the brake pads today.  Tied a rubber band around the back end of the pad before aligning it to the rim to give a bit of 'toe' (ie so the front of the pad hits the rim before the back, supposedly that stops the screeching... though it's debatable I think and possibly bordering on old wives tale!).

That said though... the screeching did seem to disappear so it seems to have done the trick.

Abus Bordo Granit X-Plus lock

Attached this beast to the frame today as well - used the water bottle attachments on the seatpost tube just above the front derailleur to attach the carrying case.  Bit fiddly getting the bolts in place but not that much so, used a couple of washers as well to stop it coming loose hopefully.

Here's a picture of the carrying 'case' attached directly to the frame, sans lock (I have a ton of pictures of the lock which I will add at some point along with a review hopefully):

Seemed fine on a 5 mile test ride, adds some bloody weight to the bike though!!!

Out for a test ride 

I was supposed to go up and meet a friend which would have involved a 10-15 mile ride, which I was quite up for actually as a test ride but unfortunately that didn't happen.  Instead I just went on a local run, maybe 5 miles or so, with panniers fully loaded (albeit with lightish stuff) just to see how the rack held up.

Generally seemed excellent, very pleased with it indeed and clearly the frame / bike seems to almost cope better when loaded up than not loaded up, which is possibly to be expected with it having touring roots.

I'm no speed freak on a bike, but one thing I am finding with this new bike is that the gearing is VERY low (ie suited more to hills).  I think it's maybe due to my expectation that because it's almost a road based bike, the gearing should be a lot higher - or perhaps it's because my CX bike has much higher gearing - but in fact the gearing is very low and I'm finding I'm running out of high gears quite quickly - managing to get into the highest gears when doing only maybe 20mph or so.

When it comes to changing the rings next I'll probably think about stepping it up a little bit, maybe go for something like a 26-38-48 perhaps or 24-36-46, not quite sure just yet and can't remember off the top of my head what the 'recommended' jumps are between the various ring sizes (22 seems to come to mind as being the maximum you should ideally go between smallest and largest rings and 12 between smallest and middle... but I might be wrong, have to look it up).

First ride out on the Surly

Took the first extended ride out on the new bike today, albeit doing about an average of 5-10 miles an hour whilst I was constantly looking down here and there to see what was creaking, how the leg clearance was, how the saddle was for height, how the stem was for height, etc etc...

But generally I'm very pleased with the way the bike handles.

Initial Impressions

Key words I think I'd use to describe it from my experience so far are:

• Upright
  The 'virtual' top tube length seems to be a lot shorter than the old Marin bike, let alone my current 'main' racing/cyclocross bike.  Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself - it means you have more control over the bike and can turn on a smaller circle for one thing... but it does also mean the following:
• Cramped
  The bike does feel slightly cramped at the moment because of the apparently smaller top tube distance.  I think I might try and look into some kind of riser bar solution or even some kind of touring bike handlebar solution (butterfly bars are they called?) to some how extend 'forwards' the reach.  OR even just play around with the existing riser bar and turn it around so that it extends as far 'forwards' as possible, that might give me an extra inch or two.
• Stable
  The bike does feel very stable when you're riding it, and I imagine that that feeling will only increase once it's loaded with a rack and full panniers.  Which is obviously a very good thing for touring which is the purpose of the frame after all (and in my case for doing the shopping with!!!).
• Sturdy
  Same as above really, the bike feels very sturdy out and about and you don't feel like you'll come off easily.
• Climbable
  For want of a better word, by 'climbable' I mean the gearing on the bike is very low.  The combination of 22/32/44 on the front and 11-34 at the back is very much an MTB setup and I made a concious decision to go with that to make it easier when hauling bigger loads.  So that's OK... I think it's just a bit of a surprise how low the gearing is after not having ridden a 26" MTB for a few months!

Issues I've had today on the ride then:

Saddle / Seatpost

Had a bit of an issue with the saddle slipping back in the seat post clamp, literally as soon as I sat down on the saddle!  The USE XCR Alien Shokpost clamp is really terrible - or rather the two long bolts that bolt the clamp into place are terrible - they're about 3mm wide, with the smallest possible hex head, and the hex head is only about what seems like 3mm deep... so it's an absolute nightmare getting it tightened without stripping the hex head... grrr.  Might have to try and find a couple of new bolts to fit it I think.

Also the seatpost clamp is also causing problems - the seatpost keeps slipping either side to side, or down into the seatpost tube, which is something I've never had an issue with before.  I think it's a combination of the fact I have to use a shim with the Alien XCR Shokpost/seatpost, and the fact that I used anti-seize grease on the shim and the seatpost, AND the fact that I don't want to crank on the Hope seatpost clamp too much for fear that it will shear the bolt - it's one of those annoying Swiss cheese type bolts that I can tell will snap if I look at it the wrong way, let alone crank the torque up on it!

I'll probably remove all the grease from the seatpost itself (it is aluminium AND there's an aluminium shim as well anyway so they probably won't stick to the steel frame / seatpost tube anyway).  Also I'll probably crank the torque up a bit on the seatpost clamp as well - at the moment I@m up to about 14Nm, which is reasonably tight but not overly tight, I think on the old Marin I would have had it at at least 25-30Nm, but that was a solid steel bolt with a sturdy steel clamp so there was no worry with shearing the thing.

Gear Thrubbing(!)

Not sure what to make of this but there was a constant 'thrubbing' noise from the rear derailleur when I put any pressure on it in the middle chainring at the front.  Mysteriously the noise disappears when you're not on the middle chainring (it doesn't seem to be a rubbing on the front derailleur either which that fact would suggest).

It almost seems like an issue with the rear derailleur 'line' from the rear mech dropout down through the guide wheel to the bottom jockey wheel / pulley wheel.  But then again it could even just be these new Hope jockey wheels and the noise they make being 'odd' - they're aluminium, so make a different noise to the normal solid plastic wheels, almost like a ringing sound (?!) when they're put under pressure.

The other thing I wonder is if the new wheels have the right number of teeth, they have 11 teeth so have to check that's right, I know you can get wheels with different numbers of teeth...

Could try switching back to the old jockey wheels just to see if the noise goes maybe.  And to count the teeth. ;)

Top Tube Distance

The top tube seems very short as I said above, thinking about adjusting the handlebar / riser so it 'extends' forward a little bit to give a bit of extra 'reach'.  That or change the riser bar for a butterfly bar or a riser with more reach somehow.  Not sure yet.  Not the end of the world though, it's fine really and would probably get used to it to be honest.

The finished item - fully pimped out Surly Long Haul Trucker in red and black :)

Finally, here is the finished product!:

Couple of shots there then... click the images for high def versions of the pictures.

A month in the building and still a few things to iron out, but otherwise all complete, see the other posts for full gory details. :)

Fitting the Middleburn crankset + adjusting derailleurs

Got a couple more items in the post today, all courtesy of Wiggle:

Hope Jockey Wheels

Bling...

bling bling...

bl-bling bling... bling. :p

 Middleburn Chainring bolts:

Minor bling... although not too much.

Cos I know you want to know
how tight to tighten then right?!

All a bit blingy but hey, sue me. :)

I hesitate to say these are the last 'bits' to go on the bike, but the bike is now pretty much complete for the time being and I actually rode the thing for the first time today!!!  Woop!

Middleburn Crankset

Finally I got to actually 'build up' the crankset properly, putting on the old Middleburn rings that I'd salvaged off the Marin and fixing the crank onto the bike properly:

Added a good few dabs of the old 'cake mix' (anti-seize grease!) first to the rings, the last lot ended up being welded on so don't really want that to happen again (not sure it will make a lot of difference here because the bolts are aluminium rather than steel like the last lot... still, won't harm):

Anti-seize in top left, yum!

Non-bling for the granny ring...

The final product!

So, pretty pleased with that.  The old chainrings look a bit scuffed so the proof will be in the riding now.  After a quick ride out today they seemed to be ok and shifting fine (after adjusting the derailleurs, see below), although there was a bit of rubbing somewhere so will have to look at that later.

The other thing is I didn't actually apply any Loctite / thread lock as the instructions suggested - mainly because I don't have any, but also because I may well end up putting new rings on within a few months anyway so bit pointless locking them down tight just yet.

With all that, here's a picture of them on the bike proper:

Finally!  On the bike...

Adjusting the middle chainring derrailleur chain line

So, all good. :)

Refit handlebars / New Ergon handebar grips + bar ends / strip down Hope XC Rear hub

Wasn't going to do a lot today on the bike, still waiting for a few bits to arrive tomorrow so I can rebuild the crankset / put the old Middleburn chainrings back on the new Middleburn crank.  I ordered some blingy anodized red Middleburn chainring bolts to replace the rusting bolts that had been holding the rings onto the old Shimano Deore crank yesterday, so just waiting for that to arrive really.

Handlebars / Riser

In the end I decided to sort out the handlebars / riser bar - I'd mistakenly put the bar on the wrong way 'up'... in all the time I'd used the old Marin Nail Trail bike, I don't think I'd ever had the need to take the handlebar riser off the bike... anyway I decided to give the riser and stem a good wash before putting it back on the new bike, and in the process I'd put the riser back on upside down... oops!

Spot the difference:

Riser / handlebar upside down

And the right way up!

Looks a lot better actually in the second picture, must admit I didn't think about it at all until I noticed some 'patches' on the riser where the bar used to be sited in between the stem clamps which were the wrong way around.

Anyway, easily fixed, took off the gear shifters / brake levers, plus took off the old Specialized ergonomic grips that I'd had on and the bar ends, flipped the riser around, refixed it, then put back the gear/brake shifters/levers.

Ergon GC3 Ergonomic Grips

Also at the same time I added on the new Ergon GC3 bar grips which arrived yesterday:

Wonderful packaging...

... really ...

... and sooo recycleable! ...

... OK that's better ;)

The grips are ... well they're grips!  Not a lot to say about them really other than they're very comfortable and you'd especially notice how comfortable if you're moving from plain grips.  It's like putting on a comfy pair of gloves, they just feel 'right' somehow and you soon start to wonder why you ever put up with the old grips you had on.

They take a bit of adjusting to get it just right, but not that much really, maybe one ride out just to test them and see how they are.  Adjust them when you get back and you're done pretty much.

So, yes... they're grips, they do the job, what else is there to say!  Hah well if you're like me and fascinated as much by the engineering and thought that goes into something fairly 'obvious'... read on...

Ok so handlebar grips aren't exactly the most complicated of components to add to a bike, but I like all the little things that this German company Ergon have done to make life as simple as possible.  As with lots of things, German engineering* makes what is an ordinarily 'ok' product just that little bit better and more usable/functional/recyclable.

Very clever little 'assembly tool'...

For example they include a very simple little 'assembly tool' (see middle picture above) - really, it's just a piece of card(!)... but it actually made it more obvious to me that I hadn't slipped the grip on all the way as I should have done (I'd actually put the grips on BEFORE I realized they'd even included this little 'assembly tool'!!).







The engineering of the grips themselves is also very good and has a reliable sturdy feel to it.  The rubber material itself seems OK, although I must admit I'm not so sure about the 'end bars' that come with it.  I was torn between going with these slightly shorter endbars and the longer version that they do (the GP5 grips).  Anyway, not to worry, they should be OK and at a stretch there is always the option to just take off the 'integrated' endbars and replace them with a longer separate version at a later date (they pop off quite easily).

Also the packaging is interesting in it's own way - it's made from completely recyclable material, a really basic / seemingly obvious (you would think), but sturdy paper pulp like material that's been recycled from discarded newspaper or similar.  The box is actually quite solid and you could probably jump on it and (nearly!) not damage it, yet if you left it out in the rain it would probably disintegrate within a few hours, it's that kind of pulpy material. ;)  Bleh anyway going on... I just find the German 'aesthete' quite interesting / inspiring.

Hope XC rear hub servicing

Anyway... back to the bike... after refitting the handlebars I decided to strip down the Hope XC rear hub and the old Shimano 9 speed M770(?) cassette (XT I think it was?).  Not a straightforward job at all to be true but it needed doing so I just got on with it.

The internals were reassuringly black and gunky - I always use a purply/red Silkolene grease on the bottom bracket, and this grease was nothing like purply/red, more like jet black... so yes, definitely needed servicing!  I think I'd been hoodwinked into thinking it was fine by the fact I'd recently cleaned the cassette, wheel and outside of the hub to within an inch of their lives... but this was not the case and it definitely needed a good clean internally.

So, I got the Hope 'block' / freehub body stripped down - I seemed to have more trouble than usual taking the drive side spacer off... it's usually annoyingly fiddly and prone to damaging the lovely anodized red finish, but this time it was even worse... lack of light (bloody winter) didn't help!

Took all the springs/pawls out (well practiced now in making sure the springs don't fly out all over the shop!) and gave them all a good degrease/wash down.  I think it's fair to say the pawls and springs are probably on their way out, and the bearings and freehub body itself aren't that far off needing replacement as well.

I had a quick look at prices and it looks like £42 for a new freehub body on CRC, which isn't too bad at all really given that it will last a good 5-10,000 miles (based on the current one anyway - which is a lot more than can be said for those crappy American Classic freehub bodies which seem to be made of cheese and only last a couple of thousand miles if you're very lucky AND service it every few months... don't get me started on that, bloody money sink those are... meh).

Have to say though - after bigging up German engineering - Hope Tech do some really incredibly beautiful engineering right here in the UK**.  Their design for their Hope hub products is so incredibly simple and purely functional, no 'frills' in terms of badly engineered/built componentry... yet at the same time they manage to make the hubs looks so pretty.


So, anyway, yes more money to be spent there by the looks of it, though I'll probably just re-assemble the current bits and carry on using it for another 3-6 months or so.

Cassettes - service or replace...?

Always a debate every time you change a component in the drive train: whether to replace the whole lot - chain+cassette+chainrings(+jockey wheels if you're very unlucky), or just try and replace an individual part and hope it runs in smoothly with the old parts.  Invariably if you go for the latter option, you just end up having to buy each of the parts one by one anyway as you find that, no, in fact the new chain you bought doesn't work with the old chainrings... and, actually, no, that cassette will need changing as well now because the chain doesn't run right on it!

To try and avoid that, I had hoped to re-use the full drive train from the old Marin bike on this new Surly bike.  However, unfortunately for one reason or another that can't happen (main issue was that the chain length of the old chain was too short for the longer chainstays on the Surly frame so I had to get a new chain... but now I've got the problem above where the cassette and chainrings also need changing!).

So... it looks like I'll be putting on the new SRAM PG990 cassette that arrived yesterday.  Which is a real shame because the old drivetrain was quite serviceable / only had a few thousand miles on it (plus the Middleburn rings were very expensive so I'd hoped - still do hope - to re-use those on this new bike).

This new cassette looks damned pimpy though with the red anodized carrier... I don't know whether to put it on the bike or leave it on the desk next to me here just to stare at for hours on end... :p  In my defence, it was VERY cheap - £40 reduced from £90 or something like that... not sure why exactly, perhaps they're stopping selling them now or have a few left to get rid of before ending the line on CRC? .... Ok who am I kidding, the only reason I got it was because the red fit in with the rest of the red/black/white colour scheme hehe...:

SRAM PG990 9spd 11-34t cassette, pimpy red. :p
Ok, it's upside down.  But it looks far cooler that way... :p
Also an optical illusion?! Looks like it's bulging out in the middle bizarrely?!

The design of this SRAM cassette is quite good though I think: the bottom 6 sprockets are all pinned onto a single solid aluminium(?) carrier / billet (the red bit you can see above in the image), which should mean there's less chance that the sprockets will eat into the freehub block/body.

This is a major flaw / issue / annoyance with most cassettes where you have each sprocket attached to the freehub body individually: with that type of cassette, all the weight of the rider's downstroke transfers into pressure on a single sprocket (ie the gear they're currently in), which in turn means there's more chance the sprocket will 'dig' into the freehub body causing it to get scuffed up and fail quicker / make it harder to remove the cassette later for servicing because of all the nicks on the freehub body.

Compare that to this kind of cassette where a number of sprockets (6 in this case) are pinned to a single block / carrier - the pressure is distributed more evenly across a number of sprockets / across the width of the freehub body.  As a result, in theory the freehub body should last longer and not become deformed as easily.

Well... that's what I think anyway...  but enough of that techy stuff already!

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* - other notable German bike items I can think of where great engineering design make things better are Abus (locks), Ortlieb (panniers) and SKS (mudguards).

** - and whilst I'm on the subject of good UK engineering, USE do great seatposts and Middleburn do great cranks!

Finally ordered Middleburn Chainset / Finally fitted Hope bottom bracket

I'd been debating for AGES about what chainset to get for the new Surly bike.  Pretty much right from the start I'd had in mind the idea of getting a Middleburn crankset just on the basis of having used their chainrings on the old Marin bike for about 1-2 years and being very impressed at the quality of them.  Plus the chainrings (I got a set of them about 2yrs ago) were still relatively in good nick, so I wanted to just re-use those on the new Surly really if possible.

The stumbling block was partly the price - £200+ just for the crank arms + axle (on a bike where the frame was only just over £300! - but also just the fact that your common-or-garden Shimano XT 'level' of crankset is now actually extremely good quality in terms of bang for buck as it were.  So I was torn for quite a while over what to go for.  In the end I took the plunge though and went for the Middleburn option.

Middleburn RS8 XType Crankset

Ordering the thing in itself was a nightmare actually, hardly anywhere 'well known' seems to stock a decent range of Middleburn components any more (by 'well known' I mean Wiggle/CRC/Evans etc).  There was one place I came across based in Buxton Derbyshire who seemed to do really good prices on them, but some of the reviews of the place sounded horrific so I left that alone.

In the end I purchased the crankset from Freeborn Bikes.  I've never used them before (or even heard about them if I'm honest!), but I emailed them beforehand to ask about stock availability and the guy that answered seemed pretty good.  I was actually more impressed by his honesty in saying that they didn't actually stock them but could still get them out within a few days, and that most of their customers just preferred the more mainstream crankset brands (Shimano etc) because they were now probably just as good quality and as reliable etc.

Anyway, went on their site and ordered the silver 175mm MiddleBurn RS8 XType with a red spider.  Happily the item arrived very quickly, I think it took just 3-4 days to arrive which was great, I'd expected to have to wait at least a week so very happy with that and Clee's service there.

The crankset itself arrived in a heavily padded plastic envelope.  After unpacking it, there was a vacuum wrapped plastic packet inside with the crankset in and some instructions:

The engineering on them is beautiful, very much like Hope's, just really minimal in terms of materials and fussiness (or lack of!), but just oozing with quality:

In the photo above, actually you can see a few little scuff marks on the drive side crank (under the 'M' on the bevelled bit).  I didn't actually see this until the following day, but they don't look like anything more than superficial scratches so I couldn't be bothered complaining about that.  They do have a lifetime warranty on the materials so if it does turn out to be something more than just superficial then hopefully I should be able to send it back and get it replaced.

The preload adjuster is below:

Never seen a preload adjuster before on a crank, was quite intrigued by it... actually when I finally came to fit it, the adjuster was very obvious, it's really just a way to ensure that the crank is correctly located within the bottom bracket shell - you tighten the adjuster to take up any play / gap between the non-drive side crank and the BB shell.

Here's the thing slotted together pre install:

Will be fitting that tomorrow I think.

Fitted Hope Stainless Steel Bottom Bracket

Well, after having had this sat around for about a month doing nothing but looking pretty as hell, I finally got to install it now the crankset is here!!!

I did have a very minor issue fitting it into the BB shell - the reaming on the BB shell threads was slightly burred around the lug holes where the various tubes are welded to the BB shell.  It was actually fine though, just meant putting a bit more pressure on to get it 'past' those tube lugholes.

Otherwise it fitted like a dream, buttery smooth to tighten up as you'd expect with a brand new frame / bottom bracket.

The instructions for the BB indicated to put two spacers on the drive side and just one on the non-drive side (I think that's right, going from memory here)... so I did that and it seems fine.

One quibble - as with most Hope components - was that there was no indication in the fitting instructions as to how tight to tighten the BB cups.  In the end I went for about 30-40Nm, which is reasonably tight but not overtight (I think Shimano say 35-50Nm).  I'll check on it after a few months to see if it needs nipping up a bit.