Surly LHT Frame arrived today

Wehey!  Frame arrived today.  Only four working days for delivery as well (although it did seem a lot longer to be honest, like waiting for Santa ;)).

Copious-and-mostly-pointless but here's a stack of snapshots:

For the record, that's one excellent
toasted sandwich maker top left. :)

Mmm.... fleecy warm...

First glimpse at the frame...

Close up of the rear mech dropout...

Lots of 'masking' caps over the various
braze-ons...

Cantilever brake stop / rack mounting
braze-ons

Surly seatpost clamp...

Steerer tube...

Forks packaged up...

Front
of
fork

Back
of
fork

Have already decided on a variety of parts to go on the bike, more to come tomorrow.

Surly Long Haul Trucker frameset purchased

After quite a bit of umming and ahhing I finally settled on the Surly Long Haul Trucker frameset:

There aren't that many places that sell them in the usual mainstream places in the UK (although HAH they are abundant compared to stockists for Middleburn cranks!!!), but thankfully Wiggle do sell them at a decent price (link to the bike at the time of writing is here) so I stumped up the cash and went for it.

I opted for the 54cm 26" black version of the frameset, so for my height / 'standover' leg length I think that should be about right, maybe a touch on the small side (my last bike was a 56cm 700c steed and that's just about right), but I thought a slightly smaller frame might make for easier riding than being stretched out and I can always up the saddle / handlebar height slightly - I'm not going to be going for speed with this bike so aerodynamics isn't an issue!

So, yes, bought the frame today!  £318 was the price for the frame + forks.  Delivery says 4-6 days but I'm in no mad rush...

Park Tool PCS10 Workstand / Repair Stand

Why get a workstand?

Having decided to build my own bike, I thought it was about time that I actually got a decent workstand to do all the work on.  I've never actually owned a bike workstand despite doing all my own work on my bikes since... forever...

In the past I'd just relied on the tried and tested method of turning the bike upside down and sitting it on the saddle/handlebars to do any fiddly work on the drivetrain etc. All of which is fine and dandy, and to be fair I could easily have built this new bike doing it that way... but but I thought it might be interesting to see what benefit a workstand actually gives.

Mind you that said there were a few jobs that I thought a workstand would be beneficial for - pressing the headset into the steerer tube for one thing.  I could probably have done it without a stand, but given that I was using a DIY tool I'd made myself (more on that at some point soon!), I decided that a decent stand would be better to hold the frame in place whilst I pressed the headset cups into place.

So, I decided to go for a decent stand - if I'm going to be spending a lot of hours working on the bike then I might as well splash out a little bit for a decent stand.  So generally 'decent tools' when you're talking about bicycles means only one thing... Park Tools! (Actually it's 'Park Tool' - no 's' at the end!  Some crafty bugger has registered 'parktools.com' and it certainly ain't anything to do with the bike tool company!)

Which stand?

There are untold variations on the theme when it comes to buying a workstand and Park Tool have a huge variety.  After a bit of research on the various Park Tools stands, I narrowed it down to the following two models:

Park Tool PCS-9 Home Mechanic Repair Stand

Park Tool PCS-10 Home Mechanic Repair Stand

To look at, they look almost identical, but from what I could get from the various reviews I read the main difference is that the PCS10 was a bit more substantial / higher quality in it's components/build, with better legs and a better clamp.  The price difference was quite a bit as well, around £80 for the PCS9 vs £120 for the PCS10.

In the end I went for the PCS-10 based on the various reviews I read on various bike shop sites and on Amazon etc - it just sounded more substantial than the other.

Ordering the stand

I ordered the stand from Tweeks Cycles on 10/10/13 via Ebay for £129.99 and they dispatched it the same day to my surprise (I expected it to be 3-5 working days at least).  In the end it arrived the very next day as well, so top marks to Tweeks for that (I've ordered other bits from them as well and they always arrive very quickly, would highly recommend them).

The parcel arrived via Parcel Farce (long story but I have history with PF so try to avoid buying from anyone that uses them to deliver items), and true to form the box had a nice little nick in it.  Of course maybe it wasn't Parcel Force that carved the nick but it wouldn't surprise me given what I know they can do with items from previous experiences.

Anyway thankfully this item wasn't really the kind of thing that even Parcel Force could damage (short of taking a sledgehammer to the box perhaps!), the nick was just on the outer box but the box the stand was in was fine inside.

Unpacking the stand

The stand itself is extremely solid and reassuringly heavy to boot.  Putting it together was reasonably straightforward, the instructions included were fine to follow really (the only thing that threw me a bit was the fact that the springs they mentioned in the inventory list didn't seem to be included... I only realized after a couple of minutes of headscratching that the springs were already inside the legs!).

Initial impressions

The main stand upright section and the legs are made of what I presume is solid steel (feels very heavy, maybe 5-10kg or so total weight?), powder sprayed in the obligatory Park Tool blue colour. The stand extends to about 5'10" / just under 2m in total when fully extended and can be shortened to about 1.5m if need be.

The clamps that you tighten the stand upright in place with are very solid, good quality quick release levers which make it easy to quickly change the height when you're working on a bike.

The main 'head' clamp unit is extremely solid / heavy duty, feels like a really high quality bit of kit.

It has a knob at the back that can be tightened or loosened to alter the rotational angle of the clamp.

So for example if you want to work on the bottom bracket of a bike easily you can just loosen the clamp head at the back, rotate it 90 degrees, and then re-tighten the clamp in place to go to work on the bottom bracket (it's reasonably easy to do this with the bike in the stand as well so you don't have to adjust the stand first before clamping the bike in place).

The head clamp is also very clever in it's build due to the way it uses a combination of a cam based rotational locking mechanism.  Somewhat hard to explain, but the gist is that you initially lock the clamp in place loosely using the cam mechanism, and then tighten the clamp to just the right amount by turning the mechanism clockwise. 

Portability / collapsing the stand

Finally, the whole thing is portable - albeit a minor bit of a faff to get it collapsed.  With a bit of practice though it's actually very quick and it takes about 30 seconds to collapse.

Basically, to collapse it, the drill is:

1. Release the quick release at the middle of the upright sections and push the top pole inside the bottom pole all the way down.
2. Flip the stand upside down (with the legs still extended) - I find it easiest to rest the clamp/head on one of my feet!
3. Release the quick release at the intersection of the legs and the main upright 'pole' (near the bottom).
4. Release the spring from the intersection of the legs and the main upright 'pole' (there's a little ball bearing spring at the back of the stand that you press in to release it).
5. Slide the legs (still extended) up the upright pole until they meet the central quick release, fasten the quick release to hold it in place.
6. Press the ball bearing spring release mechanism in on each of the legs to 'release' the legs and then collapse each leg upwards until it slips into the plastic 'retainer' clip ready for storage/carrying etc.

If you do all that ^ right then it should looks something like this!:

Actually a lot easier to do than those instructions make out, like I say it probably only takes a half a minute with a bit of practice and it's so much easier to store when it's collapsed (there's also a bag that you can buy from Park Tool to fit the stand in if you need to carry it around regularly on bike race meets etc).

Pros and Cons

So... all in all I'm very pleased with this stand.  The benefits / pros I've noticed so far are:

• working on the bike is just a lot less hassle without having to bend over all the time.
• manoeuvring the bike into position is very simple thanks to the clever two-part locking mechanisms - it's fairly easy to rotate the bike a full 360°s if need be by adjusting the locking mechanisms granularly.
• the general feel of the stand is 'quality', all the components are well made and you generally get a feeling of reliability from the thing.
• the stand is reasonably portable - in as much as it's easy to collapse the stand once you get the knack of it.  I wouldn't want to lug it around too far though without a good bag and some transport!  But for just collapsing to make room when it's not in use, it's fine.

The few downsides I would mention are:

• when a bike is in the stand, the handlebars can easily whip around and can hit you in the head if you're not careful or used to it (hey, guess what, there's even a Park Tool accessory you can buy to 'isolate' the handlebars / stop them moving around in the stand!).  To be fair though that hasn't happened to me yet too catastrophically.
• the stand takes up a lot of room if you're in a small workshop.  This is mainly to do with the geometry of the stand - the back part of the stand takes up a large amount of room which you can't really access if the workshop / space you're working in is only a little larger than the width of the stand itself.  This is mitigated slightly by the fact you can rotate the bike in the stand though.
• there are no accessories included 'by default'.  There are however plenty of useful accessories you can purchase for extra wonga.  This is a slightly annoying thing, you've shelled out a considerable amount on a stand so you'd expect some of the accessories to be included (especially a tray to put your tools in, which is only available at extra cost).
  Still... I suppose the counter argument for that is that it's 'modular' and you only have to buy exactly what you need (eg not everyone needs a disposable towel holder which believe it or not IS actually an accessory you can buy for this stand!  ... I would actually find that quite useful!!).

Summary

I would highly recommend this stand if you work on your bike frequently and are fed up of bending over to do it.  OR if you know you'll be working on your bike a lot for some reason - in my case building a new bike.

There are cheaper options out there, but for the amount this stand costs I think the extra quality, reliability, durability and usability are worth paying a bit more for - high bang for buck ratio as it were. ;)

It's not likely to go wrong in the next few years - or even decades! - so it's the kind of thing you'll probably be buying once in a lifetime and better to splash out a bit extra now rather than have to fork out again later because you scrimped on it.  And actually even if it DOES go wrong, apparently you can buy replacements for most of the components which is a sign of a quality product.

Torque wrenches

Torque wrenches have always been something I'd thought of as being superfluous to requirements: I didn't have a very expensive bike made of carbon, so had no need to be ultra careful tightening things up, and generally I think you just 'know' when something's tight enough as a rule of thumb.

Well, at least that's how I used to think until I managed to shear a seatpost clamp bolt on my CX bike... slightly annoying really because I didn't put a lot of pressure on it, but I suppose it's probably designed for more 'slight' racing frames / posts and not meant to be tightened too much.

Also I found myself struggling to release some components / bolts without resorting to some kind of 'breaker bar' solution or whacking the wrench with a hammer - specifically pedals often got 'welded' on, ditto crank bolts (doesn't help I can never remember which way the threads are on those two items, always end up looking it up!).

Anyway after that I thought I'd have a look at some torque wrenches and find out exactly how tight I was tightening these things, and how that compared to what I hsould have been tightening them to.

Bikes are quite awkward because the majority of tightening requirements are very low torque (2Nm - 20Nm), although there are a few instances where you need a lot of torque (crank bolts are usually 35Nm - 50Nm).  As a result really you need two torque wrenches to be able to cover all possibilities (since low torque wrenches generally only go 'up to' about 15-20Nm, and even if you do get a wrench that says it can cover all possible ranges from 2Nm-100Nm, say, a lot of the time those smaller torques will be difficult to 'pick up' on the wrench because they're really designed for larger torque values).

So, in the end I settled on a combination of two options:

• Draper 28757 3/8-inch 10-80Nm Square Drive Ratchet Torque Wrench
  (~£20 at time of writing - link to Amazon item - where I got it from - here)
• M Part Cycle / Bike Torque 1/4-inch Square Drive Ratchet Torque Wrench - 3-15nm - 7pc Socket Set Included
  (£35 on Ebay from Tredz Bikes)

Here they are side by side:

Both of them have the same kind of 'action' for changing the torque setting - you twist the bottom of the wrench to increase or decrease the torque setting and then lock the bottom in place when you're at the setting you want to tighten to.

They also have the same kind of 'action' for indicating when the required torque setting is reached - the heads of the wrenches 'break' slightly with an audible clicking sound.

The smaller M Part wrench came in a nice little 'set' which included a number of hex ('allen key'!) bits, plus a posidrive bit (if that's what it's called, the head with a little star shape on it!).  The quality of the set is brilliant though - as you'd expect for a little bit more money at £35 - each of the hex bits is set in it's own 'adapter' which then just slips straight on to the wrench and is held in place by a lovely(!) tactile push button which secures/releases the bits from the driver.  I think of the two wrench this is my favourite to use, it's just so easy switching bits around and the general quality feels a bit better on it.

The Draper is still very good quality though, don't get me wrong.  It feels a lot more sturdy than the smaller M Part wrench, although I suppose you'd expect that given that it has a larger driver (3/8in on the heavier duty Draper compared to 1/4in on the more gentile M Part).

I've found the Draper very good so far for tightening crank bolts with more confidence due to the larger shaft and heavier driving head, although I did have to purchase a new set of hex bits for it since I didn't have any 3/8 inch bits.  I could have probably gone for just an adapter and made do with the set of bits I already had, but I figured a dedicated set for this wrench would be easier all round - and I'm glad I did this because the set I got is very nice, Laser 0593 Hex Bit Set - 3/8" 7pc, probably Taiwanese or Chinese manufactured but very decent quality for the price - ~£10.

Some minor issues I've found - the Draper wrench only measures torque for clockwise threads, so it's unfortunately not ideal for doing both sides of a crank or pedal set (since one side on each of those items is threaded anti-clockwise).  This is a bit of a shame, but still being able to know how tight one of the sides is it's not hard to then move to the other side and apply roughly the correct amount of torque.

The other issue I have is actually remembering the torques required!  I resorted to writing out a spreadsheet with all the torque settings for the majority of main components which I then look up on my tablet if I need to double check.  I meant to trim the sheet down to size so it only contains the items I might tighten regularly and then print it out and store it in the M Part case (which has a handy little zip pocket in it!), but this printer is out of ink here, have to sort that.

FWIW I got most of my 'data' from this page:

Torque Specificaitons on BikeTutor.com

Some great resources over there, check it out.

By and large, I think I found that for components where the torque settings had to be very low, I generally tended to overtighten things - not massively, but enough.  An example might be gear shifters on a mountain bike, where the torque required can be just 5Nm or so - I would probably usually hand tighten it to about 8-10Nm without thinking about it too much - which is fine and probably wouldn't do much damage, but still a lot more than it really needed to be.

At the other extreme, for high torque settings I actually generally seemed to get those about right - although to be expected maybe since the margins of error are a lot higher for things like pedals and cranks.

Would I buy them again?  I'm not sure actually.  They are nice tools to use for everyday tightening/loosening, but not sure I'd bother buying them again unless I decided to buy a very expensive bike perhaps or carbon based components where too much torque can be devastating.

BAH who am I kidding, of course I'd buy them again... I think I'm hooked on buying tools actually... :p  It's like some kind of primordial desire I have recently to just buy tools, tools and more tools!  (And even make the tool if I can't justify the cost of buying the real thing, more on that later at some point hopefully!).

Anyway, finally here are a bunch of pics of the wrenches.

Here's a picture of the M Part wrench set - the case is a fabric 'sheer' cover over a neoprene type outer case, with heavy rubber like foam holding everything in place, generally feels very decent quality (hah, forgot though, the very first time I zipped it up, the zip broke!!! actually hasn't happened again since that first time so it's all good):

This is the heavier duty Draper wrench close up looking at the torque scale:

This is the torque scale on the M Part wrench:

Bike specifications

General Requirements

The requirements I have for a new bike are slightly complicated.  Primarily this bike is replacing another bike that was used with panniers to carry (a lot of!) shopping - we don't have a car, so having a bike that can carry a lot of weight in panniers is very useful.  However it also has to be good for doing daily rides out -10-15 miles or so - and over various terrains - mainly on road but probably 10-20% offroad.

Another fairly restricting limitation was that I needed to be able to reuse a lot of parts from my old 26" Marin mountain bike.  Mainly this meant sticking to a 9 speed spec (since the chainrings were 9 speed, as was the reasonably new rear derailleur) and also it had to be able to fit the 26" wheels that I'd built up myself for the old bike (the old wheels were built around Hope XC hubs and whilst they've had 5yrs+ of very good use, they're still very serviceable).

I also wanted a bike that would be a bit different to what I've been used to over the last 10 years - my two bikes have both been aluminium frames, so I thought I'd have a go with a steel frame just for a change.  I've ridden a lot of steel framed bikes in my time, but all when I was a lot younger - maybe 5-10 or so different bikes as a teenager, all steel framed and all very good in their own little way - but when I came back to cycling again at 30 or so, everything seemed to have gone aluminium so I've just stuck with that really over the last 10yrs.

So all of that ^ ... means a 26" specific steel touring / hybrid frameset!

The quest was now on to find a frameset that would be suitable to base the build around.

Frame Options

I looked around at various different options for the frame, mainly touring framesets.  A few options I looked at included:

Thorn bikes

Thorn are a UK based bike manufacturer and they do a lot of 'old school' steel framed touring bikes that are renowned worldwide for their durability and general excellence.  I was quite tempted to go with a Thorn bike, I'm not entirely sure what put me off Thorn to be honest... I'm sure I'd have been very happy with a Thorn frame, but it just didn't work out in the end.

Cotic

Cotic do a lot of steel based frames and are known for being good for custom builders who want a unique bike.  I seem to remember that their options for touring frames wasn't great (or non-existent), or perhaps they didn't do a 26" touring frame, maybe that was why I didn't go with them?  I'm not sure to be honest... again, not to do them any disservice, they seem to be a very good manufacturer by all accounts but I just didn't find the right thing there.

Looking at the site now I remember looking at the Road Rat (pictured below as a pre-built bike, but they sell the frameset on it's own):

I thought that frame was very nice indeed and if my requirements were slightly different I might well have gone for that (and may do in future!), but unfortunately it was only available in a 700c frame size and didn't have any braze-ons / fittings for the panniers/mudguards that I wanted.

Salsa

Again, like Cotic, Salsa do a nice range of steel frames aimed at the custom build market.  I would probably have gone for one from here if it weren't for the - rather superficial - fact that a friend has the same frame that I would have had to go for!  Otherwise they do some lovely frames.

Dawes

I did briefly consider Dawes as well for a frame.  I know historically they've been a popular choice for touring frames, but when I looked at the latest range they seemed to be not quite so good as the older frames.  Whether that was people just being snooty about the older frames being better than the new... I don't know; but the general concencus seemed to be that the older frame design was better than the new one.

Incidentally when I was at Uni I used to ride my flat mates bike which was based on a Dawes Supergalaxy frame (I think?).  It was a lovely machine, with flat handlebars instead of the normal drops - which made it very practical for riding shorter distances around Uni and gave it a nice look to boot, especially with the purple frame colour (sounds a bit 'yuck' when you say 'purple frame' but this was a beautiful thing).  The feel of the frame was very nice as well, had a little bit of give / flex in it so it felt really comfortable to ride.

Surly

Surly are an American based bike company who are renowned for no-nonsense bikes that just do the job and do it well.  I'd been aware of them from reading about XC mountainbiking some years ago and had always thought they looked a bit too ... rigid ... or .. sturdy(?) ... for what I was doing back then (XC riding at that time).  However, that kind of a bike was actually just what I was looking for now.

Surly do a nice few options for touring bikes, the main one being the Long Haul Trucker.  The number of bosses / braze-ons / lugs etc that they include is huge - 3 water bottle attachments, panniers front and rear, mudguard attachment points, even a pump fitting point under the top tube and an attachment for carrying spare spokes!  Not sure I'll be needing that to be honest but still it's a nice added touch.

I also liked the fact they do the LHT in a 26" option which allows me to re-use the parts off the old bike easily.  The frame is also 'Fine For Fatties', which with my large girth I was happy about (FFF refers to 'fat' tires actually!)... so the option is there to put nice wide tires on through the winter months to get out and about in the snow easily.

Conclusion

So... in the end I opted for the Surly Long Haul Trucker frame.  It seemed to suit my requirements very well: a 26" version of the touring frame available, a huge number of attachment points for mudguards/racks/panniers, a large number of positive reviews online from happy custom build bikers*; the Surly LHT sounded like an ideal choice.

* - in fact the number of online reports was quite a big part of my decision I think, there are a HUGE number of Surly LHT builds posted out there on teh interwebs, along with lots of useful information on issues with the build - but basically there seemed to be very few issues, which was what I wanted to hear!

Welcome to my Surly Long Haul Trucker (LHT) bike build blog

What's this blog about?

On this blog I'll be documenting the build process of a bike based on the Surly Long Haul Trucker frameset (frame and forks).  As I source the various parts for the bike, I'll be adding comments about the thought process involved and on any problems I encounter along the way.  There will be copious amounts of photographs as well. :)

Surly Long Haul Trucker 26" Black Frame

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The need for a new bike came about after my old bike - a 10 year old Marin Nail Trail hard tail - unfortunately fell apart at the seams and was no longer usable.  Basically a crack developed around the bottom bracket shell and eventually this gave way, separating the chainstays from the BB shell and obviously rendering the frame/bike useless.

Cracked bottom bracket shell, thankfully it cracked at the TOP of a hill. :)

All very sad (I'd had a lot of good riding out of that bike) but actually I had been expecting it to happen for a good 1-2 years.  The crack looked like it could just be paint flaking away at the welding joint, although after 9-10 years I did tend to think that it was more than likely to be a frame failure as well, so it wasn't entirely unexpected when it finally gave way.

Marin Nail Trail in happier times - all loaded up for a camping trip in Edale in 2004

Anyway, this was the perfect opportunity to start anew and build a brand new bike from the frame up!

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Why build a bike from scratch?

Good question!  There are plenty of decent enough bikes out there to be bought 'off the shelf' but over the last 10 years or so as I've been getting back into biking more and more, I've found I really enjoy tinkering with bikes - taking components apart, servicing things, putting them back together again... all strangely therapeutic as it goes.  I find my mind tends to just clear as I work on my bike and for that short amount of time I am working on the bike, I can just relax and enjoy it.

Another reason - linked to the above - is that there's a real sense of accomplishment about spending time building something up yourself and then being able to stand back and say 'I did that!'.  Anyone can shell out a stack of notes on a brand new bike, but if you're buying the parts and putting them together yourself there's an extra bit of pleasure involved with that I think.

Incidentally a more condensed version of all of this ^ Zen-like process is building bike wheels.  This is also something I've done a few times over the last 5 years or so and the wheels I've built myself have never had any problems at all or needed to be trued (well, I have trued them but really it was nothing at all and I could easily have gotten away leaving it).  And it's actually quite easy to do after a little bit of practice and a few specialist tools (though you don't actually need any tools at all really apart from a spoke key)... maybe I'll add something on that at some point I don't know.

Which leads me on to another reason for building my own bike - I only have myself to blame if something goes wrong!  And if something does go wrong then I know straight away probably why it went wrong and how to fix it.  Compare this to relying on a bike shop to build your bike / repair it / service it and ... well to be fair you'd probably be just as well off in terms of having a 'good bike', and you could probably save yourself a shed load of time but hey where's the fun in that!

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Who am I?

Slightly esoteric question!  I'm a guy in the UK who enjoys riding bikes.  'munk' has been my online nickname for the last 10-15 years.  I used to run a personal site at munk.me.uk but for one reason or another I decided to mothball it since I wasn't really updating it as much as I used to.

I have absolutely no connection to Surly Bikes in the US whatsoever, and perhaps I'll have to change the title of this blog at some point because it does give the impression perhaps that 'Surly Munk' is a chap called Munk who is employed by - or somehow connected to - Surly.  Again, this is NOT the case, I am not affiliated with Surly in any way.  I just happen to have chosen Surly as the manufacturer of a bike frame because of numerous positive recommendations online and because the Long Haul Trucker frame happened to fit my 'design spec' appropriately (primarily that I wanted to be able to haul a load of stuff around, but still have a reasonably agile frame!).

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Another thing...

I'm actually writing this blog AFTER I've (more or less) finished building the bike(!?!).  Along the way I've taken a lot of photos and made a lot of notes about the process, and of course, it's only in hindsight that I realized a blog was/is probably the best way to document the process.

The dates on the posts will be the actual dates I did the tasks etc involved in the posts, although like I say above I'll be 'pre' dating the posts back to the date I actually did things.  And having fun getting mixed up with tenses along the way no doubt!  ;)