SE Stout? Rat Rod 29er!

Yep this is still the SE Stout. Got tired of looking at all that red paint. I also like rat rods... if you know what a rat rod car is, then you'll know what a rat rod bike is! I had to start somewhere. So starting somewhere meant grinding off those gawd-awful rear brake posts... as seen in the pics below.

The paint was actually really thick on this bike... a hassle for feathering the edges between old paint and bare steel. Some thick primer helped as you can see.

The whole bike has a few coats of primer on it as shown above. To get it there, I had to sand the edges of the decals to blend with the paint. There was a lot of clear coat over the decals but with some sanding, sanding, and more sanding, and then a lot of work with some 3M scuff pads, it looked good enough.

You can see here that the removal of the rear brake posts turned out pretty well. Outta sight, outta mind.

In the above pic you can see how I "masked" the head tube to keep excess paint from interfering with reinstallation of the headset. SE did a crap job of that when the bike was originally made but I expected as much so nbd. What you see here is nothing more than some cut-off sections of big wood dowel with a long section of all-thread holding it all together. Worked well. Bottom bracket shell was protected the same way.

Pic below shows the near-final job (head badge added a few days later). After those layers of primer, I sprayed on some satin black hear and there. That was followed up with light scuffing with scuff pads to help get a worn-thru look. In hindsight, I should've used gray paint instead of gray primer, as the gray primer was too easy to sand thru (revealing red) but it was easy to touch up those spots with more gray.

Several coats of satin clear went over the satin black and primer. I was panicking at first because the satin primer was going on cloudy in spots (humidity?) but it dried clear as the label promised.

Got that cool cog from a guy on eBay selling cool cogs that he makes by himself. Search eBay and you'll find him. Not the cheapest, but no worse than some of the other widely-available cogs.

You can see some of the rub-thru look here. What you can't see are the ground-off old brake posts - good riddance!

Same old drivetrain...29 tooth up front, 19t cog in rear, Spot chain guard keeping it on. And yes I know the bottle cage is ugly but hey I do use this bike so the cage stays.

Salsa CroMoto fork is also a carryover. Love it, and love the juxtaposition of old and new on this bike and on most rat rods in general. BTW I get 10 extra points for using "juxtaposition" in a complete sentence.

Love these rotors too... think they're Gators... and they even work.

If you want whitewall 29er mtb tires, you only have one choice... and that's them. And those wheels... the wheels are Velocity P35 single speed wheels. They are a whopping 35mm wide which really spreads the tires out. Sweet. My only concern is that the rims are not eyeletted, so we'll see how they hold up over time. They do use sealed cartridge bearings and - so far - are sweet and smooth. Head badge set me back a whopping $3. Colors match too. Out on the trail, someone said "Cool - I never saw a Flying Goose before!" Well that makes two of us... at least.

SE Update

It's been more than 3 months since the last post - Christmas, snow, snow, snow, and other excuses come to mind. Ah, whatever. As the snow clears here in SE PA I thought I'd toss out this update on the SE. The bike is a 1x9 as you'll recall. It still is, but I added the new Shimano 12-36 cassette in the back. This bike is not a weight weenie special so who cares about the extra grams. I snatched it off eBay for cheap before people started really looking for 'em, which later pushed the price up close to retail. The big reason this didn't go on when I first built the bike was that I thought the hub was aluminum (per SE's vague description). Upon assembling the bike it was obvious the hub was steel and would tolerate a "carrierless" cassette but I didn't have the patience to wait for a 12-36 (they were still being made of unobtanium) so I initially assembled the bike with a conventional 11-34. The 36 tooth 1st gear cog provides some nice assistance on the steeps. The X.9 rear derailleur shifts up and down from the 36t without complaint. And I'll never miss the 11t cog on most of the trails around here! While the rear wheel was off, I also yanked the stock solid axle out and replaced it with a Wheels Manufacturing skewer axle. As I had suspected, the stock axle was not perfectly straight so it made me feel even better about removing it and tossing it in the metal recycle bucket. Good riddance! My concern with switching to a quick release on this bike is a fear of the axle sliding under braking and pedaling forces. Conventional wisdom in the mountain bike world says to use Shimano XT skewers as they have good clamping force. So as you can see they're on there. Now I didn't get many miles on this set-up due to snow, but I'm anxious to see how well this works. If I notice some sliding, there are two options: bolt-on Halo skewers (hex wrench required) and/or adding a tug to the non-drive side (of course the tug will only help in one direction). Stay tuned.

Though I liked the Velo seat that came with the SE, I didn't like the seat on the old Trek 820 sitting on our trainer (a Spesh roadie seat). So the Velo seat went onto the trainer, and a new WTB Pure V went onto the SE. Well, truth is this came off the Cobia rigid and a new seat when onto that bike, but you get the idea. The Pure is new to this ride. I have every confidence it'll be sweet.

And I couldn't resist this... what better way to tell your buddies you're on steel?

Cheap Steel: SE Stout 1x9

I really wanted a steel bike. Why? Heck, I don't know... what kind of question is that? I just wanted a steel bike. But it had to be cheap. And it had to have at least a few gears to go easy on my crap left knee. Cheap with a few gears... a 1x9 set-up should do it. And thus the quest began. Last spring my quest centered around a Gary Fisher Ferrous. But as 2009 wound down, GF decided they weren't selling enough and stopped offering these steel bikes. Bummer. And it seemed like they dried up on eBay too. As time ticked by, my Internet surfing eyes kept coming back to the SE Racing Stout... and Bikes Direct was now selling it - in a box - for just under $400... shipped to me. Well I just couldn't resist... What follows are post-build pictures. For my own future reference, and possibly to provide other folks with some information not found elsewhere, I thought I'd document some of the details of the build. Here's the finished bike, ready to roll. It won't be clean for long. SE offered a green bike in this model year ('09) but they seemed to have been snatched up first. I would've preferred a green bike, but for the ~$200 savings I'll settle for red. I don't know what they call the color, but I call it "1990 Thunderbird SC Red". If you know me, you know why...

Closer view. You sharper dudes out there might start to notice some non-stock parts, and you'd be right. The only thing I kept from the stock bike were the frame (duh), the headset, the wheelset, and the seat. Everything else was auctioned on eBay, save for a couple odds and ends worth keeping - the bottom bracket (a nice ISIS unit) and the stem (a nice light 100mm x 7d piece).

While we're staring at the headset, I should point at that the stock headset appears to be a steaming POS. Now before you go off and say "well, what did you expect", please note I'm not here to say whether the bike is a POS or not a POS. I knew that for $400 I'd face a combination of pleasant and unpleasant surprises, so it's no big deal... just pointing out the good, the bad, and the ugly. So chill.

Anyway, the stock headset is just an old-fashioned ball-in-cage affair. The balls are small and the cups are crude, so when it takes a dive I'll just slap in a decent headset and go on with my life. The badge on the head tube is real nice.

See, I told you it is a 1x9. That's a SRAM X.5 rear shifter there, and no front shifter. No, it doesn't have the snazzy name of the X.7, X.9, or X.0, but I used this one to maintain consistency with my other bikes. You see, the current X.5 is just like the last-gen X.7s I have on my other bikes.

The Titec carbon fiber bar and aluminum/carbon wrap stem were just laying around so they got pressed into service. The carbon bar will soak up some of the vibes from the rigid steel fork.

Speaking of the steel fork, I had a barely used Salsa CroMoto Grande fork laying around so I installed it. This fork has more offset than the stock SE Landing Gear fork (43mm vs. 38mm) which will quicken up the steering. And heck I just like the looks of the contrasty black fork in place of the red stocker. Both have about the same axle-crown measurement: ~470mm, equivalent to an 80mm suspension fork. Both are steel. Also, the stock fork had v-brake posts and I was installing discs, so the Salsa disc-only fork is cleaner.

Speaking of discs, here are the BB7s I installed. Why BB7s and not some funky hydraulic set-up? I've got BB7s on my other bikes. No brainer.

Those discs are 180mm, btw. I used 'em 'cause I had 'em. Note that Avid's adapters are for their 185mm discs. And yes, 5mm is a big difference on discs, so some clever adapter finagling had to happen. The front adapter is a 160mm rear adapter. Yes, just add 20mm to the rear adapter's size designation and - presto - you've got the equivalent front adapter size.

If you're REALLY SHARP you've noticed a quick-release skewer in place of the stock solid axle. First, about the stock solid axle: it's a 9.5mm x 26 tpi thread. Sort of odd, since most front axles are 9mm... found out the hard way since I ordered a 9mm assuming that's what it was only to find out I was wrong. So I got a Wheels Mfg. #10 hollow QR axle and cut it down to 111mm. Wow, those Wheels Mfg. axles are really nice compared to the ugly and soft stockers!

One strange thing with the Wheels Mfg. axle - it's a tad skinnier than the stocker. The stock solid axle measures out to nearly 9.5mm on the threads whereas the WM axle was between 9.3mm and 9.4mm. So things are a little looser on the WM axles... but that shouldn't pose a problem.

Moving away from the front of the bike (finally), here's a shot of how SE does the bottom bracket and ties it into the chain stays. Sorta old school, but solid. And cripes, there's that GD plastic Shimano BB cup... yeah I know someone makes an alloy cup, but it costs about as much as a BB!

While we're here, a note about the general construction of the frame. First, the welds are nice - nicer than those on my '08 GF Cobia frame, for sure. Second, everything else is not as nice as my GFs. There is a strange set of ripples on the drive side of the downtube near the bottom bracket. Can't see it, but it's there and it's strange. And the paint (or is it a powder coating?) is nice and thick but chips easily... ask me about how the chain slipped it of my hands while I was installing it and how the derailleur slung it around at a crazy speed and chipped the paint on the seat stay (ouch). Yeah, my bad, but the paint seemed brittle. Some of the junctions between the stays and the frame are a little odd too... odd as in who cut that, a blind guy. And the rear v-brake posts aren't welded on at the same height and angle. No biggy for me as I'm running discs, but another oddity nonetheless.

The seat stays are mounted in the same fashion as the chain stays. There's good tire clearance for fat tires... the one here is a fat Kenda Nevegal which still clears even with the rear axle slid pretty far forward. That said, my '08 GF Cobia frame has even more tire clearance (and my '06 GF 293 has less...).

Why this exciting picture of the water bottle mount? Well, you may not be able to see it, but the water bottle mounting lugs are not set straight on the seat tube! The two on the down tube were straight, though. Batting .500 I guess. Luckily the water bottle cage is easy to bend so as to give the appearance that all is straight.

Moving right along, here's the front end of the drivetrain. I had a Race Face Turbine crankset laying around, as well as a 30t chainring sans ramps and pins, so on they went. Yes this is a 94mm/58mm compact crankset, so I could even install a 29t chainring if I feel really feeble.

Because the stock bottom bracket was ISIS, I bought a ubiquitous Shimano UN52 68mm x 113mm square taper bottom bracket (complete with the plastic cup on the non-drive side... did I mention I hate those). Keeping the chain on the chainring is a Spot Singlespeed chain guard on the outside and an N Gear Jump Start chain deflector on the inside.

The Spot guard had to be ground down to clear the bulky crank arm... nothing a few minutes with a Dremel and a file didn't cure.

The Jump Start had to be cut so I could tighten the clamp more. You see, the seat tube outer diameter is about 30.3mm and the Jump Start only comes in 3 sizes. I bought the 31.8mm clamp version but perhaps I should've started with the smaller size. Oh well... some careful trimming of the plastic clamp cured that too.

The SRAM PC-991 chain is a tad on the long side as I may want to try out that new Shimano 12-36 cassette. Oh yeah - about the cassette - that's a SRAM PG-980 11-34 there. I wanted a cassette with a carrier to distribute the load to the freehub better, since SE implied it was aluminum. OK, they said the hub was aluminum - the freehub is steel. Shoulda guessed. With a steel freehub you can run pretty much any cheap cassette you want since the steel freehub won't be affected by individual cogs digging in, whereas cassettes with carriers should ideally be used with softer aluminum freehubs.

Lessee... that's an X.9 long cage hanging there. Yeah, I coulda used a medium or short cage with a 1x9 but I already had the long cage. Maybe I'll snoop around for a cheap shorty.

Here's a good view of the combo chain tug / derailleur hanger. It works. Also seen here is the bolt-on rear axle which I believe is a conventional 10x1 mm thread. It's a cheap soft POS like the front, and yes it's even a little bent. I will either replace it or go to a QR set-up. I'm not sure the QR thing will work well with those monster axle mounting tabs though.

Speaking of bent, one of the tabs - the left one - is a little bent. Bent as in curved, not the result of a badly aligned weld. Doubt it happened in shipping as the box was intact. Luckily the bend is toward the back and doesn't seem to affect either axle or brake mounting. Again - welds are good, the rest "not so much". As long as it works, I can live with some imperfections... heck, my wife does every day!

The stock seatpost - a 27.2mm x 350mm unit - looks a lot like this Bontrager post. It was a real nice piece, but I figured I'd eBay the new post and use the Bonty.

The seat seems real nice so I'll give it a go.

Wheels are Weinmann ZAC 2400 rims with 36 spokes laced to SE-branded hubs. The hubs use simple loose bearings. The rims are v-brake compatible. Bottom line - nothing fancy here (and nothing light!) but they should give some decent service until I find a deal on a better wheelset.

Until I can think of something else to cover the welded-on v-brake posts, I slipped some black vacuum tubing over 'em. Ugly, but not as fugly as a plain steel post. If I feel bold I may cut 'em off altogether.

Check out the cool "SE" cut into the left tab. The disc brake mounting slots also seemed cool but they just seem to let the caliper rock back and forth in a random fashion with no real rationale as to why. Perhaps the rock-ability is to accommodate different disc sizes, and/or to allow some fine-tuning of where the brake pads ride. Or maybe it's for easier wheel removal with certain brake set-ups... who knows!

That brake adapter is a rear 185mm piece cut down to accommodate a 180mm rotor. One nice thing about this set-up: I can get the wheel off without removing or even loosening the brake caliper.

So that's about it for the newest build. Despite some imperfections, I'm happy with how things came together. A quick ride around the 'hood already reveals a velvety smooth ride compared to the aluminum rigid; can't wait to hit the trail!

Middleburn to the Rescue!

Yep, you're looking at a new 30 tooth middle ring and 40 tooth big ring. They are Middleburn rings of the Slick Shift / Hard Coat variety, meaning they are ramped and pinned (hence the "Slick Shift") and coated for durability ("Hard Coat"). The coating is weird in that grease sorta stains the stuff, but BFD... the gears do the trick! Current cranksets were born in the 26" tire era and are typically 22-32-44 as far as tooth count goes. 29ers have taller tires (duh) and to compensate for the 10% extra diameter, a theoretically ideal crankset would have 10% fewer teeth on each ring. The crankset on this bike now sports a 20-30-40 set of rings. I'll admit it - if I grew bigger muscles I could've stuck with the 26er rings. But the 20-30-40 sure feels nice when you're climbing the steeps. And - an added bonus - additional clearance under the big ring. So there's less chance of boogering up a rather pricey ring on a rock or log - a good thing.

I couldn't resist making this octane sticker for the bike... you see, I have access to these stickers, and if you cut a 2 off a 112 octane sticker and a 9 off of a 98 octane sticker, you can make your own special sticker. How cute.

Later.

Carbon Fork

On One Carbon Fork

You may recall the carbon fork which showed up a couple weeks late. Well, I couldn't just let it sit there staring at me. So I slammed a new race on the fork, removed the steel fork, and installed the one you're looking at here. Speaking of "the one", it's from a company called On One, a UK company. They say their carbon fiber fork has no weight limit, a good thing given my 200+ pound butt will be riding it. It weighs about 2 pounds, a little less than the steel Salsa fork and a lot less than any suspension fork. The bike weighs about 26 pounds (pedals and all), 4 pounds lighter than my full suspension bike. That's a pretty decent weight for an XL frame 29er that's not on any kind of "weight weenie" diet. I think it's the lightest bike in the house, to tell you the truth... kids' bikes included. The ride is noticeably more muted with the carbon fork. It feels a lot like my fs bike does when the fork is locked out (which as you may know is not really 100% locked). As was the case when I first rode a carbon fiber bar, I was surprised how noticeable the difference is. With a cf fork, a cf bar, and thick grips, a long ride around Blue Marsh may just be tolerable! Time will tell...

Mike's "New" Bike

Mike's "New" Bike

Cobia frame... and nothing else.

I picked up a new / unridden '08 Gary Fisher recently. OK, it was already dismantled and didn't include the wheels and front fork. All the better, 'cause I didn't want those parts anyway... nor any of the other parts either. So what I got was a frame to keep and a whole bunch of parts to auction off at eBay.

I wanted a light frame with a short chainstay length (the distance from the center of the cranks to the center of the rear wheel). This aluminum 21" XL frame is said to weigh less than 4 pounds and the chainstay length is 17.3". Hard to find a frame more fitting. It also has a nice long ETT (effective top tube length, basically the horizontal length from the seat post to the head tube) which suits my long torso nicely. Really, ETT is way more important in sizing a bike than the long-used seat tube size. But never mind that.

The other thing I wanted was a rigid front fork, making the whole bike a "rigid". I won an auction for an On One Carbon Fiber fork, but weeks later it was a no-show, so I chickened out and ordered a Salsa Cromoto Grande steel fork. And wouldn't you know it... right after I got the steel fork mounted, the carbon fiber fork shows up. I guess I'll have to try that one of these days too... So you're probably wondering why anyone in their right mind would forego shocks on a mountain bike, especially in this day and age where if one shock is good, two are way better. There's several reasons really. One, they're lighter - like about 2 pounds lighter - than a suspension fork. Two, they're cheaper... like about a fraction of a Fox 29er fork. Three, they're retro... are there any riders under 30 who've ever ridden a bike sans shocks? Geez, our old Stingrays didn't have shocks. What we didn't know didn't hurt us. Much.

Another awesome mod on this bike - a set of Race Face Turbine cranks. Yeah, pretty much the same as Kelly's. These are running on an ISIS bottom bracket, but otherwise they're the same compact cranks that allow you to easily mount up a 20 tooth granny gear, a great thing for old farts on tall tires. The gearing changes afforded by these cranks compensate for the tall 29" wheels versus the common shorter 26" wheels. Sweet stuff.

Race Face compact cranks... too bad they're no longer made. Hey, see how small that 20t granny gear is?!?! George you'd love that.

Other additions... X.9 rear derailleur and X.7 everywhere else. To those of you out there contemplating a front derailleur on your GF Cobia/Mamba/X-Caliber/Paragon/Rig, know this: the short chainstays make any front derailleur a tight squeeze. The stock FD is a simple Shimano Deore - top pull / low clamp. Not knowing any better (yet), I ordered a low clamp X.9... and it didn't fit. The tire was kissing the thing. Not good. So then I tried to order a high clamp X.9 (like the higher end models use) but ended up getting an X.7 instead since it's essentially the last-gen X.9. Except... except it has a different arm to accommodate top and bottom pull cables. And of course the bottom pull part of the arm was kissing the tire. Have hacksaw, will travel... the saw and some sandpaper made for a nice circumcision of the offending appendage. So now the bike sports a one-off derailleur. But it looks clean and it works fine.

Seat is a WTB Pure V Pro... does anyone else make seats? The post is a 350mm Bonty piece - nuthin' fancy. Seat clamp is a stock Bonty. Brake levers are the ubiquitous Avids... oh yeah, these would be stock on a normal Cobia. Headset = FSA ZS3. Grips are ODI Rogue lockers - not light but thick - good for absorbing vibes.

The rims are stockers from my 293... not wide, but fairly light, and they rarely need truing. Dare I say never so far. The bar is a Titec carbon fiber number with a barely detectable inch of rise which puts it about where my 293 bar is when the front fork is sagged (translation - when my fat arss is sitting on it). Stem is a simple Bonty Select from the 293. Brakes are new BB7s pinching 180mm rotors. Rear cassette is a SRAM PG-990; it's purtier than the Shimano XT but not as robust. Oh well.

Salsa Cromoto Grande fork. Tire-flung pebbles make a retro "ting ting" sound on the True Temper OX chrome-moly steel.

OK, that's a lot of wind about the bike. I did have fun building it, but what about the ride? First impressions were "this feels weird". But because your riding position doesn't change - no shocks to sag - it quickly felt like the math said it should - like my other bike, only firmer. And lighter and more flickable too. It's probably 4 pounds lighter... maybe more?

Now, I'm not gonna kid you... rocky descents are hairier without shocks to take the edge off. But if you stay loose and let the bike do its thing, it does pretty well downhill on the rough stuff. The real test will be French Creek's rocks... not that I would prefer to ride it there all the time, but I'm looking forward to trying it at least once!

Now where's that carbon fiber fork...

Kelly's "New" Bike

Sometimes you get lucky... the frame you see above was a lucky find on eBay. Steve, if you're reading this, thanks again! What you see above is Kelly's "new" ride. Two things came together to make this possible. One, my eBay notifies me when Gary Fisher Sugar 29ers come up for sale... I guess I'm curious to watch them come up on the auction block since I have one myself. So one day a clean Sugar 293 frame showed up and I started watching the auction. The second thing was that Kelly would probably prefer a full suspension bike, if only for the cushy ride compared to her hardtail. No, her old bike, silly - the Fisher Cobia she was riding for the last few years. Most of you out there in blogville know that new full suspension 29ers don't come cheap. So somehow I won the auction. The frame showed up packaged beautifully, and to be honest this bike is cleaner than my '06 293 even though it's older. It's an '04, but it must be a late '04 as it has the beefier rear shock mount gusseting. Kelly's Cobia went onto the workstand and off came all the donor parts - darn near everything. Components on Cobias aren't quite as high up the food chain as what would be on a 293 but everything just plain works.

• The RockShox Tora fork is solid, albeit a tad heftier than it's Reba big sister. On it went to the new frame, held in position by a new Cane Creek C1 headset. The C1 is not fancy but it's got the right lineage and at $10.50 was certainly the right price.
• Race X-Lite stem, Bontrager bar, and Ergons went right on.
• The Avid BB5 brakes went from Cobia to 293. They aren't as easily adjusted as the venerable BB7s, but I'm used to fiddling with them and when set up right they work as well as the BB7s.
• Oh yeah, the rear triangle needed a Trek 210648 disc brake adapter. Interestingly, adapters are sold on eBay for $38, but the real McCoys are available from your friendly Trek/Fisher LBS for half that. Go figure. Two bolts and you can remove the v-brake posts!
• A new Titec Pluto setback post went into the seat tube. The 293s employ a bigger tube than the Cobias, and the post I had in inventory didn't have the setback I was looking for. The seat was a carryover.
• The stock Shimano LX front derailleur from my 293 was mounted on this 293, and the stock rear derailleur from the Cobia found its way to the back of this 293.
• New brake and derailleur cables - SRAM Flak Jackets - were fitted.
• Wheels and tires are Cobia carryovers.
• The big change: a RaceFace Turbine compact crankset. The granny ring is a 20 tooth and the middle ring is a 30 tooth... very, very desirable gears for 29ers as it results in the same gear inches as a conventional 26er mountain bike. Another eBay score, of course. The Turbines (and other 58x94 compact cranksets) are no longer in production so when they show up on eBay they inevitably draw a lot of attention. Luckily you can still get chainrings for these things. At this point, the new SRAM 991 chain is not slipping on the rings, so new rings can wait. The only thing I'd change would be to install a 40 tooth or 42 tooth big ring.

So there you have it - Kelly's new ride. Now we've got a medium Cobia frame just waiting for our daughter to grow into it (grammar -5). She's got an X-small Trek right now but really should be on a small. Unfortunately, in no time she'll be ready for a medium...