Category: acquired things

This afternoon I picked up a new tire for my fatbike from Trails Edge: an ultralight version of the Surly Big Fat Larry (BFL). While this tire can have chain clearance issues on the rear of some bikes, it’s right at home up front in the Enabler Fork that comes stock on my 2012 Salsa Mukluk 2.

I’d never really cared for the Endomorph tire that came as the stock rear tire on the bike. While it was fine on sand and hard pack, on even marginally slick surfaces it’d unexpectedly jet sideways if even the slightest bit of power was applied, so I wanted to do away with it. As a possible solution to this I decided to try a BFL up front, and move the original Larry tire from the front of the bike to the rear, fitting it backwards for increased traction while pedaling. With this tire acquisition I was able to do so (photo).

One common trick on fatbikes is to put a very knobby rear tire on the bike to ensure that it doesn’t lose traction in the rear. This would be appealing for pure snow and trail riding but I frequently ride this bike on paved and hard pack surfaces, so I’m not sure this would be good for me. The super-grippy Nate would work well for this, but I can only imagine how quickly paved surfaces would wear on it, not to mention the tremendously increased rolling resistance. The Larry tread seems to be good for all around use, so I went with it.

When moving tires around to fit the BFL I was surprised to find that the original tires from the bike were both wire bead. At ~1370g the BFL isn’t a light tire, but the ultralight 120 TPI version with a folding bead ends up being a bit lighter than the narrower wire bead 120 TPI Larry’s ~1430g that had been on the front of the bike. The Endomorph which ended up getting removed from the bike is ~1420g, which makes the overall loss from the bike a whopping 50g, with 10g being transfered from the front to the rear. While it isn’t much (0.3% of the overall mass of the bike), I’m not going to complain about losing mass when going to a much larger tire.

Fitted to the Mukluk’s Rolling Darryl rims I measured the BFL at 4-3/16″ when inflated to 20 PSI just after installation. The BFLs are known to stretch quite a bit as they sit at higher pressures (in three hours it was up to 4-5/16″) so I’m not sure what the final size will be, but this is already quite a bit more than the original Larry’s 3-5/8″. It’ll be interesting to see how much it stretches overnight.

Here’s a few more photos of the bike and Big Fat Larry tire taken today:

· Surly Big Fat Larry tire, ultralight version (folding bead), as shipped from QBP.
· Surly Big Fat Larry on a Rolling Darryl rim at 20psi in a Salsa Enabler fork. There is plenty of room to spare.
· With the Big Fat Larry on the front of the Mukluk I moved the regular Larry to the rear, and reversed it hoping for greater traction in the snow.
· Current state of my Mukluk, with a Big Fat Larry front tire, reversed Larry in the rear, bash guard, trigger shifters, and lights. Weight is 35.38 pounds as shown.

Since I had the scale out I decided to weigh a few parts of the bike and see how it adds up. Here’s what I came up with:

Front Wheel w/ ultralight (folding bead) Big Fat Larry Tire: 7.62 pounds
Rear Wheel w/ wire bead 120 TPI Larry : 9.2 pounds
Tube: ~450g
Larry Tire (120 TPI, wire bead): ~1430g
Big Fat Larry Tire (120 TPI, folding bead): ~1370g
Endomorph Tire (120 TPI, wire bead): ~1420g
Complete bike as seen here with front and rear lights: 35.38 pounds

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These shoes may just be overkill, but since I love riding in the winter I wasn’t able to pass them up. This afternoon while stopping by the Northville Trail’s Edge shop to pick up Danielle’s new bike I saw that the 45NRTH Wölvhammer boots were in stock and I decided to try them on. For the last year or two I’ve been using a pair of Pearl Izumi Barrier GTX shoes that I bought used from my friend Bob for a very good price. They work okay, but aren’t quite as nice as I’d like, and after an hour or so without chemical warmers my toes still end up cold.

I wasn’t intending to purchase some of these boots, but after trying them on and looking them over I was sold. Retailing for $325 they aren’t cheap, but I think they’ll be worth it. I haven’t had a chance to try them on the bike, they seemed quite comfortable and rather warm while trying them on, very much like heavier normal cycling shoes. They are heavily insulated and even have an aerogel insole to cut down on heat transfer through the metal cleat. (Much more tech detail here.) So, if everything goes as I expect they’ll be perfect for longer cold weather rides this year. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll be able to wear then on a cold weather ride to my parents house for the holidays, just as with last year.

To cut down on sole wear I fit all of my shoes with Crank Brothers Shoe Shields beneath the cleats. For these boots I had to file one corner down on each shield (photo), but this wasn’t hard to do and allowed everything to fit nicely. This was a bit of a surprise, but it’s a much better option than trimming the soles themselves.

Now that I might still hang on to the PI shoes for not-that-cold-of-weather rides, but that remains to be seen. If they don’t get worn it wouldn’t be terrible if I were to sell both these old PIs and my old Sidis. There’s no point in keeping functional (albeit worn) bike shoes around the house when someone else can make good use of them.

Here’s a few photos that I took of these shoes:

· 45NRTH Wölvhammer winter cycling shoes, side view.
· 45NRTH Wölvhammer winter cycling shoes, bottom view.
· Crank Brothers Race Cleats along with Shoe Shields on the bottom of the 45NRTH Wölvhammer shoes. The Shoe Shields needed some filing to make them fit.

I need to rebuild the FOX F29 RLC fork on my Titus, so I ordered the supplies to rebuild the fork, but found that I’d need a socket that has had the face ground flat in order to properly (read: safely, without marring the aluminum) remove the top caps from the fork. While openly contemplating what to do about this on Facebook a friend of mine, Mark Dombrowski (also the MCMBA Trail Coordinator for ILRA) offered to make me an aluminum socket to meet my exact needs. He’d done the same for himself in the past, and this one was like his, but with the incremental improvement of a 15mm hex cap for turning the socket.

This sort of socket (or one with the face ground flat) is needed because FOX top caps have very thin flats and are made of aluminum. The internal flaring on most sockets either won’t mate well (best case) or will round off the cap (worst case). Grinding a hardened socket flat can be quite a pain, and having a softer tool for turning the aluminum is a good idea, so he came up with this.

I’m really thankful to have one of these. Once the replacement parts come in I’ll be able to rebuild the Titus’ fork, and I also should be able to use this on the fork which’ll come on the bike that I’ve currently got on order. This is a really nice part.

Here’s a few more views of it:

· Looking into the business end of the socket which mates with the 26mm top cap.
· The opposite end of the socket has a 15mm hex fitting.
· Oblique view showing the nicely machined part.
· Socket with Industrial Sharpie labeling so I can remember its exact sizes.