Gravel Bike Search

tldr I gave up on fenders and bought a Pivot Vault

There's lots of dirt roads in the front range I'd like to ride, yet nearly all the high-end bikes on the market that would be most appropriate for this type of riding were optimized for going around in circles on grass/sand, i.e. the cyclocross phenomena.
Here's what I wanted in a "gravel" bike:

• carbon frame

• supports 38c tire or greater

• fender mounts

• lower bottom bracket (ie not cyclocross specific)

• 50/34 cranks

• tubeless wheelset (supports > 45psi??)

• Under 20lbs

• Hydraulic brakes (Preferably Ultegra build)

• No more than $4K USD

• Internal cable routing

Here are the bikes that more or less matched the above:

• Salsa Warbird

• Jamis Renegade Elite

• Norco Search

• Felt VR (questionable tire clearance)

• Raleigh Roker

• Litespeed T3 (not carbon, omg expensive)

Maybe I'm a snob but I'm going to rule out most of them (Raleigh, Jamis, Norco, and not thrilled about Felt). I don't see a lot of these bikes around; actually almost never. Some were ruled out based on the basis of no fenders, Scott Addict Gravel, and some not being carbon, Niner RLT. And BTW, I really wanted to buy a Niner again, but they can't be serious with an Aluminum frame at the carbon bike price point.
So, I ended up with a Pivot Vault. Yeah, it doesn't have fenders but I was able to get last year's model on sale, while customizing the build, and it ended up costing $1000 less than a Salsa Warbird Ultegra, and w/o a gross red/orange frame.Pivot labels the bike as a great all-arounder. It has a lower BB and shorter wheelbase, but not cyclocross specific. The tire clearance could have been better, only rated at 38c for 2016, but it has all the fundamentals in place.

Things that happen when you install a directional chain the wrong way

In a rush to assemble my new Yeti ASRc I installed the XT chain in the wrong direction. On the first ride I dropped the chain twice, once on BB side and also off the big ring. Another weird thing happened. When I was riding, not even touching the front shifter, it shifted onto the big ring. The big clue is one side of the chain has "shimano" printed on the links, and that should face outwards. Overall I think I did a good job on the build. It always takes longer than expected and I rarely look at manuals anymore except for torque settings.

Fork Steerer Cutting Anxiety

tl;dr Cut it a tiny bit longer and file it down to the correct length. Cover your fork with an old bed sheet to keep metal shavings off the stanchions. Make sure you're not going to cut into the star nut! Steerer should be 3mm below stem for top cap clearance. Measure top cap clearance after stem is tightened.

I read several posts on mtbr of folks using pipe cutters. They seem to work fine but roll the edge a bit. I was going to try this but my pipe cutter is for copper 1/2" and was too small. So hacksaw it is. First I drew a circle around the steerer at the top of the stem with a sharp pencil. Then I removed the stem and measured 3mm down for top cap clearance.

Next I wrapped a piece of painters tape at the top of the line. The hacksaw blade I had cuts a little over 1mm in width (kerf), so positioned it accordingly. The cut wasn't perfect but it veered out rather than in so that's fine. Next I filed it down so it'd be even with the tape. I recommend wearing gloves when filing since it can get really sharp and you need your fingers to ride your bike. Now I tapped the star nut down to the correct position.

This filing created a huge mess of metal shavings which stuck to my fork, so I spent the next 5-10 minutes cleaning shavings off. I put the stem back and tightened down on the top cap but nope it was still too tall (the compression washer in the stem moves about a 1mm as it is tightened). So back to the filing. This time I wrapped the fork with a cover. Now I could get the headset tight. It did loosen slightly on the first ride which is typical.

Top of stem marked

Measured 3mm down from top and taped

Final length

Lastly, after you preload the headset and tighen the stem, remove the top cap and measure again. The preload compresses the washer and brings the stem down a bit, such that it may be less than 3mm now and bottoming out. If it is, file it down some more

RockShox SID XX Service + Travel Change

I have my fork serviced once a year and this time I thought I'd be super smart and do it myself, saving $150. Well almost, I had to make an initial investment in some tools (crow foot wrench, snap ring pliers, etc). The oil + sram butter alone is about $38 but should last three or more services. The seal kit is $17 but one came with my fork, yay sram! Amortizing the services comes to around $30. And less if you just put in fresh fluids. 

I also need to change the travel from 100mm to 120mm for my Yeti. It seems most RockShox forks can support a travel change. I called RockShox to verify. I only had to get a new airshaft (about $25). 

After a year of riding the only thing that was dirty was the foam seals (under dust wipers). All the o-rings look 100% good. I imagine I could go two years on the seals and once a year just clean everything. The foam seals are the one thing I'd want to replace though.

In general, the sram manual is really good but here are a few snags I hit:

• The service manual states -- All o-rings should be greased but they only say this at beginning of manual -- yet they call out greasing specifically in other sections. So, I didn't grease all the o-rings, dang! But I think I should be okay since they are saturated in oil. I did grease the dust wipers (critical) and the air shaft.
• The say to use a dowel to clean the tubes but don't say what size, so real helpful there. I wrapped a cloth around a air compressor hose and it worked perfectly to clean inside of fork lowers and stanchions
• I should have printed the service manual. Instead I ended up with grease on my notebook
• The red rebound adjuster just pulls straight out the bottom, wut?? How does this stay put?
• Air shaft side required harder blows to free shaft
• Dust wipers were *hell* to remove. Super tight in there. With tire levers they were not budging. Had to ever so carefully work loose from outside with razor blade. This time I greased the seal sockets even though it didn’t call for that
• Measured oil depth to top of fork crown. 106ml was right on 72mm
• A 24mm socket would have been easier for air side but used a crow foot wrench
• The amazon snap-ring pliers deform when squeezed don’t work so well (cheap!)
• For the air shaft I installed the 2 seals inner and outer on air shaft plastic disc. Kit didn’t include other seals.
• Put some air in the air valve to push air shaft out a bit before putting the lowers back if you can't screw in bottom bolts!
• Getting the dust wipers in place was tricky, even with some grease. Can see that tool being worth it.

Before travel change measurement showing 100mm of travel

Legs off

Cloth wrapper around compressor hose to clean insides

120mm air shaft

X-loc (XX) fork requires a crow foot wrench to torque properly

In summary, RockShox forks, at least the SID/Reba, are relatively easy to service. The documentation is excellent and doesn't require any proprietary, impossible to get tools. Take your time, follow the service manual and along with saving some cash, you'll keep your fork running smoothly.

Changing Fork Travel and Tribal Knowledge

It's pretty awesome that Rockshox forks (some) can have the travel adjusted. This will be saving me gobs of money as I go from a frame that requires 100mm to 120mm of fork travel. All you need supposedly is a longer air shaft, and it's only about $25! The stanchions are already long enough, how cool! The tribal knowledge aspect of this adventure is I can't find any documentation that describes how to convert and what parts you need so I called rockshox. The rockshox guy was super helpful; he took my serial number and gave me the part number to go to 120mm travel on a solo air SID XX fork 2015 (also for reba too): 11.4018.021.000

RockShox documentation lists the air shaft sizes for wheel/travel sizes. Part numbers would have been nice here

But almost no retailer lists the part number. The first airshaft I bought was listed incorrectly and was for a 26" fork, ugh. Universal cycles does list the part number: https://www.universalcycles.com/shopping/product_details.php?id=67483&category=701

Now I'm waiting for this airshaft to arrive and I'll report back on the conversion.

Here's the photo of the 26" airshaft. There is no marking on the shaft but it's it's 7 1/4" long, then it's a 26", not 29". Notice the part # ends in 005, not 000, but who could be bothered putting that anywhere in the website description!

Here's the correct (I hope) air shaft

Yup, I measured and it's just a hair over 8 5/8" so matches up with 222mm in chart.

1x vs 2x Range and Weight Savings

All the cool kids are riding 1x setups these days and it makes sense for a lot of folks but I'm not yet ready to give up on 2X. I have been racing XC and many of the races have flat fire road sections where you would simply spin out on 1x. It's true you can go with a bigger ring in front but then you are going to suffer (maybe) on the climbs. Of course more powerful riders may not experience this situation so 1x just works for them.

Also it's important to note that with the Shimano 11-speed line, they have reduced the max difference in chainrings in 2x to 10 teeth, so you can have 26/36 or 28/38, but not 24/38 as they offered in the 10 speed lineup.

I did some research into the ranges that are possible with 1x vs 2x and 3x (Shimano only). In short, 2x10 offered 518% range, while 2x11 only offers 493%. With 1x11 it drops to 407%. There are some aftermarket options (OneUp 50T) that could get you to a 10x50 and maybe even 9x50, which would best 2x11. I didn't look at SRAM since the cassettes are OMG expensive.

Of course there's some weight loss to be had with 1x systems. I couldn't find any concrete numbers so I did a little bit of research and came up with:

XT Front Derailleur adds about 137 grams

XT Shifters are 237g, so subtract one to get 119g

Small chainring weight? I'm guessing 60g, maybe it's less

But 1x increases cassette weight: 11-36 (268g for 32) cassette vs 11-42 (433g) + ~60g

Total 255 + chainring - 60g. 

So I'm calling it just under ½ pound of weight savings for 1x (Shimano XT). XTR should be less

Lots of noise in this table but the number to focus on is the range in the far right column. I wasn't able to paste the column headers, the second from the right is the number of feet the bike travels per revolution of crank.

3x10	22	32	25.73	80.7922	4.63	555.37%
3x10	22	28	25.73	80.7922	5.29
3x10	32	11	25.73	80.7922	19.59
3x10	42	11	25.73	80.7922	25.71
2x10	24	36	28.68	90.0552	5.00	518.18%
2x10	24	32	28.68	90.0552	5.63
2x10	24	28	28.68	90.0552	6.43
2x10	24	11	28.68	90.0552	16.37
2x10	38	13	28.68	90.0552	21.94
2x10	38	11	28.68	90.0552	25.92
1x11	30	42	28.68	90.0552	5.36	407.27%
1x11	32	11	28.68	90.0552	21.83
1x11	32	50	28.68	90.0552	4.80	500.00%
1x11	32	10	28.68	90.0552	24.01
2x11	28	40	28.68	90.0552	5.25	493.51%
2x11	28	35	28.68	90.0552	6.00
2x11	38	11	28.68	90.0552	25.92

Niner RKT is Bloated

I've been looking for a new carbon FS bike, and something I'd expect in a carbon bike is it will be lighter than my alloy FS. First issue is bike mfg. seem to have a great aversion to listing weights for their products. Some do and sometimes they are way under (claimed weight vs actual). I've found that while looking at bikes any bike shop is more than willing to toss a bike on the scale when I ask.  I had my current Jet 9 weighed and it comes in just under 27 lbs. I'm considering a Niner RKT, yet Niner does not list any weights. I had the shop weigh the Large and it came out at 26.7lbs!!! I couldn't believe it. This is a full carbon frame, hi-mod carbon, at around 4.5 lbs (claimed). I think and my alloy frame is at least 6.5lbs. This particular Niner RKT was built with some questionable components (not a standard Niner star build), so I started to lookup weights to see what I could lose with by moving a few parts from my current bike:

• This bike has test pedals, so I'm going with a cheap wellgo weight of 348g (candy is 304g, so not much difference there 

• It has 2.4 EXO/TR Ardents, which are 800g vs my 2.2 ikons at 640g, so significant savings of 320g

• It has a stealth reverb dropper, so losing that will save about 250g 

• I thought it was setup with tubes which would add about a pound but it's not according to the shop.

• It has alloy bars 300g. My carbon easton's are listed at 188g, so will save about 110g there

• But it is setup as a 1x and I want 2x, so I'll add about 300g for extra chainring, shifter and front d.

So, taking all this into account I come up with about about a 430g savings (1 lb) savings, when I make a few changes. The bike would be still rather hefty for an XC machine at about 25.6 lbs. This is really disappointing for a $5K bike, compared to my ride. I know there are advantages other than weight (carbon stiffness, remote rear lockout, stiffer wheels), but I expected to be at least in the 24lb range. I imagine the Boost components are adding weight, also I'd be going from Crest to Arch wheels (about 160g difference), but I still can't make sense of this. If the bike does in fact have tubes in it then that would at least get it to 24.5 lbs and make a lot more sense, but sales tech swore they were stans valves.

BTW, another bike shop that had a Niner RKT in a proper 3-star build (with niner carbon cockpit) weighed in at 26.1 lbs, and they swore it had tubes, so that would be just about 25 lbs even, tubeless, no pedals, still a bit chunky.

Carbon Frame Search and Boost

I've been looking for a carbon frame to upgrade my Niner Jet 9. I always seem to upgrade my bikes over time, instead of just buying new, which doesn't make sense financially but I do it for some odd reason. So my current setup is a Jet 9 frame that is a couple years old and new XT, SID fork, and Stan's Crest wheels, as of last year. At this point I'd be happy to just go to a carbon frame. The frame I really wanted was a Niner RKT, but that is now on the Boost standard, so that won't work with my components. It seems a number of bikes are now on the Boost standard (Trek Fuel, Niner RKT), and this will likely take hold and become the new standard. Boost requires Boost hubs, cranks, and forks, and no adapters, as of yet are available to work with non-Boost components. I get that the industry needs to innovate but Boost is a drastic change that introduces incompatibility for forks, wheels and cranks. Undoubtedly it will sell more bikes and industry knows that but not sure the supposed advantages (stiffer wheels, bigger tire clearance) are worth all the incompatibility headaches.