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Carbon 26+ project. Carbon, titanium, alloy and steel rotors and cables. Weight so far as shown 17.8 pounds.
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There's a mountain bike and fat bike thread.
But if you're building it, it could go in the builds thread.

Thanks man. I'll just leave it in builds. Not really a rat so a little inappropriate in builds. It's not a vintage MB or a Klunker either so it would be a little inappropriate there too. Most fat bike posts seemed to be for sand bikes or beach cruisers or modified to be rat rod bikes. I know there are MB forums but I don't care for them. I'm a RRB fan and people here are open to experimentation. I'm trying to build a mb for an old timer with specific needs. The elitists on the mb forums would probably think this bike is a joke and give me advice for a young fit taller person. I used to be 5' 10" but at 72 I have shrunk 2 inches. I need a bike that is light, upright and geared very low, way lower than any recent bikes I have trialed. A 32 by anything chainring is way more than I can handle on the new single chainring set ups they are promoting. Go down to a 24 and you got no top speed. Even the newer 50 or more tooth cassettes can give me the range. It takes a lot of cassette teeth to equal one tooth on a chainring. I am going with a double chainring, 34 & 21 teeth. The cassette is a ten speed, 11 to 42 teeth. This puts me in my sweet spot, gear inch in the 13s and I will still have enough speed to keep up on the road sections of our group rides, but I will be spinning pretty fast to keep up with those who still have tripple chainrings. Quite a few of our late 60s -70s year old riders still have bikes with tripples, some with the 22 tooth chainring replaced with a 20. They no longer make mb for the geriatric set. You gotta use an older bike or make one.





http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/index.php?forums/klunkers-mountain-bikes.59/

http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/index.php?forums/fat-bikes.74/
 
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Im 40, I use to be 6'1". Thanks to a terrible car crash I'm now an inch shorter, and deal with a lot of back and neck pain.
I honestly never expected to be alive today, and not sure I'll make it to 72.

But if I do, I hope like you; I am still able to ride. That's amazing.
 
Im 40, I use to be 6'1". Thanks to a terrible car crash I'm now an inch shorter, and deal with a lot of back and neck pain.
I honestly never expected to be alive today, and not sure I'll make it to 72.

But if I do, I hope like you; I am still able to ride. That's amazing.[/QUOTE

Through a lot of experience I have found that you need to move your body through space. Forty years ago I spent 6 months on crutches, the whole time in PT for my left knee rebuild, it was crushed and the repair was screws and the reattachment of the tendons. I have had no ACL or cartilage for 40years. My doctor can't believed it hasn't been replaced yet. Every time it got really bad exercise saved me from a replacement. My son was a ski jumper and I coached him, helped maintain the jump and climbed a lot of stairs. The knee really improved when he moved to big hills. He was on the US Ski Jumping Team but retired 20 years ago. The knee got so bad after that I couldn't stand without it buckling. My knee doctor told me to start spinning and it improved markedly. I also have had multiple back surgeries. I was on fentanyl and methadone for years but I have been off it for 15 years because I started biking and stretching. I'm not saying this will work for everyone, but for me the results of daily exercise and stretching have worked wonders. I really didn't get better when I worked. With the kids gone and lots of time because of retirement I was able to devote a lot of time to exercise. Work will kill you, retirement is the best job I ever had. Right now I do about a half hour a day stretching and three times a week gentle strength exercises for a total of about an hour. I slowly ride my stationary bike three times a day for a daily total of 7 miles. Some days I walk a mile or two but my knee doesn't like it. I use walking poles to keep my back straight and to act like a cane to ease pressure on the knees. My neurosurgeon says to walk but my knee doctor says no walking, spinning only so I mostly ride. Biking is the best, fun, gives you a good attitude too. I guess I would recommend biking on any kind of bike as good therapy. I stated biking on a very upright womans bike because I couldn't toss my leg over the saddle. I had to lay the bike down and step into the frame then pick it up. For a year and a half I could only ride around the block. It never got easier, then one day I went six blocks. After another year I could ride 4 miles. It took 6 years after retirement for me to be able ride 10 miles on single track. Last spring I rode in a 100 km gravel grinder race. I'll never be able to do that again but I'm going to keep riding and stretching and ignoring pain. My pain is tolerable as long as I keep up the biking and stretching.
 
Looks cool so far. I would like to see a build thread, and maybe sources and approx cost of the components.
 
Looks cool so far. I would like to see a build thread, and maybe sources and approx cost of the components.
OK, I can do that. Give me a few days, we are in Green Bay buying stuff you can't find in the UP. I'll see what pictures I have. I have been avoiding adding up the cost, I don't want to know. But since you requested it, I'll add it up. Later alligator.
 
I'll try and resurrect some kind of build thread. First I had four months recovering from an injury so I spent a lot of time laying down, researching components and looking for bargains on my cell phone. I got a lot of stuff from eBay by making offers on new, but older technology. I thought about what I could ride when I recovered. It has to be light for my advanced age and poor physical condition. Second, we have mostly sand and gravel at our new house. There are no rock gardens but there are some steep climbs up or down forested glacial sand dunes and roots. So a light plus bike without suspension seemed just the ticket. So ideally it would be all carbon, titanium and aluminium alloy. Ideally turned out to be too expensive or fragile for the weight saved. Then I researched the cost and durability of each component. I looked at the latest technology and what that technology was designed to do. I decided I don't ride hard enough to need boost geometry so older and cheaper frame technology will be fine for me. Carbon fiber mountain bike wheels crack and if they are under warranty you have to wait for a replacement. High grade alloy rims weigh almost the same as carbon, so I got Velocity Blunt wheels with 35mm wide rims, new but 26 inch for about the same price as the hoops alone. They are through axle as I ride hard enough to frequently bend the old skewers and axles. The frame had to have 142 spacing for the rear axle. I went with a full carbon frame, fork, seat, gooseneck, bars and seat post. I may not use the seat on this bike, it looks uncomfortable and too light to last. I also got flat alloy pedals with titanium axles to put on the carbon crank. Because of cost and the amount of weight you would save I went with steel bolts, chain, cassette, cables and rotors. I went with 160 mm mechanical brakes as they are less expensive and weigh about half of what all but the most expensive juice btakes do. I'll talk about tires and bottom brackets when I post pictures of the build. A project like this requires a lot of thinking about what you really need and a lot of reading to figure out how best to accomplish it. I'm short and can't handle big wheels so 26+ is what I need. This tire size is being phased out so tire selection is limited. Again you can get them cheap and I bought a lifetime supply, which ain't that many. I hope they keep making 26+ because it is a prefect size for middle school kids. I'll try and post some sources that worked well for me and the cost.
 
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Couple of things U-man...
1.) Boost spacing has nothing to do with the "geometry" of your frame. Boost spacing is an effort to force you to give up your Q/R frame in a planned obsolescence move by the bike industry. Boost spacing mythology continues today, meant to convince you that 135mm Q/R dropouts are "obsolete". Wider dropout distance , or "Boost" spacing forces you to now run a $400 12-spd cassette while maintaining wheel strength and keeping a rideable gear range with one front chainring. Boost spacing only allows you to minimize the amount of "dish" in your back wheel when running giant and expensive-on-purpose cassettes. "Boost" spacing is also incorrectly stated in the fake news media as "necessary" in order to allow you to be able to run fat tires. Oh really? When full-suspension 29-ers were being forced onto the public, they were running into design, geometry and handling problems because the bottom bracket area could not accommodate wagon wheels, a BB pivot, and three chainrings all at once while maintaining workable geometry. Because of this, it presented the perfect opportunity to force planned obsolescence onto you. Bike companies then convinced you that you "need" only one front chain-ring, which forces you to run a huge and expensive 11/12 spd cassette, which requires you to have "Boost" frame spacing, which pushes your 26" bike into planned oblivion. If bike companies wanted you to keep your old 26-er while being able to run 2.8 to 3.0 tires and any drivetrain,(which you are not allowed to do) all they had to do was widen the seat and chain-stays to accommodate the wide and tall high-volume tires. This did not happen. Running a 2.8 WTB in the 26" rim size makes the overall height of the wheel the same size as a "normal" 27.5er, while remaining stronger, lighter, quicker, and less expensive while taking advantage of the high-volume tire format. Bike companies worst nightmare. 26" 2.5 to 3.0 tires are hard to find on purpose, and frames able to run this perfect combo are not made. They make too much sense now that "Plus" is the latest and greatest thing since sliced bread. We are losing the ability to think critically about these things any longer, and as a result, we are running head first off the cliff with this latest and greatest "superior technology".
2.) Having a long Chinese carbon steer tube with spacers on a maybe even cheaper chinese "carbon" frame will put you back into the hospital faster than most anything. I would not do it.
3.) Keith Bontrager said it very well. "Pick two......Strong.....Light.....Cheap" you can't have all three at the same time.. SKPC
 
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Couple of things U-man...
1.) Boost spacing has nothing to do with the "geometry" of your frame. Boost spacing is an effort to force you to give up your Q/R frame in a planned obsolescence move by the bike industry. Boost spacing mythology continues today, meant to convince you that 135mm Q/R dropouts are "obsolete". Wider dropout distance , or "Boost" spacing forces you to now run a $400 12-spd cassette while maintaining wheel strength and keeping a rideable gear range with one front chainring. Boost spacing only allows you to minimize the amount of "dish" in your back wheel when running giant and expensive-on-purpose cassettes. "Boost" spacing is also incorrectly stated in the fake news media as "necessary" in order to allow you to be able to run fat tires. Oh really? When full-suspension 29-ers were being forced onto the public, they were running into design, geometry and handling problems because the bottom bracket area could not accommodate wagon wheels, a BB pivot, and three chainrings all at once while maintaining workable geometry. Because of this, it presented the perfect opportunity to force planned obsolescence onto you. Bike companies then convinced you that you "need" only one front chain-ring, which forces you to run a huge and expensive 11/12 spd cassette, which requires you to have "Boost" frame spacing, which pushes your 26" bike into planned oblivion. If bike companies wanted you to keep your old 26-er while being able to run 2.8 to 3.0 tires and any drivetrain,(which you are not allowed to do) all they had to do was widen the seat and chain-stays to accommodate the wide and tall high-volume tires. This did not happen. Running a 2.8 WTB in the 26" rim size makes the overall height of the wheel the same size as a "normal" 27.5er, while remaining stronger, lighter, quicker, and less expensive while taking advantage of the high-volume tire format. Bike companies worst nightmare. 26" 2.5 to 3.0 tires are hard to find on purpose, and frames able to run this perfect combo are not made. They make too much sense now that "Plus" is the latest and greatest thing since sliced bread. We are losing the ability to think critically about these things any longer, and as a result, we are running head first off the cliff with this latest and greatest "superior technology".
2.) Having a long Chinese carbon steer tube with spacers on a maybe even cheaper chinese "carbon" frame will put you back into the hospital faster than most anything. I would not do it.
3.) Keith Bontrager said it very well. "Pick two......Strong.....Light.....Cheap" you can't have all three at the same time.. fiSKPC
It's a 27.5 frame and 26 x 3 easily fit the fork and 26.8 fit the rear. I know boost has nothing to do with geometry, I used the term for lack of a better term and I though everyone would understand that. I put 3 inch inexpensive Duro tires on it first to see what fits. The diameter is 27.5 inches. I know of no one who has broken a Chinese carbon frame. I have refuced the height of the spacers to the top of the gooseneck to 80 mm, which is the max recommend height for a carbon fork tube. I'm not worried about braking it, 160 pounds riding weight, sand and gravel only, and easy riding because of my multiple back and knee surgeries. Before my recent back fusions I rode hard for a 70+ year old and had many bad crashes. Some required medical attention to remove broken tree branch from my arm and broken ribs from going over the bars on a big jump. I'm done riding like this and racing.
 
As promised I have added up the cost so far, including an extra tire. The only l+ tires I can find are WTB Ranger and Surley. I have $1757.29 into it and still need derailleurs, shifters and chain. I have to wait a month for my social security check to buy them. It will probably be two more months before I have enough to finish. From eBay I bought handlebars and stem, seat post, seat, stem top, frame and fork all carbon. I also bought the brakes, ten speed cassette, bash guard, head set, seat post clamp, bottom bracket, bolt set, cables, 21 tooth chainring from eBay. I did a lot of research to find price and quality. I also got my titanium and aluminium flat pedals from eBay. I have had mixed experience with magnesium pedals, some have clicked and pieces break off with very hard rock stike crashes (standing up peddling as hard as you can down a boulder strewn hill in high gear and striking a rock. This thrrw me over the bars twenty feet and broke my helmet and resulted in a slight concussion). I'm trying alloy flats with titanium axles. I'm not buying the pricy ones because I have always brokem off the gripping pegs and can't get them out to replace them. Pedals last me about two years before the platform is shot. Hopefully with easier riding I'll get longer use.
 
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I bought the tires from US companies on line, searching for the best deal. The 2.8 tubeless Ranger tires were only $29.99 each including shipping but that deal is gone now ( l bought 2). Surley 26+ tires are also reasonable around $65. The 21 tooth chainring is steel but titanium ones are available. I have a titanium 20 tooth on one of my Specialized and it is feather light but the piece is so small that the stainless one I got is light enough. I got the frame (27.5 medium) and fork from [email protected]. They are excellent, good communication and fast, you have your frame from China in 5 - 6 days by US Mail. They originally sent me the wrong frame but paid for return shipping and sent me the right one, very fast again. They are a little more expensive as the frame comes without a headset, or axle and you have to buy these separate, but you can get the parts you want that way. The frame was $364.60 with a BSA bottom bracket. I don't need the large diameter press fit bb as I don't ride that hard and the BSA is easier to install and usually less problematic in a carbon frame, especially if you are doing it yourself. The Velocity Blunt wide wheels were a big ticket item too. I won a new set on an eBay auction and got them and a conversion kit for $300 with shipping. The SCRAM carbon crank was a real bargain, half price at only $369. I really didn't need this crank but I bought it anyway. I have seen these brake. Oh well, I should be OK with it and my wimpy riding style. I also got some parts from Amazon Prime. I am getting the derailleurs and shifters from the LBS to avoid compatibility issues. The cassette only works with a specific Shimano derailleur with an extension or a SCRAM. They know more than I do so I'll have them order them.
 
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Cool. Sounds like you are on the right track U-man! Hopefully your frame is made by one of the reputable factories in China. There are two or three good ones that make almost all of the name brand carbon MTB frames. I think you should be ok with your plans as long as you stick with them and not wham it too much! I always suggest spending a bit more money on parts, as it pays off in the long run. I was running the 26 x 2.8 Rangers last summer. VERY difficult to get onto the rim. I think they may have been 2nds and sold cheaper because of it. Oh yea, welcome to the world of crashing. I have had my share of very bad ones MTB-ing, and finally accepted that they are just a part of the deal, right? The older I get, the more cautious I am. I would post a pic of my sewn up face here, but it would scare the kids.
 
Cool. Sounds like you are on the right track U-man! Hopefully your frame is made by one of the reputable factories in China. There are two or three good ones that make almost all of the name brand carbon MTB frames. I think you should be ok with your plans as long as you stick with them and not wham it too much! I always suggest spending a bit more money on parts, as it pays off in the long run. I was running the 26 x 2.8 Rangers last summer. VERY difficult to get onto the rim. I think they may have been 2nds and sold cheaper because of it. Oh yea, welcome to the world of crashing. I have had my share of very bad ones MTB-ing, and finally accepted that they are just a part of the deal, right? The older I get, the more cautious I am. I would post a pic of my sewn up face here, but it would scare the kids.
The 2.8 when on by hand. The 3 inch was very difficult.
 
Almost all my tools are stuck in our storage unit because there is a ice drift packed up on the door. I do have a bike torque wrench, some locking plyers, shoehorns and an old bread knife. I am going to try and cut the fork tube with the old bread knife. Wish me luck. I will use two old spacers and two goosenecks to guide the cut. Picture demos my plan, but of course the fork will have to be removed first. Carbon is very hard so I may have to drive 38 miles to the nearest hardware store for a hacksaw. I already have a lot of hacksaws but they are frozen in.
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Cool. Sounds like you are on the right track U-man! Hopefully your frame is made by one of the reputable factories in China. There are two or three good ones that make almost all of the name brand carbon MTB frames. I think you should be ok with your plans as long as you stick with them and not wham it too much! I always suggest spending a bit more money on parts, as it pays off in the long run. I was running the 26 x 2.8 Rangers last summer. VERY difficult to get onto the rim. I think they may have been 2nds and sold cheaper because of it. Oh yea, welcome to the world of crashing. I have had my share of very bad ones MTB-ing, and finally accepted that they are just a part of the deal, right? The older I get, the more cautious I am. I would post a pic of my sewn up face here, but it would scare the kids.
I have unbelievable riding right from my door at our new house. I can ride gravel, sand and single track here. The single track has no rocks or jumps as it is on glacial outwash. We used to live less than a mile from the Marquette South Single Track System. I could never get strong or good enough to ride about 25 percent of those or the RAMBA System fifteen miles away in Negaunee and Ishpeming. I want to try and focus on adventure riding. My idea is to ride through the woods form home to Grand Marais, Mi, to Paradise, to Sault Ste Marie, Mi, ferries to Sugar and Neebish Islands, Barbeau, Rexton, Curtis, Seney and home through Scotts Marsh Trail. I don't know if I can get well emough to do this, about 350 miles. I gotta find other old timers that I can keep up with to go along.
 
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Meet Matt Maggot. 20 pounds, 3.2 ounces without the chain and shift stuff. I have a much lighter carbon saddle that I might swap out and I might get a lighter rear tire, depending on what it weights in this form. I can't get my pictures to be right side up, even if I edit and rotate first. My pictures come out OK on other blogs.
 
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A lot of confusing info on the net regarding handlebar width. I started out in the early days with 180 mm bars to fit through the trees as there was no single track. Now the idea is for wide bars but we have some narrow places where you need a go no go gauge. The local 100 mile race had a spot before a bridge where almost everone crashes as there is no way to fit between the trees. They say to do pushups with your arms progressively outward to find your sweet spot. That's a joke, mines at 960mm. I settled for 680mm. That is wide for what I usually ride but I put on a 70mm riser stem with riser bars and it feels real good sitting on it. I can't wait to try it to see how comfortable it rides. I hope I don't have to get a front suspension.
 
The LBS had a few comments when I brought it in for derailleurs. They said Shimano had a new derailleur for wide ratio 10 speeds that will work with my 42 tooth cassette. I didn't know about this and this is why they are doing the shift mechanism. They also told me the brand of the frame and said it was a good one, same as on many pricy bikes. They said it could be a factory second, but probably not, just an older design. Who knows.
 

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