Small Changes- Big Differences

The Sawyer with a shorter travel Reba G2 fork

Tuesday I had a gritchy throat which ended up becoming a full blown cold on Wednesday. so, any thoughts of long rides in the country on a chilly early Fall day were thrown out the window. I ended up nursing myself along at home and in the meantime I decided to monkey around with the Sawyer which I posted about yesterday.

Fork exchanges are no big deal, especially when the wheel standards and head set standards remain the same between parts. I just took about ten minutes to swap things around. That was the easy part.

The change to the Rock Shox Reba meant the same offset with a shorter axle to crown since the fork is set at 80mm of travel. That's positively unheard of these days, 80mm of travel, but that is what the Sawyer was developed around. By the way, I still have the original fork, but suspension for off roading sure is nice to have. The thought here was that maybe the fact that I'd been running a fork that was technically "too long" was causing my dislike of the bike's ride to some degree. Millimeters of difference, but sometimes small changes result in very different feelings and sensations while riding.

The game of millimeters and degrees of angle change are sometimes scoffed at by some cyclists. However; I would say that if I lowered your saddle by 5mm, or lengthened your stem by one centimeter, you'd notice a "big" difference. So, small changes really do matter. Even novice cyclists can tell these things. We see this all the time in the bike shop.

Te Reba has plenty of clearance with the 27.5+ tires as they are on Blunt 35 rims.

 Plunking around the neighborhood, (I was too ill to go for a full blown ride), I felt that the bike was "better". It didn't feel so up in the air, and the lowered front end made the top tube a touch more roomy. Definitely a move in the right direction. I'll have to actually get it out on a trail, obviously, but I think the slightly longer fork wasn't doing this bike any favors. Not for me, at any rate.

As a side note I also discovered I still have an 80mm travel Manitou Tower fork that would also work on this bike. It is not 51mm offset, but- and I may be wrong- I believe it is 46mm offset. Manitou liked that 46mm offset for 29"ers back then, as I recall. So, popping that one on the Sawyer would result in a different feel as well. More stability, and maybe not as eager to turn in. I may try it out as well. The axle to crown is similar to the Rock Shox, maybe a tick taller, I didn't take an exact measurement.

That all said, I probably will not be using any of the three forks. The thing I want to do here is get a 3.0" tire on an internal 40.mm wide rim and forks made the better part of a decade ago did not take such wheels in to account. I'll likely look for a newer, Boost spaced fork I can lower to 80mm of travel and that has through axles. The current, B plus wheels will likely be moved to gravel grinding duty.

The rear of the bike is a quick release, of course, but with aluminum sliding drop outs, well.......maybe I could get something made in through axle. It isn't imperative that I do so, but being that I am moving in to a modern front end at some point, it might prove to be nice to have the rear end match up.

All because the smallest differences seem to make all the difference in how much I like the bike.

Small Changes- Big Differences

The Sawyer with a shorter travel Reba G2 fork

Tuesday I had a gritchy throat which ended up becoming a full blown cold on Wednesday. so, any thoughts of long rides in the country on a chilly early Fall day were thrown out the window. I ended up nursing myself along at home and in the meantime I decided to monkey around with the Sawyer which I posted about yesterday.

Fork exchanges are no big deal, especially when the wheel standards and head set standards remain the same between parts. I just took about ten minutes to swap things around. That was the easy part.

The change to the Rock Shox Reba meant the same offset with a shorter axle to crown since the fork is set at 80mm of travel. That's positively unheard of these days, 80mm of travel, but that is what the Sawyer was developed around. By the way, I still have the original fork, but suspension for off roading sure is nice to have. The thought here was that maybe the fact that I'd been running a fork that was technically "too long" was causing my dislike of the bike's ride to some degree. Millimeters of difference, but sometimes small changes result in very different feelings and sensations while riding.

The game of millimeters and degrees of angle change are sometimes scoffed at by some cyclists. However; I would say that if I lowered your saddle by 5mm, or lengthened your stem by one centimeter, you'd notice a "big" difference. So, small changes really do matter. Even novice cyclists can tell these things. We see this all the time in the bike shop.

Te Reba has plenty of clearance with the 27.5+ tires as they are on Blunt 35 rims.

 Plunking around the neighborhood, (I was too ill to go for a full blown ride), I felt that the bike was "better". It didn't feel so up in the air, and the lowered front end made the top tube a touch more roomy. Definitely a move in the right direction. I'll have to actually get it out on a trail, obviously, but I think the slightly longer fork wasn't doing this bike any favors. Not for me, at any rate.

As a side note I also discovered I still have an 80mm travel Manitou Tower fork that would also work on this bike. It is not 51mm offset, but- and I may be wrong- I believe it is 46mm offset. Manitou liked that 46mm offset for 29"ers back then, as I recall. So, popping that one on the Sawyer would result in a different feel as well. More stability, and maybe not as eager to turn in. I may try it out as well. The axle to crown is similar to the Rock Shox, maybe a tick taller, I didn't take an exact measurement.

That all said, I probably will not be using any of the three forks. The thing I want to do here is get a 3.0" tire on an internal 40.mm wide rim and forks made the better part of a decade ago did not take such wheels in to account. I'll likely look for a newer, Boost spaced fork I can lower to 80mm of travel and that has through axles. The current, B plus wheels will likely be moved to gravel grinding duty.

The rear of the bike is a quick release, of course, but with aluminum sliding drop outs, well.......maybe I could get something made in through axle. It isn't imperative that I do so, but being that I am moving in to a modern front end at some point, it might prove to be nice to have the rear end match up.

All because the smallest differences seem to make all the difference in how much I like the bike.

Back To The Jungle

Single track = Just wide enough to get a bicycle through.

Sunday I busted out the Sawyer and actually rode some single track in the woods. Mind you.......it was only a couple of short sections. The majority of the Green Belt is so wide you can drive a school bus through it. And no- that isn't hyperbole or exaggerating. That area is cleared with an end loader and an 8ft wide bush hog type mower, and if it doesn't fit between trees, they go around them. It is the most dumbed down woods riding in the area, unfortunately, but with the City in charge, this is what we get.

Only the trail connector I put in circa 1997 is actually single track, along with another bandit connector from the lake back there to the main trail. Otherwise, it is sanitized to the point of being boring. Which wasn't the case five years ago and before all this brutal machine driven trail maintenance nonsense got started.

Well, I can pretend that it's single track, I guess. It's either that or I have to ride across town or put my bike in the truck and drive 12 miles, so yeah..... First world problems. I get that. It's just that the way they do maintenance in the Green Belt drives me nuts. It's so dumb. Anyway......

So I rode the Sawyer. Belt driven single speed. I will run that until it dies, but when it does, I'm done with belts. I just don't see the value in them. I cannot change ratios, for instance, without a new Gates cog and a new belt, which are far more expensive than a simple Surly cog and a bit of chain. (Or whatever bling-tastic cog and chain you want to use.)

About as narrow as the Green Belt gets here. Still wide enough for a car to pass.

The Sawyer! It came out the year Trek absorbed Fisher, but it was obvious this was supposed to be another Klunker tribute bike like the one they had done in the 90's. Unfortunately, it came with Trek livery, albeit really subdued graphics. I peeled off the offensive Trek head badge and stuck an NOS Fisher Bikes badge I had stashed away on there in its place. Ah! Much better! And the way it should have been to begin with.

If I am not mistaken, the name- "Sawyer"- comes from one of Gary Fisher's sons. I may be off on that though. But regardless of the origins of the name, it remains as one of the most elaborate, elegant tributes to the "paper boy bike" style of mountain bike I know of from a production line. I am not a fan of the high bottom bracket, but otherwise, this bike rips. It came with 29" wheels, but I like it 100% better with the 27.5+ wheels and tires. In fact, I think I may be getting some slightly wider rims to better support those plus tires than the Blunt 35's which are laced up on there now.

I'm running a circa 2007 Fox 100mm G2 fork on this now which is pretty nice. It matches up in terms of offset and the length is a bit longer than the stock rigid fork, but not excessively so. It works. I keep thinking I might have to try this G2 Reba I have which is set at 80mm to see if that makes a difference in handling. It probably will lower the bike a tick, which I wouldn't mind.

Tons of "Grandpa Flowers" along the trail now.

Anyway, the ride was fun despite the ease of it. The sand on the South end made the plus tires worth it, and the flowers and dappled Sunlight were beautiful. I enjoyed the Sawyer despite my love/hate relationship with this bike I've had in the past.

There was a time I couldn't stand the thing and I was about ready to pull the trigger on sending it down the line to someone else. In fact, the last time I almost did that was last Spring.

But, as they say, "almost only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades", so I ended up keeping the curvaceous rig and once again, I am glad that I have. I guess the key is that I actually have to ride the thing. That probably goes a long way in wanting to keep it around. That and there really isn't anything else quite like it. Versatile in the ways that it can be set up, that's a key right there. I don't think 650B+ was even on the radar at Fisher when this thing was developed, but it works really well on the Sawyer. I've seen 29+ wheels put on a Sawyer bike before, but I would think the bottom bracket would be sky high on that set up. Well, anyway- The Sawyer can be set up geared with a front derailleur as well as the belt and single speed, obviously. Very versatile in many ways.

The Sawyer is sticking around, and I need to get back to the "jungle" more often. But I think I need to load the Sawyer up and travel to Ingawanis. That's where real single track lives and the challenges are greater than in the Green Belt. 

Back To The Jungle

Single track = Just wide enough to get a bicycle through.

Sunday I busted out the Sawyer and actually rode some single track in the woods. Mind you.......it was only a couple of short sections. The majority of the Green Belt is so wide you can drive a school bus through it. And no- that isn't hyperbole or exaggerating. That area is cleared with an end loader and an 8ft wide bush hog type mower, and if it doesn't fit between trees, they go around them. It is the most dumbed down woods riding in the area, unfortunately, but with the City in charge, this is what we get.

Only the trail connector I put in circa 1997 is actually single track, along with another bandit connector from the lake back there to the main trail. Otherwise, it is sanitized to the point of being boring. Which wasn't the case five years ago and before all this brutal machine driven trail maintenance nonsense got started.

Well, I can pretend that it's single track, I guess. It's either that or I have to ride across town or put my bike in the truck and drive 12 miles, so yeah..... First world problems. I get that. It's just that the way they do maintenance in the Green Belt drives me nuts. It's so dumb. Anyway......

So I rode the Sawyer. Belt driven single speed. I will run that until it dies, but when it does, I'm done with belts. I just don't see the value in them. I cannot change ratios, for instance, without a new Gates cog and a new belt, which are far more expensive than a simple Surly cog and a bit of chain. (Or whatever bling-tastic cog and chain you want to use.)

About as narrow as the Green Belt gets here. Still wide enough for a car to pass.

The Sawyer! It came out the year Trek absorbed Fisher, but it was obvious this was supposed to be another Klunker tribute bike like the one they had done in the 90's. Unfortunately, it came with Trek livery, albeit really subdued graphics. I peeled off the offensive Trek head badge and stuck an NOS Fisher Bikes badge I had stashed away on there in its place. Ah! Much better! And the way it should have been to begin with.

If I am not mistaken, the name- "Sawyer"- comes from one of Gary Fisher's sons. I may be off on that though. But regardless of the origins of the name, it remains as one of the most elaborate, elegant tributes to the "paper boy bike" style of mountain bike I know of from a production line. I am not a fan of the high bottom bracket, but otherwise, this bike rips. It came with 29" wheels, but I like it 100% better with the 27.5+ wheels and tires. In fact, I think I may be getting some slightly wider rims to better support those plus tires than the Blunt 35's which are laced up on there now.

I'm running a circa 2007 Fox 100mm G2 fork on this now which is pretty nice. It matches up in terms of offset and the length is a bit longer than the stock rigid fork, but not excessively so. It works. I keep thinking I might have to try this G2 Reba I have which is set at 80mm to see if that makes a difference in handling. It probably will lower the bike a tick, which I wouldn't mind.

Tons of "Grandpa Flowers" along the trail now.

Anyway, the ride was fun despite the ease of it. The sand on the South end made the plus tires worth it, and the flowers and dappled Sunlight were beautiful. I enjoyed the Sawyer despite my love/hate relationship with this bike I've had in the past.

There was a time I couldn't stand the thing and I was about ready to pull the trigger on sending it down the line to someone else. In fact, the last time I almost did that was last Spring.

But, as they say, "almost only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades", so I ended up keeping the curvaceous rig and once again, I am glad that I have. I guess the key is that I actually have to ride the thing. That probably goes a long way in wanting to keep it around. That and there really isn't anything else quite like it. Versatile in the ways that it can be set up, that's a key right there. I don't think 650B+ was even on the radar at Fisher when this thing was developed, but it works really well on the Sawyer. I've seen 29+ wheels put on a Sawyer bike before, but I would think the bottom bracket would be sky high on that set up. Well, anyway- The Sawyer can be set up geared with a front derailleur as well as the belt and single speed, obviously. Very versatile in many ways.

The Sawyer is sticking around, and I need to get back to the "jungle" more often. But I think I need to load the Sawyer up and travel to Ingawanis. That's where real single track lives and the challenges are greater than in the Green Belt. 

Minus Ten Review- 32

I did a "Lube-Off" ten years ago. This is from last year's Lube-Off.

Ten years ago on the blog this week there were no pictures again! Apparently I did that quite a bit in 2007, but I didn't think I did. With 2 years under my belt you'd think I'd have figured it out! Ha!

Anyway, one of the things I was doing back then was a test of a few bicycle oriented lubrication products to see which one did the best job. I found that DuMonde Tech did the best job back then. Oddly enough, I haven't found anything better since then.

I was just reapplying some to a chain here in the house the other day when my daughter took notice. I should say that I get away with a lot of things here since everyone is on board with my bicycle nerdiness. Lubing the chain in the kitchen probably wouldn't fly in your house! Anyway, DuMonde Tech off-gasses a very potent smell, so beware of doing lubing in an enclosed area.

That smell is very distinctive. I always thought it was a smell I knew, but I just never could place it until my daughter described it as smelling like bleu cheese. Bingo! She nailed it. DuMonde Tech smells like blue cheese. I like blue cheese. Weird......

So, back to ten years ago.....

An argument arose based upon a story posted in "Dirt Rag" about who built the "first" 29"er with a WTB Nanoraptor. History Alert: WTB built the largest volume, 700c based, mountain bike treaded tire ever made to that date in 1999. While it was just shy of actually making the overall diameter 29 inches, it was so close as to be not worth mentioning. The real point being that you could actually mountain bike like 26"ers did with this tire, not babysit your rig because your 45mm Panaracer Smokes were too low a volume to handle things. (So, this is why all other previous attempts at 700c mtb were not successful and certainly were not 29"ers.) Any of the pioneers of the Nanoraptor 29 X 2.1" tire will attest to this fact and tell you that is why they pushed for "The Tire" to be made. See my page about the history of the modern 29"er here. 

Anyway, there was that deal, and there was also new idea concerning fork offsets for 29"ers which On One and Gary Fisher Bikes brought to the table. It was not a well understood concept back then, so a lot of banter was being written on-line about it all.

Minus Ten Review- 32

I did a "Lube-Off" ten years ago. This is from last year's Lube-Off.

Ten years ago on the blog this week there were no pictures again! Apparently I did that quite a bit in 2007, but I didn't think I did. With 2 years under my belt you'd think I'd have figured it out! Ha!

Anyway, one of the things I was doing back then was a test of a few bicycle oriented lubrication products to see which one did the best job. I found that DuMonde Tech did the best job back then. Oddly enough, I haven't found anything better since then.

I was just reapplying some to a chain here in the house the other day when my daughter took notice. I should say that I get away with a lot of things here since everyone is on board with my bicycle nerdiness. Lubing the chain in the kitchen probably wouldn't fly in your house! Anyway, DuMonde Tech off-gasses a very potent smell, so beware of doing lubing in an enclosed area.

That smell is very distinctive. I always thought it was a smell I knew, but I just never could place it until my daughter described it as smelling like bleu cheese. Bingo! She nailed it. DuMonde Tech smells like blue cheese. I like blue cheese. Weird......

So, back to ten years ago.....

An argument arose based upon a story posted in "Dirt Rag" about who built the "first" 29"er with a WTB Nanoraptor. History Alert: WTB built the largest volume, 700c based, mountain bike treaded tire ever made to that date in 1999. While it was just shy of actually making the overall diameter 29 inches, it was so close as to be not worth mentioning. The real point being that you could actually mountain bike like 26"ers did with this tire, not babysit your rig because your 45mm Panaracer Smokes were too low a volume to handle things. (So, this is why all other previous attempts at 700c mtb were not successful and certainly were not 29"ers.) Any of the pioneers of the Nanoraptor 29 X 2.1" tire will attest to this fact and tell you that is why they pushed for "The Tire" to be made. See my page about the history of the modern 29"er here. 

Anyway, there was that deal, and there was also new idea concerning fork offsets for 29"ers which On One and Gary Fisher Bikes brought to the table. It was not a well understood concept back then, so a lot of banter was being written on-line about it all.