Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

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Brucey
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by Brucey »

re cutting the steerer; a cheap cutter meant for copper tube (with two rollers and a cutting disc) will, if abused, cut metal steerers. However even without abuse it will neatly/accurately mark the cut you will make with a hacksaw, so I would use one just for that.
Image
this cutter will mark 1-1/8" steel tube and cut aluminium

cheap versions of this tool start at about a fiver.

IMHO there is no harm in having a spacer above the stem, so you can give yourself a little leeway on length in that fashion.

FWIW I like running 'road-ish' chainlines at the chainset if I can do, but in the simplest terms this isn't always practical, not on bikes of this sort; many of the problems are associated with the FD, e.g.

- the FD comes very close to the tyre
- fitting high band FDs is often not possible if the bottle braze-ons are in the wrong place
- low band FDs are very often 100% incompatible with a 'road' chainline on a triple; they don't move so far leftwards and the mech hits the seat tube before it shifts the chain onto the small chainring
- the position and mud-trapping of the FD needs a bit of consideration
- the tail of the FD can hit the chainstay
- the FD needs to match the shifters too

Honestly, when building up some frames, I would put 'which FD will I use?' ahead of many other considerations concerning the transmission, and accept compromises in other places if the FD is going to be a stinker to select and fit.

cheers
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Jamesh
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by Jamesh »

That's interesting Brucey! on my half dozen or so builds a FD the last thing I think of!!
Usually frame and shifters as the most expensive parts!

Makes sense though.

Cheers James
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geomannie
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by geomannie »

Thanks again folks for taking the effort to reply to me on my build. Long story short, a 118mm BB has solved my issues very nicely and all gears are working sweetly using a Sora front shifter and friction bar-ends. It rides very nicely.

I now want to put mudguards on the bike but wide mudguards are a bit out of my experience. The tyres are Marathon Supreme 622-50 which atually measure at 45mm wide fitted. My guess is that 65mm mudguards, something like this https://www.spacycles.co.uk/m2b0s80p134 ... -Mudguards would be good. Alternatively, might I be better with a slightly narrower 60mm mudguard, though my inclination is for the wider to give plenty of room for mud?

As this is my first bike of this sort, pointers again greatly appreciated.
geomannie
reohn2
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by reohn2 »

The 60mm mudguards are ample wide enough for 45mm tyre IME and will eliminate overspill on wet trails etc.

PS,some photos of the build would be nice to see :)
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slowster
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by slowster »

I guess the question is whether you would want to be able to fit tyres wider than 50mm (or possibly a very knobbly 2" or 2.1" MTB tyre) - if not, I would have thought that 60mm would be sufficient. In my case I use 65mm Bluemels with 29 x 2.35 (60-622) Schwalbe Big Apples Edit - although not on a Vagabond, and I would prefer a slightly wider mudguard.

Based on my experience of those 65mm mudguards, I would suggest the following:

- a wide and very long front mudflap is good to protect your feet and the drivetrain from mud thrown up by the front tyre. Mine is a DIY mudflap made from 100mm wide damp proof course.

- ideally the front mudguard should extend forward of the top of the tyre, and I think this matters more for a bike ridden off road. Most mudguards don't and consequently fine spray (water and watery mud) which spins off the top of the tyre at a tangent then tends to end up on the front of the forks, and also on the rider if travelling at speed or into a headwind. The solution is to use a rear mudguard at the front, as reohn2 has fitted to his Longitude shown here. It means buying two sets to get the extra rear mudguard, so to begin with you could just fit the standard front mudguard and see if you find that adequate.

- be prepared for the supplied stays not to be long enough at the front if you have a large tyre, a large gap between tyre and mudguard, and/or a disc caliper which protrudes significantly outboard. It may be better to attach the front mudguard to the rack bosses on the fork legs.

If you attach it to the fork dropout eyelet some disc calipers have a slim enough profile that you might just be able to use some spacers between the eyelet and stay to avoid the caliper fouling the stay, but others, e.g. BB7, have a such a bulky profile that they would probably require too many spacers. The stays can be bent around the side of the caliper or underneath it, but that has disadvantages:
a. I've seen stays bent around both the top and bottom of a caliper such that if the safety release is actuated, the stays will only allow the mudguard to move a short distance from the tyre before they are stopped by the caliper
b. it's fiddly putting all the bends in the stay (and determining exactly where the bends need to be)
c. bending the stays around the caliper makes it even more likely that the supplied stays will be too short.
My preference is to replace the ASR stays supplied with Bluemels mudguards with the Secuclip/stay combination supplied with SKS Chromoplastic mudguards, and if bending the stays you would then likely need to buy the extra long SKS ones (available from SJS).

- if you want a gap between the underside of the fork crown and the mudguard you might need to consider a 'Fender Flute', e.g. if you want to limit the gap between tyre and mudguard to limit toe overlap and also keep the tyre/mudguard clearance uniform around the tyre.

- if the end of the rear mudguard does not sufficiently cover the rearmost part of the tyre, it may be advisable to fit a spoiler to stop spray and mud being thrown off the tyre in a forward and upwards direction, i.e. over your head (e.g. as on reohn2's Longitude). SKS make these to fit the 65mm and 50mm-60mm mudguards.

- if you fit a rear rack, Tubus make a bracket to attach the mudguard to the rack and dispense with the rear stays, which I think works well with the wider mudguards

Finally, I would add that the front mudguard on my bike is not as rigidly held by the lower part of the stays as I would like. If I take one hand of the bars on an off road downhill, it will noisily move from side to side. It's not a big deal, but I don't like it. The main cause is probably the fact that I have used the extra long SKS stays and bent them underneath the disc caliper, and I think that attaching them part way up the fork leg would be a big improvement. I also strongly suspect that fitting a rear mudguard on the front instead, and securing the front of that by a stay likewise part way up the fork leg (as on reohn2's Longitude) would further increase the stiffness of the whole front mudguard.
Last edited by slowster on 22 Jun 2020, 11:57pm, edited 2 times in total.
Brucey
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by Brucey »

FWIW I genuinely don't understand why brake caliper mounting bolts are not more often used (eg in conjunction with a simple flat or L-shaped bracket) to mount mudguards onto; much shorter, straighter, stiffer stays ought to be possible this way.

cheers
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hoppy58
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by hoppy58 »

Fitting guards to a vagabond takes a bit of fiddling to get the gaps right and also to get clearance at the rear of the seat tube by the front mech.

I used a side swing front mech so the only incursion at the rear of the seat tube is the band. This gives loads of space not only for guards but also for big tyres if you’re not running guards -2.1s comfortably, probably 2.25s although not tried them.

With 700 x 35-40 tyres, I use standard sks 50mm and fit them with a variety of p clips spacers and bracket extenders. I’ve also fitted some RAW mud flaps, colour coded to the bike’s original colour scheme - bit poncey I know, but I like it!

I’ve used 55 sks guards with 2.15 big apples (not on the vagabond) and they were ok, but 65’s are better.

For bigger, knobbly tyres I use the sks velo 65 ‘s which are really rigid for off road use.
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geomannie
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by geomannie »

Thanks again. I am glad I asked the question about mudguards as the replies have given me food for thought. 60mm wide is likely to be ample (good, as I hate over-wide mudguards) but I hadn't really considered the question of stays not being long enough. More research needed!

And in reply to reohn2, below is a picture of the build to date. The current specs are likely not to everyone's taste but key features are as follows.

TRP HY/RD callipers
TRP brake levers
Diacompe bar end shifters (friction)
Spa triple TD2 chainset 46/34/24
11-30 9 speed cassette (may go down to 11-32)
Sora front derailleur
Schwalbe Supreme tyres
Deore 9 speed long cage rear derailleur

My original plan had been to use Gevenalle Audax shifters https://www.gevenalle.com/product/audax/ but these are not currently available. I hope to get some in the near future.

PS: bar tape yellow just came out wrong, steerer yet to be cut
IMG_20200623_104000.jpg
geomannie
hoppy58
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by hoppy58 »

That looks lovely...love the tyres.
reohn2
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by reohn2 »

The SKS/Bluemels stays will be long enough.
Fittings at the seat and chainstays need to fettled with either P clips like hoppy's or nylon plastic light fitting brackets which I used simply because I found some in 'the box'.
The photos also show the rear of a 60mm guard bolted to a 65mm one to give more width behind the seatube where it's slightly closer to the tyre(not pretty but its functional),you can also see that I needed to cut out some of the 65mm section to fit between the seat and chainstays :-
20200623_112357.jpg

20200623_112436.jpg



PS, a good source for very nice handlebar tape but only available in black:- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-x-Bicycle- ... SwmaJb~snj
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slowster
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by slowster »

It's looking good.
geomannie wrote: I hadn't really considered the question of stays not being long enough.

If you don't bend the stays around the front brake caliper, then you would not need the extra long stays. Conversely if you do bend the stays, I am fairly sure you would find that you needed the longer stays.

I think the HY/RD callipers have a fairly slim profile which would make it practical to use M5 plastic spacers between the eyelet and stay to provide the clearance between stay and caliper.

In your shoes I would flip the stem to reduce the amount of steerer above the stem. It's possible that you might even decide then that there was no aesthetic need to cut the steerer, and that way you preserve more scope in future to vary the bar height.
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geomannie
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by geomannie »

slowster wrote:It's looking good.
geomannie wrote: I hadn't really considered the question of stays not being long enough.

If you don't bend the stays around the front brake caliper, then you would not need the extra long stays. Conversely if you do bend the stays, I am fairly sure you would find that you needed the longer stays.

I think the HY/RD callipers have a fairly slim profile which would make it practical to use M5 plastic spacers between the eyelet and stay to provide the clearance between stay and caliper.

In your shoes I would flip the stem to reduce the amount of steerer above the stem. It's possible that you might even decide then that there was no aesthetic need to cut the steerer, and that way you preserve more scope in future to vary the bar height.


Thanks! Good suggestions. The bike will reveal itself in time so I am happy to let it evolve.

Cheers
geomannie
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geomannie
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by geomannie »

reohn2 wrote:The SKS/Bluemels stays will be long enough.
Fittings at the seat and chainstays need to fettled with either P clips like hoppy's or nylon plastic light fitting brackets which I used simply because I found some in 'the box'.
The photos also show the rear of a 60mm guard bolted to a 65mm one to give more width behind the seatube where it's slightly closer to the tyre(not pretty but its functional),you can also see that I needed to cut out some of the 65mm section to fit between the seat and chainstays :-
20200623_112357.jpg
20200623_112436.jpg


PS, a good source for very nice handlebar tape but only available in black:- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-x-Bicycle- ... SwmaJb~snj


Thanks. Blumels 60mm mudguards are ordered. I'll sort clips and/or mounts as the problem reveals itself to me.

Cheers
geomannie
reohn2
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by reohn2 »

geomannie wrote:
slowster wrote:It's looking good.
geomannie wrote: I hadn't really considered the question of stays not being long enough.

If you don't bend the stays around the front brake caliper, then you would not need the extra long stays. Conversely if you do bend the stays, I am fairly sure you would find that you needed the longer stays.

I think the HY/RD callipers have a fairly slim profile which would make it practical to use M5 plastic spacers between the eyelet and stay to provide the clearance between stay and caliper.

In your shoes I would flip the stem to reduce the amount of steerer above the stem. It's possible that you might even decide then that there was no aesthetic need to cut the steerer, and that way you preserve more scope in future to vary the bar height.


Thanks! Good suggestions. The bike will reveal itself in time so I am happy to let it evolve.

Cheers

He simple answermto front stays is to use the lowrider eye half way up the fork legs,which has the added advantage of lifting the guard away from the tyre should something become stuck between stays and wheel/tyre as in Hoppy's photo up thread.
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geomannie
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Re: Questions on a Genesis Vagabond built

Post by geomannie »

reohn2 wrote:
geomannie wrote:
slowster wrote:It's looking good.

If you don't bend the stays around the front brake caliper, then you would not need the extra long stays. Conversely if you do bend the stays, I am fairly sure you would find that you needed the longer stays.

I think the HY/RD callipers have a fairly slim profile which would make it practical to use M5 plastic spacers between the eyelet and stay to provide the clearance between stay and caliper.

In your shoes I would flip the stem to reduce the amount of steerer above the stem. It's possible that you might even decide then that there was no aesthetic need to cut the steerer, and that way you preserve more scope in future to vary the bar height.


Thanks! Good suggestions. The bike will reveal itself in time so I am happy to let it evolve.

Cheers

He simple answermto front stays is to use the lowrider eye half way up the fork legs,which has the added advantage of lifting the guard away from the tyre should something become stuck between stays and wheel/tyre as in Hoppy's photo up thread.


Thanks. It looks a simple system so will deffo give it a try.

Cheers
geomannie
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