Tourist in MSN

And from the photo it looks like that loose beach sand goes on for a LONG way.

djb

balto, luckily there were not too manysections like this, and mostly it was a matter of just feeling out and looking for the more packed down areas, following in car tracks as much as possible. Keeping speed up just enough helped to float over soft sections, but it was mostly doable and we didnt have to stop that often getting bogged down.
I wasnt kidding that my commuting on snow experience helped a lot, plus i ski, so the find traction thing and a slide here and there is what I like and enjoy.

this is probably the hardest section ive ridden over with the 2in supremes, but they made all the difference, lower pressures and a reasonable footprint and suppleness all helped over a stiff tire, but lets face it, this would be the limit and if it had been wet at all, we would have been cursing big time.

Tmsn, from memory it wasnt that long, maybe spent an hour on it tops? I suspect it was shorter than it seems in my memory. In the village before it, a taxi driver had figured it was rideable when asked about going this way. It was bascially a farm road cutting between giant fields in a wide open plain, used by farmers for field access and used by locals in cars or pickup truck sized stuff.

pretty cool place though. Though for sure, if a lot more common, I'd want 2.5s or even wider , so I totally get the + size popularity. It would be a lot of fun travelling with wider, but not fat tires, for all kinds of fun exploring.
cheers

JohnnyD7

Hi!
Do you mind having a little chat about a Surly Troll building? Just in need of help for a Surly build, mainly concerning the drivetrain compatibility.
Thanks,
J

djb

Sure, ask away if you want.

JohnnyD7

Well,i already have the frameset medium size and 26" wheels. I wanna build it as an all-round sort of bike,mtb,bikepacking and light touring.
I would like to go with a 11-36 cassete and 24-38 crankset. But i don't really know if i should worry about the Qfactor or chainline,by the way, my rear hub is a standard one,135mm.

PS. This is for a 10 speed

djb

is your frame pre 2017, 2017 and after they changed the chainstay shape so that it can take 3 inch tires , so this may change things. They also changed the rear spacing to slightly wider than 135, to be able to take wider hub options 142 or whatever, and the 135 wide stock hubs have to use this adapter thingee the name escapes me---both these things will tell you if its pre or post 2017 (and may affect the answer for chainline--Im just not sure)

first of all, I'm no chainline expert, my biike doesnt have teh stock crankset (which is a 48/36/26 triple) mine is a mtb triple, with hollowtech 2 bb. I have dismantled my bike down to the frame and I don't recall the placements of spacers on the bb for its chainline, but it seems to me it was fairly standard and I just kept things as they were obviously.

You should probably ask Surly themselves about the specific crankset you mention and the bb type, and they'll have a right answer to your question re chainline. The answer may depend on how wide tires you plan to put on it and if you need to space the bb out a bit to have clearance in the lowest gears, but you'd best get the right answers from them, or at least from folks who really know that crankset and the details.

Ive never really looked into Q factor, all I know is that with the mtb triple, the "stance" on my bike is fine and I have no knee issues due to Q factor. I also honestly dont notice anything out of the ordinary Q factor wise compared to my other bikes, so even if its slightly diffrent, it must be minimal. All Im saying for that is my understanding is that unless with a fatbike and a much wider q factor distance, I dont think its a real issue--but again, ask the surly folks in your question, they should be very quick to give you a very sure, reliable answer--and workarounds etc with spacers or whatever for the driveside part of the bb.

I kinda figure you'll be running at least 2.5 inch tires? Seems to me from memory that the older gen Trolls like mine can take up to close to 3 at the rear, but something like 2.8 at the front , to be safe clearance wise. I've had 2.5s on it and that was fine.
You'll want to look into rim width also if you are really looking at the wider spectrum of things, so check that out too.

you could also create a new thread if you want to get other opinions, but I still think a clear question to surly should give you the best answer if you are able to give them clear info on the parts.
good luck

JohnnyD7

Sorry for not being more specific. Yes,the frame i have got is the newer version,73mm bb and it comes with rear mounting wheel adaptors. I will be running with a max 2.3 tyres as my wheels only allow for that size.
Ok,i will ask them for a more accurate answer.
Than you for taking your time to reply!

djb

No prob. Are you sure 2.3 is the max on your rims? What is the inner width? My troll rims that came with my bike bought used, are cross country mtb rims, inner width 17mm and they had 2.5 knobbies on them and seemed to work fine. The guy who had the bike had been using it like this, so it must have been ok.

ive ridden with 2.5 surly extraterrestrials and they were a lot of fun, and could really see using close to 3 inch being great over certain terrain.

If you're going to use 2.3s, I figure a regular mtb chain line should be fine, but you might want to consider the future with wider tires if this would affect chain line decisions now.

anyway, have fun setting up the bike. If you can do it yourself or with supervision, it's a great experience. Don't know your mechanical experience but it's cool doing it yourself, and being very familiar with things, a great bonus for when doing any sort of touring or bike packing.
what bars are you thinking of using?

JohnnyD7

I've got a pair of Ryde Andra 40 rims, so in fact, I guess it can go up to 2.4 actually. Well,i must confess, my mechanical experience is quite of an amateur to be honest, haha! Nevertheless, i would try to go as far as could just for the fun of it and then hand it over to a LBS. It is only for that feeling of being the first to install new stuff!

But i wanna be very careful first before ordering a crankset ( if there's any available bth,as here in England everything seems to be sold out ). I will probably use rising bars...So far, i only have the frameset, the pair of wheels (with no tyres yet), headset and that's it!

djb

Re your rims, they appear to have 25mm inner width. The stock rims on my wife's troll have 21mm inner width, and stock it came with 2.5 in tires, so do some research but I would think your rims can handle wider tires safely. Of course though, get proper reliable info.

take a peek at the thread I started asking about rim width and tire width:

Schwalbe Supreme 26x2 followup#3 roughly9000kms

re bike parts, I think it's the same here in Canada, covid has really buggered up everything here too.

re doing stuff on your own, listen it's normal that we learn mechanical stuff gradually, just as we tend to accumulate tools gradually too. But I've been doing and learning and making mistakes for 30 years, and still am.

but yup, be careful getting the right info for getting a crankset. Good luck and have fun. The troll is a cool bike, I love mine.
cheers

JohnnyD7

I will take a look at the thread and see if i learn something off it!
Once again, thank you for your counselling.
Cheers.

djb

No prob. Stay safe and hopefully your older family members get the jab soon.

Tourist in MSN

I think it is more important to get the chainline right than worry about Q factor.

I only considered Q factor on one bike I built up, but that bike had an internally geared hub, only one chain ring in front, one sprocket in back. I wanted my Q factor on that bike to match my other bikes, so I have a small chainline error on that bike and I have not observed any problem from that.

But on a derailleur bike if your chainline is too far off, besides it shortening your chain life, if you backpedal your chain can come off of your chainring in certain gears.

If you want to adjust Q factor, it probably is easiest to do that with a square taper crankset because it is easy to buy bottom brackets with different spindle lengths. I am not in the UK but I have on occasion ordered parts from the UK. I could be wrong but I think Spa might have the best selection of square taper cranks and bottom brackets.

Good luck with your build.

djb

update June 2021, 1000 kms beside close to 10,000 kms:

I finally took off my 2in supremes to put on the 1.6in versions, and afterwards when carrying the nearly new spare 2in (maybe 1000kms) that I put on the bike last summer, 2020 , holding it beside the old nearly 10,000kms old 2in supreme thats been on my bike for years now,
it really struck me how damn well these things wear.

the way the light hit them, it really showed the (lack of) tread wear, using the light tread pattern as an indicator.
anyway, an interesting shot for anyone who runs supremes