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Pugsley Blog

27K views 70 replies 35 participants last post by  DirtDad 
#1 ·
Most of my Pugs parts arrived last week, and I promptly began throwing parts together.

This answers many things. Like yes it will be a gearie. And yes the color is heinous. I am waiting for the hubs to arrive. I will build it with an XT rear hub and a Surly rear hub for the front, as the fork takes a 135mm hub, so a single speed rear disc qr hub will make a perfectly good front hub. Unfortunately the Surlys are on backorder, and there don't seem to be any practical alternatives if I want all those features. In the mean time I will build and tune using two regular rear wheels and tweek as needed when the real wheels are complete.

I will use disc brakes, I am not sure which ones. Surly says you need to use a rear brake for the front. I am not yet sure why, but as I build it I am sure it will become obvious. I will probably install some Martas because of what I have available. Avid Mechs are a more practical match for the bike, but I do not have two rears available. Perhaps in time.

Calculating spoke lengths has caused me to figure out how the wheels have to be built. The frame comes with a 35mm extension for the hubs that you need to use when you build the wheels. To try to put it into my own words, the wheels have to be built as if you had 170mm wide hubs, but of course you don't. The frame is built as though you had 170mm hubs, all the way down to the drop outs, then it bends in to 135. I hope that makes more sense by looking at the pics below.


On the finished wheels, the center of the spoke holes on the rim are offset a total of 23.5mm (an inch is 25.4mm FYI) from the center of the hubs. The frame offset accounts for 17.5mm offset, and the offset drilling on the rims another 6mm. If I understand it correctly, the end result should be wheels with very little dish. Wierd. But it will be fun to complete the project and see exactly how it works out.
 
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#8 · (Edited)
Follow up #1

After the initial rush of getting the main pieces, I decided to take a step back and take my time building the Pugs. I am waiting on the front hub anyway, it looks like there are no Surly New Disc 32H Black QR rear hubs anywhere, and everyone who wants one is waiting on the next batch to pop out of the factory in early November. Without complete Pugs wheels the bike won't do what I want anyway.

I decided to give the frame a thorough treatment of J P Weigle Frame Saver, recommended by name on Surly's web site. The stuff has been unavailable for months, and is just now becoming available again. I spoke with JP Weigle himself at length, and I am conviced he knows his stuff and Frame Saver is the best stuff for the job. I intend to ride the Pugs on the sand - in the firm wet pack along the ocean, injecting salt water into everything a lot, so protecting the steel frame will be important.


The Pugs being treated with Frame Saver

I thought some of the parts might be fun to look at. The bottom bracket is a 100 x 148mm. Most mtbs are 68 x 113. Surprisingly, 100mm bbs are hard to come by right now, it seems that Pugs builders have bought all that were available in North America.


If you are not used to looking at bbs, this may not be a big deal, but this baby is waaay wide.

And while I am at it, there is nothing that can prepare you for your first look at a Large Marge Rim:

It may seem big in the picture, but its presence in person has an even greater impact. Even the tubes are remarkable:



There are a couple of great adventure stories on the web that involve Pugleys. I highly recommend checking them out. Apparently Surly co-sponsored a couple as a way of rolling out the Pugs as an Adventure bike. Works for me. Look up Hope to Homer and Canning Stock Route (CSR) by Bike on the web, you will find some great stories.

The rider of the CSR, Jakub, was also sponsored by Magura and installed Maggies on his Pugs for his adventure ride. I am quite partial to Maggies, so I was happy to see that they worked on the Pugs. Whenever I installed mine, however, I was unable to remove the rear wheel. I emailed Jakub who rode CSR, and he replied, it was awesome. He had the same problem. In order to use Maggies on the Pugs, you have to be willing to remove the rear brake caliper in order to remove the wheel. The caliper interferes with rotor when you remove the wheel. It would not be a problem with vertical drop outs. Also contributing to the problem is the Maggie calipers will not slide all the way up in the disc mount tabs, the caliper bumps into the tab. Perhaps if they could, the problem would go away. It does settle into a good position for use. I passed this info along to Surly, who have also been very accomodating of my many questions.


If you slide the caliper all the way up in the upper disc tab then rotate the caliper downward, interferes with the shape of the tab and caliper will not rotate enough for the lower bolt to mate up with the tab. Lower it a little and it mounts, but interferes with the rotor at wheel removal time.
 
#9 ·
Follow Up #2

More progress on Project Pugs:

It is ridable now, but these are not the 4" wheels/tires of course. Two regular mtb rear wheels will install so I can ride and tinker as I continue to wait impatiently for backordered parts. Normal wheels are dished dramatically wrong for the Pugs, see below.

Brake update - Hayes hydro calipers also block the removal of the rear wheel. It is not so much an issue with the brakes as it is with the horizontal dropout and disc tab placement, I guess. Avid Mechs might work. I will stick with my Maggies and live with caliper removal to take off the rear wheel. The process can my simplified somewhat, you only need to remove the lower caliper mount bolt and pivot the caliper up to remove the wheel.

Hub update - The Surly hub I wanted to use continues to be on back order. Bontrager makes a comparable SS hub - Disc rear qr 32h black, so I have one arriving next week. I cannot find wheel building dimensions for that hub, so I will have to wait to get it, measure it myself, then order spokes if needed.

Misc bits - I got a Topeak mtn morph pump, thinking that it will be the best way to pump air for a week, which I suspect the Endomorphs will require. It sets up like a floor pump and has a big volume barrel, so it looks OK.

I thought it was pretty funny how regular dished wheels fit into the frame. It is more ridable than you might think like this. Note how far off the centerline of the frame the rims sit.

 
#13 · (Edited)
Follow Up #3

Ta-dah! The last critical piece has arrived, a Bonty hub that fits my specs - disc, qr, ss, rear, for use in the front:

It is a little brick, but that hardly matters, it looks as though Project Pugs (or the Barney Bike as my family calls it) will top 36 lbs.

Of course, wheel building commenced immediately.

It is amazing that everything about the frame/wheels is so wonky, but when you put them all together, poof! They all line up well. For rim strips I figure two wraps of mylar (clear) packing tape will do. I learned not to bridge the well in the center of the rim with the tape, or it makes tire installation/removal very hard. Building the wheels was actually pretty easy, I was prepared for a tough time. The hardest part was calculating spoke lengths. Not all spoke calculators let you factor in an offset, which you need with these wheels. Surly suggests building with a high end Park TS-2 stand, but my trusty, cheap, and simple Park TS-7 did the job.


I thought this was a telling shot. The front rim/tire is not small, it is a Mavic F219 rim / WTB Weirwolf 2.5 tire combo, looking positively puny here.


The brake drama continues. I tried Shimano XTRs next. They allow wheel removal without caliper removal, but you do have to loosen it and slide it back in the slot. I think I have settled on these. I will install with LX hydro brake levers only and SRAM triggers separately.
 
#14 ·
DirtDad said:
The brake drama continues. I tried Shimano XTRs next. They allow wheel removal without caliper removal, but you do have to loosen it and slide it back in the slot. I think I have settled on these. I will install with LX hydro brake levers only and SRAM triggers separately.
hey DirtDad. I'm just taking a guess here, but maybe you could get the Marta to work on the back if you added an adapter and a 180mm rotor.
http://www.speedgoat.com/product.asp?part=85092
I'm thinking you might be able to position the adapter in the frame slots in a way that it will put the caliper where you want it. Of course it would look pretty funny have a 180 rear and a 160 front, so you'd probably want to do the same thing on both ends.
 
#16 ·
Thanks for the update. I've been wondering if non-dished 29" wheels would work in my pugsley and it looks like I'll have to get some built up with the offset. I have Avid bb7's on mine and have to unbolt them to remove the rear wheel also. So far I haven't found a reason to but its still a pain. Here are a few pics of mine.
 

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#17 ·
DirtDad said:
Calculating spoke lengths has caused me to figure out how the wheels have to be built. The frame comes with a 35mm extension for the hubs that you need to use when you build the wheels. To try to put it into my own words, the wheels have to be built as if you had 170mm wide hubs, but of course you don't. The frame is built as though you had 170mm hubs, all the way down to the drop outs, then it bends in to 135. I hope that makes more sense by looking at the pics below.


On the finished wheels, the center of the spoke holes on the rim are offset a total of 23.5mm (an inch is 25.4mm FYI) from the center of the hubs. The frame offset accounts for 17.5mm offset, and the offset drilling on the rims another 6mm. If I understand it correctly, the end result should be wheels with very little dish. Wierd. But it will be fun to complete the project and see exactly how it works out.
Weird. Can you get a shot that shows the hub and spokes with your rear wheel that you've laced up? The whole offset thing they've got going is weird, but I guess it works.

Nice bike, I want one.

Monte
 
#18 ·
pugsley tech

A couple of things I did with my Pugs which may help your build:
Definitely go with Large Marge off-set drilled rims. The give even spoketension in spite of the massive offset and the extra width is a bonus with the Endomorph Tires. I weigh about 165 and have bashed the lighter weight XC rims with no issues.
Also my older Bontrager Race cranks did notallow enough front derailleur throw to shift to the biggest ring. This actually was fine because I ended up adding a 2.5mm spacer to the driveside BB cup between the frame and e-clamp because the Endomorph tire rubbed on the front derailleur cage in the granny gear without the spacer. To race in Moab I put on a 22/36 with a bash guard up front and it gave me all the gears I needed.
Good luck with Pugs and have fun.
Tom Miller, Kokopelli Bike and Board, Cortez, CO

DirtDad said:
Most of my Pugs parts arrived last week, and I promptly began throwing parts together.

This answers many things. Like yes it will be a gearie. And yes the color is heinous. I am waiting for the hubs to arrive. I will build it with an XT rear hub and a Surly rear hub for the front, as the fork takes a 135mm hub, so a single speed rear disc qr hub will make a perfectly good front hub. Unfortunately the Surlys are on backorder, and there don't seem to be any practical alternatives if I want all those features. In the mean time I will build and tune using two regular rear wheels and tweek as needed when the real wheels are complete.

I will use disc brakes, I am not sure which ones. Surly says you need to use a rear brake for the front. I am not yet sure why, but as I build it I am sure it will become obvious. I will probably install some Martas because of what I have available. Avid Mechs are a more practical match for the bike, but I do not have two rears available. Perhaps in time.

Calculating spoke lengths has caused me to figure out how the wheels have to be built. The frame comes with a 35mm extension for the hubs that you need to use when you build the wheels. To try to put it into my own words, the wheels have to be built as if you had 170mm wide hubs, but of course you don't. The frame is built as though you had 170mm hubs, all the way down to the drop outs, then it bends in to 135. I hope that makes more sense by looking at the pics below.


On the finished wheels, the center of the spoke holes on the rim are offset a total of 23.5mm (an inch is 25.4mm FYI) from the center of the hubs. The frame offset accounts for 17.5mm offset, and the offset drilling on the rims another 6mm. If I understand it correctly, the end result should be wheels with very little dish. Wierd. But it will be fun to complete the project and see exactly how it works out.
 
#20 ·
Mary Bar on your Pugsley

Noticed you have a Mary bar on your Pugsley and it is in a step that does not have a removable face plate. How did you get the Mary bar in there? I have three such stems and I cannot get the Mary bar in them because the bar's diameter gets too big at the innermost bend(s).
 
#21 ·
Great Moab ride

tommillermn said:
A couple of things I did with my Pugs which may help your build:
Definitely go with Large Marge off-set drilled rims.
Also my older Bontrager Race cranks did notallow enough front derailleur throw to shift to the biggest ring. This actually was fine because I ended up adding a 2.5mm spacer to the driveside BB cup between the frame and e-clamp because the Endomorph tire rubbed on the front derailleur cage in the granny gear without the spacer. To race in Moab I put on a 22/36 with a bash guard up front and it gave me all the gears I needed.
Good luck with Pugs and have fun.
Tom Miller, Kokopelli Bike and Board, Cortez, CO
Tom

  • Awesome ride in Moab. I raced there a few years ago, it was great.
  • Offset rims, check. The XC rims were unavailable at the time I got my stuff, so mine are DH.
  • Derailleur throw - E type derailleurs (at least '05s) come with a spacer to put between the upper frame mount hole and the derailleur. It moves the derailluer out farther and gives you the throw you need. The Pugsley needs that spacer, it will fix the throw and tire clearance issue also.
  • I suspect I will have little use for a 44t big ring, 22/36 sounds like a good idea. I plan to ride in deep sand, maybe 20/36.
 
#22 ·
Pugsley build weight and snow use

I have ridden a pug in 6" of fresh snow here in Minnesota last winter. It floated fine through the fresh "powder" as it may be called. It was actually fairly wet and heavy snow. We had a chance to make fresh tracks through the park on our commute back to the city. Once we got through the park and onto the roads it was even smoother sailing. The roads had a "Brown sugar" like snow on them, again the bike handled great. The main thing is getting wait over the rear tire and letting the front act as a bit of a rutter.

I have also ridden it in some sand on the beaches of Lake Michigan. I could not ride it through the perfect sugar sand of the beach, but once on the wet stuff it was smooth sailing.

Finally, I had a chance to ride the bike on some West Michigan singletrack where at the bottom of every hill there is a sand pit. It was great, I got to choose my lines! I didn't have to stick to the narrow paths from all other MTB's.

So, yes the bike is capable of a moderate amount of powder!

The Build: You can get one of these under 30 pounds spending some dough. A moderate build would weigh in about 32-35 lbs. Heavier than a regular MTB, but it is really no heavier than some of the 5-6" travel MTB's being pedaled around these days. I remember Curiak writing about his 32 lb. Behemoth, so this is along those lines. Just like a 29er once the wheels are rolling the bike is fast. No, it won't accelerate as fast as your regular mtb. But, can you ride your MTB across a snow covered field with 5-6" of snow?
 
#23 ·
Brake drama

VT Mike said:
hey DirtDad. I'm just taking a guess here, but maybe you could get the Marta to work on the back if you added an adapter and a 180mm rotor.
Mike

I am sure that will work. More interesting brake stuff:
The front of the Pugs requires a rear disc brake. I still cannot figure out why that is by looking at the difference between front and rear disc mounts, but Surly warns you of this before you build, and it is true. You can get a front Marta/Shimano (or other direct mount) caliper to work on the front with a +20mm IS adapter, the same adapter you are talking about using on the rear to go to 180mm, You could bump up to a 180mm caliper in the front with a +40 adapter, all of which I have. I also tried a post mount Marta with a IS to Post adapter. That still interferes with wheel removal, but gives you the easy adjustment of the adapter slot.
 
#24 ·
DirtDad said:
You could bump up to a 180mm caliper in the front with a +40 adapter, all of which I have.
A rear caliper used on a front brake should already give you a 180mm rotor. Unless the Pugsley fork has the disk tab positoned differently than the normal standard. That's what I did with my Martas (on my Hammerhead 100X), I swaped the front and rear calipers to get 180 in the front and 140 in the rear. I'd love to see a picture of the front brake mounted on there if you get a chance.
 
#25 ·
Dunno how/why the front is different but...

VT Mike said:
A rear caliper used on a front brake should already give you a 180mm rotor. Unless the Pugsley fork has the disk tab positoned differently than the normal standard. That's what I did with my Martas (on my Hammerhead 100X), I swaped the front and rear calipers to get 180 in the front and 140 in the rear. I'd love to see a picture of the front brake mounted on there if you get a chance.
Mike

The front of the Pugs is like the rear of any other bike, so a rear mounted on the front gives you a 160 rotor. I suppose you could run a 140 on the front if you installed a front caliper, I have not tried that.
 
#26 ·
DirtDad said:
Mike

The front of the Pugs is like the rear of any other bike, so a rear mounted on the front gives you a 160 rotor. I suppose you could run a 140 on the front if you installed a front caliper, I have not tried that.
Ahh, I see. That's probably why they tell you that you have to run a rear caliper up front, otherwise the rotor size won't match up. I'd go with +20 adapters and 180 rotors front and rear (assuming you have 2 rear calipers). Or, if you just had one set of Martas, and didn't want to buy too many extra parts, you could probably run the rear caliper in the front with a 160 rotor, and put the front caliper in the back with a +20 adapter and a 160 rotor.
 
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