One Ring to Rule Them All . . .

I've been riding the Pug Ops for three months now and I've come to the realization that, during this time, I may have used the large front chain ring less than a handful of times!! The bike came with a 36/22 setup on the front with a 11-36 cog on the rear. Regardless of the riding conditions, I seemed to always find myself in a very small range of gears - none of which included the 36t front ring. With a little poking about and asking some Surly gurus, I decided to ditch the front 36/22t  combo for a single Wolf Tooth 30t Drop-Stop Chainring. But in choosing to do, this I would be losing some of my lower range gears. Enter the Wolf Tooth 42t GC - a rear cog that is basically the size of a small frisbee!!  Combined with the 30t front ring, the low range is pretty close to stock. So, with the new setup, the range from high to low is pretty much the same - there are just only 1/2 the number of gear steps within the range. Hopefully, no biggie but I am sure it will require some changes in riding!! Stay tuned for that!!

The Pug Ops in stock form!!

I ordered the parts from Wolf Tooth Components based out of Minnesota. They are a small company that manufacture all their own products. The order was placed on March 18th, shipped within hours of initial contact and showed up in my mailbox on the 24th. I have NEVER had such quick shipping from the US before!!

The Goodies!! 

When you add the 42t cog, you need to remove one of the smaller ones - usually the 17t. Wolf Tooth offers a 16t that you can add to the range to smooth out the shifting. In this case, you remove the 15t and 17t and substitute the 16t. The 16t is the small silver cog in the above image!

Time for the conversion!!

First order of business is removing the crank so that I could remove the chainrings!! My bike has the Surly OD crank which makes removal a snap - no special tools required!! Simply loosen two small allen head bolts on the left crank arm, pull it off the splines and slide the whole axle assembly through the sealed bottom bracket bearings! Easy Peasy!!

Pulling the crank out of the bottom bracket.

Removing the chainrings.

Removing the chainrings did have its moments of fear!! Most of the bolts were very hard to remove and I was worried that they would either strip or, worse, snap off in the crank!! Using the extra leverage from the handle of an adjustable wrench, I managed to break them loose. And here is why they were so hard to remove . . .

 . . . Loctite on the threads!!

With the old rings off, it was time to do a little weigh-in. Not the primary reason for doing this conversion, but you know folks are going to be curious about the weight reduction!! Appears there is a 84 gram weight savings with the single ring!

Old rings - 132 grams

New ring - 48 grams

The new ring all mounted up and ready to go!!

Popping the crank back on the bike was simply a reversal of the removal. I can certainly get used to this setup - especially after having fought, many times in the past, with stubborn cranks and crank pullers that were just a royal PITA to work with!!! 'Nuff said!!

The people at Surly certainly are a different crowd and they let you know it - sometimes in very subtle ways!!. Check out this little message that was stamped on the inside of the crank arm right next to the pedal! I assume it means to not over-tighten your pedals!!

Is this actually a torque value?

While working on the bike, I had to have a bit of "tunage" playing. What is more appropriate for the job than Jethro Tull's Songs from the Wood album?

One of my favs!!

With the chainring and crank all taken care of, it was time to tackle the cassette! I managed to dredge up my old chain whip from way back when. It's been languishing out in the shed (with a host of other old bike tools) so it was showing it's age and subjection to lots of moisture!! I could not find my cassette remover, so a 10.00 purchase was in order. No biggie, I know I will be using it again sometime!!

A piece of the past!

As per the instructions, I rebuilt the cassette - removed the 15 and 17, replaced it with the 16 and then installed he Mother-of-all-cogs - the 42 toother!!  As expected (hoped) it all went without a hitch!!

All together again!!

When breaking the chain, I pushed one pin too far and, plop, it ended up on the floor. Damn!! No way to put that sucker back in. I simply took out two more links, popped it back together and, by chance, I think it was just the right length I needed. Must have a horseshoe hidden somewhere in my body, I guess!!

The new setup - and a VERY old bike stand!!  (See below**)

With a bit of tinkering with the "B Screw" on the derailleur and bit of tweaking with the limit screws, I managed to get the thing shifting pretty much as good as stock!! Some field testing is still required but I am confident that things will be just fine. The derailleur is certainly not protesting with the jump from 36 to 42 and it does not appear to be overtaxed with having to accommodate such a large cog. Fingers crossed!!

As with the chainrings, I am sure that people are interested in the weigh loss when you remove the front derailleur and shifter. The package comes to a total of 331 grams. This was a SRAM X7.

Another quirky thing about the Pug is that all the cables are held in place with open braze-ons and by nothing else other than  . . .

. . . cable ties!!

Just another utilitarian aspect of these bikes - they are meant to be easy to fix/maintain while using easy-to-find parts.

All ready to hit the trails again!!

The whole operation took less than 2 hours but I was in no hurry. I was just enjoying working on bikes again. It's been a while!!

Which brings me to . . . 

**   The old bike stand that I am using is a piece of St. John's bicycle history. I am sure that many of us, of a certain vintage, remember Pike's Cycle on Springdale Street? Well, this old stand came from that very store. That store closed many, many years ago but in 1990, a "new" Pikes was opened on Kenmount Rd. A lot of the old equipment and tools ended up coming out of storage and into the new store. This rack included!! I worked at this store as a mechanic when it first opened and was there a year or so later, when it shut down. One of my parting gifts was the old stand and all the tools - including a very expensive Hozan truing stand - from the new store. It was a treasure trove for an avid biker but, alas, over the years a lot of the better stuff disappeared. I still have a whack of old tools but you'd be hard pressed to find a bike that they would still work with!!  Anyway, it was nice to put a new bike on the old stand and go back in time - if only for a few hours!