2018 Crust Scapegoat, BBS02 or BBSHD, Rohloff IGH

[ncmired]

Initial Specs: 68mm motor(s), 73mm bottom bracket

My second build, with the following goals, desires, or components:

• Fattish tire clearance with a narrowish Q. The Scapegoat clears various tires, and initially came with 27.5 / 650B by 3.8 Maxxis Minion FBF tires. I'm going with 27.5 by 2.8 (or maybe 2.4) street tires to start. I stole this tire size/style idea from Rider. I don't want the complexity of suspensions, and am hoping that the right tire choice will soften the ride.
• There's only one wide-range, wide chain line, proven and well supported IGH with a simplified shifter - the Rohloff. I wish there was an alternative with fewer speeds and a better price. UPDATE: there's now a Rohloff alternative - the Kindernay, but it's even more expensive!
• Clearance for either the BBSHD (primary) or BBS02 (backup) motor.
• Big honkin' 203mm disc rotors
• Velocity Dually rims laced to 135mm wide hubs (Surly front, Rohloff rear) for front to back wheel interchange compatibility
• Cable operated brake calipers, for easier lever integration and roadside repair. I've had excellent results with the TRP Spyre dual-sided actuation calipers on my other bike.
• 1/8 inch chain
• Adjustable, replaceable rear dropouts with an inboard (within the frame triangle) disk caliper mount
• Capacity for a temporary chain tensioner
• Steel frame tubes

The frame is available bare or built - I elected to go with a one-off pre-built as it was very close to what I wanted anyway, and the price seemed very reasonable.

Here are some stock built and bare frame pictures - the complete bike as received, and before teardown:

The rear triangle:

The rocker dropouts are Paragon-compatible:

The 73mm BSA bottom bracket indents for the (up to approx. 38 tooth) chain ring, and clears both the BBS02 and BBSHD main gear housings - no spacers are needed. The wrinkled adhesive-backed rubber sheet acts as a bumper:

Here's the BBSHD with the Luna One 36 tooth chain ring and a KMC Z510HX 1/8 chain, giving a chain line 0f 60mm, 2mm wider than the nominal (splined sprocket Rohloff) 58mm:

Left side BBSHD / chain stay clearance:

I rerouted the twin shift cables and cable box for better access, and to keep everything away from the eventual rear rack. I plan on moving the speed pickup adjacent and to the right of the rear brake caliper, with a magnet glued to one of the brake rotor spiral arms:

The bike so far, with Schwalbe 27.5 by 2.8 Moto street tires:

More to come ...

[ncmired]

Cable tie alternative (well, sort of)

For my previous build I secured the cables and wires to the bike using standard band cable ties, and they work for the most part. I came across the Cobra Flexroute when trying to solve a securing situation that regular cable ties don't do very well. The Flexroute guides come in various diameters (both the surface diameter and the cable diameter), are soft to conform around any tube shape (main triangle, forks and stays), and can be both trimmed and doubled up to hold multiple cables.

And no, you don't have to disconnect one end of the cable and route it through the guide - it clips on to the pre-routed cables, wherever you need it to be.

The special cable ties sit flat on the surface, though regular cable ties can also be used.

Here's a "triple-up" of two shift cables and a brake cable:

The guides have a slightly rubbery feel, and flex as needed.

[ChrisJTX]

Initial Specs: 68mm motor(s), 73mm bottom bracket

My second build, with the following goals, desires, or components:

• Fattish tire clearance with a narrowish Q. The Scapegoat clears various tires, and initially came with 27.5 / 650B by 3.8 Maxxis Minion FBF tires. I'm going with 27.5 by 2.8 (or maybe 2.4) street tires to start. I stole this tire size/style idea from the Stromer ST5. I don't want the complexity of suspensions, and am hoping that the right tire choice will soften the ride.
• Clearance for either the BBS02 (primary) or BBSHD (backup) motor.
• Big honkin' 205mm disc rotors
• Cable operated brake calipers, for easier lever integration and roadside repair. I've had excellent results with the TRP Spyer dual-sided actuation calipers on my other bike.
• 1/8 inch chain
• There's only one wide-range, wide chain line, proven and well supported IGH with a simplified shifter - the Rohloff. I wish there was alternative with fewer speeds and a better price.
• Adjustable, replaceable rear dropouts with an inboard (within the frame triangle) disk caliper mount
• Capacity for a temporary chain tensioner
• Steel frame tubes

The frame is available bare or built - I elected to go with built as built was very close to what I wanted anyway, and the price seemed very reasonable.

Here's some stock bare or built frame pictures:

The rocker dropouts are Paragon-compatible:

The 73mm BSA bottom bracket indents for the (up to approx. 38 tooth) chain ring, and clears both the BBS02 and BBSHD main gear housings - no spacers are needed. The wrinkled adhesive-backed rubber sheet acts as a bumper:

Here's the BBSHD, with the Luna One 36 tooth chain ring, giving a chain line 0f 60mm, 3mm wider than the nominal (splined sprocket Rohloff) 57mm:

Left side BBSHD / chain stay clearance:

I rerouted the twin shift cables and cable box for better access, and to keep everything away from the eventual rear rack. I plan on moving the speed pickup adjacent and to the right of the rear brake caliper, with a magnet glued to one of the brake rotor spiral arms:

The bike so far, with Schwalbe 27.5 by 2.8 Moto street tires:

More to come ...

Sweet! Looks fantastic. how are the tires? Tube or tubeless? Looking into changing my knobbies for those. Do I see a rohloff? Dam I want one bad, but my wife will freak if she knew how much those things are lol.

[ncmired]

Hi Chris, thanks for stopping by - the tires are very nice. I rode on the stock, tubeless Maxxis Minion FBF tires all of once and hated the wheelbarrow-like steering feeling, not to mention the noise. The bike's geometry seems to work well with the Schwalbe 27.5 by 2.8 Moto street tires, as in very stable, and not flighty - which is how I want a bike to behave at my age. I run them with tubes at 40lbs, down from the max of 45lbs.

I'll try dropping to 30-35lbs, based on experiences.

Yep, the bike has a Rohloff. For now I'm sticking with IGH hubs with beefy 1/8 chains. I am using a redundant (to the rocker dropouts) chain tensioner to reduce chain cuts, as I'm still messing with the rear sprocket gearing. I try to set the bike's overall gearing so that I'm predominately riding in the hub's 1:1 gear (5th on a Nexus 8, 11th on the Rohloff).

[ChrisJTX]

Can you get a thumb shifter on these bad boys? So far I have only seen half twist.. thinking about purchasing one under the wife radar haha.

[ncmired]

Can you get a thumb shifter on these bad boys? So far I have only seen half twist.. thinking about purchasing one under the wife radar haha.

The only other, non barrel shifter I've found is the paddle shifter set from Cinq5 - http://www.en.cinq5.de/schaltsysteme...for-flat-bars/ and the Gebla Rohbox, which is an adapter of sorts to trigger shifters - http://www.rohbox.com/.

[datcharge]

Sick! I built up an old Diamondback Outlook I've had for years with a Crust Clydesdale fork and just last week put a BBSHD on it. Loving it. I keep thinking about selling off a few other bikes and just building up an Evasion as a do-it-all (not e-) bike.

[ncmired]

That new pile of Evasion frames is awful tempting - but I've way overspent my ebike allowance. My step-thru Evasion build went very nicely. What color would you go for - copper or raw?

Congrats on that magical fork:

[datcharge]

Definitely copper! And I'd toss a gold chris king headset on it

[datcharge]

here's a shot of my trusty old Diamondback I took today. Getting a 20 x 2.15 tire to replace the 20 x 1.5 on it now

[Wischman]

I came up with this exact idea, then find your post. Nice Job on the write up, thank you.

How are you liking it a year later?
What's the q factor measure to be?

Are you interested in selling?

[ncmired]

I came up with this exact idea, then find your post. Nice Job on the write up, thank you.

How are you liking it a year later?
What's the q factor measure to be?

Are you interested in selling?

Hi - thanks for the compliment.

The Q factor for both the BBSHD (stock Bafang cranks) and BBS02 (Lekkie cranks) configurations are wide, but could be narrowed up by using other cranks - I rough tape-measured 195mm. I've gone with shorter crank arms on my builds, to buy back a little cornering clearance.

The 2.8 Super Moto X tires roll really nice and are holding up well, but I think now I could have gone with smaller, lighter tires - 2-2.4 inch or so would be fine.

Thanks, but I'm not considering selling it - it's still in flux, purpose-wise. I had gone in the pack mule direction, but with the 30AH frame battery it may transmute into a long distance traveler.

Have you looked at Crust's Evasion?

[ncmired]

Fall 2020 update, after maintenance (chain, rear tire, greasing, brake pad adjustment, etc. etc.) - now sports a 52 volt 30AH battery in one of the hard to find riveted bags:

The gearing has been lowered (via a 30 tooth chainring), so that the 1:1 gear is the go to gear - doing so violates the Rohloff cog to chainring ratio rule (oh well).

[yeahbike]

HNNG! This is super close to what I'm aiming for with my Surly. One of the first things I bought was those same tires, but in 2.4. Man, you were really going for bulletproof with the swappable wheels on top of the Rohloff. What a neat idea.

What kind of display do you have? I just read the one that came with my kit(sw102) does not have a setting for 27.5 tires.

[ncmired]

What kind of display do you have? I just read the one that came with my kit(sw102) does not have a setting for 27.5 tires.

Thanks for the comments - this bike has a DPC-14 display, which supports inches and better, circumference in CM. But ... the Ludi V2 controller this bike now has also has its own wheel size setting, and I'm still confused on who wins on some of these settings.

The DPC-14's downside is that it forgets the settings over time if unused/unpowered, and the clock and (48 volt biased) battery percentage meter are almost worthless.

On the tires, once I wear out these 2.8s, I have a pair of Maxxis hookworms to try out, then on to some Super Moto X 2.4s - about the minimum tire width Velocity Dually rims will take.