Argh.

[JusticeZero]

I had my local bike shop refuse to do any work on the conversion yesterday. The reason given? They called Cruzbike to ask for an estimate on build time, and whoever was at the phone, (if i recall correctly from the explanation, female) answered that they had never done it and didn't know, supposedly without making any further attempt to find the answer. They then decided that the construction was "hokey" for reasons which they were unable to explain.
Trying to get my father to help with the work, but while he has significant mechanical experience, he doesn't know bicycle mechanics. I can't actually do much of the work for the same reason that i'm in a rush to get it built in the first place; a hand injury that limits the strain I can put on one hand, and will do so for several more months.
Numerous complaints have already been voiced to me by said father about the lack of exploding diagrams in the manual. Also, how to attach a Freerider handlebar (without having to create a bushing?) is apparently less than clear to him.
Personally, I think I would have had much better luck getting the work done if the conversion involved replacing the fork with a Cruzbike designed one, rather than modifying it - I suspect it was the attachment method to connect the triangle bracket to the fork that was referred to as "hokey".
Mostly I guess i'm venting, but these are issues that i'm sure affect the company or which people should note as things to keep an eye out for.

 

[JonB]

find another bikeshop, or offer to pay them by the hour.

 

[Kamatu]

Either I'm paranoid or the manual is right and the fork bracket attachment is critical. Actually, I think the manual is right and I'm being paranoid both. On the manual, after sleeping on it overnight, exploded diagrams, especially of the kit portion would be a big improvement. The donor bike parts could be a bit shadowy, but how all the tubular bits go together would be nice. Of course I didn't find it hard to figure out how they go together, I'm just being picky.

I did find that as soon as I opened up all the parts and laid them out, it was real easy to find the various small bit bags for different parts of the job.

 

[Mark B]

Bike shops can be funny. A good one will have mechanics that would jump at the chance to do something different. Many don't want to be bothered with anything other than ordinary tasks.

I agree the directions are less than ideal, but between the pictures and the written, I was able to easily sort my conversion out. I have a couple things I want to go back and rework, but the bike is ridable and I enjoy it.

BTW, I'm feeling a great deal of relief, now that I know our forum hasn't been taken over by pirates.

Mark

 

[defjack]

Where do you live? There might be a Cruzbiker in your area who will help out.What kind of bike are you building a kit or just putting a Freerider togather? We need some more info. Jack

 

[JusticeZero]

I am in Palmer, Alaska, 40 miles from Anchorage; I am doing a conversion from a Trek Y-26, apparently the same model as is pictured in the manual. I picked up the Freerider bars, as it looked to be easier and no more expensive than trying to put together bars that would not strain my wrists. (the flat position is for the next couple of months a problem)

 

[Mark B]

It must be tough, pirating in Alaska! :lol: Sorry....

Looking at the Freerider, it appears it takes a different TFT than the normal conversion kit. From the pictures, it appears there is a stub welded to the Freeriders for the stem to mount on. If you got the correct TFT, you should be able to go to a bike shop and get a stem that bolts right to that stub and mount your handlebars to that. FWIW, you should not have any wrist issues on a Cruzbike.

The adapter plates bolt to the fork dropouts. There are three holes, start with the middle one. You need to mount the wheel in the dropouts so you have the correct spacing. I found it necessary to open up some washers to fit on the axle stubs to shim them out so the quick release would work. If you're not using a quick release wheel, you can probably skip this step, except you want to make sure you have clearence for you rear derailleur to feed the small cog. Once you have this step, you use the large washers provided in the kit to shim the adapter plates to the fork. It does seem a little hokey, but it is what it is and it works really well. The next step is to shim the feet that clamp to the fork leg so you get brake clearance. They provide a small rubber shim for this, but you may need to use something else a little thicker. You will have to tinker a little on adapting the plate to your fork and wheel, but this is the trickiest part and the one most worth your while.

Mark

 

[Doug Burton]

Hi,

First, I'm sorry you're encountering difficulties with the bike shop around assembling the kit. I don't know that we've ever envisioned a lagre number of kits being assembled by bike shops, though many have done successful conversions. I suspect most conversions have been built by tinkerers like myself or Mark.

Maria, who usually answers the phone when you call Cruzbike, is a brilliant lady, a wonderful people person, and an awesome business person. She's a principal in the company, and Cruzbike would collapse without her. Her job's not mechanical support; John, Jim and I try to cover that. Due to the way the website permissions are set up, all the contacts go through Maria, and it's super-rare that she can't solve any problem right on the spot. To solve kit questions where the bike could be built on literally hundreds of different platforms, sometimes you need the help of one of us total bike nerds.

I'm afraid the directions do require some patience. We've been gathering info to improve them, but I'm convinced designing the bikes may be easier than writing and illustrating the instructions.

Because of the time difference (I'm on the east coast and I have a day job), if someone has specific questions or areas of assembly they need help with, I'd be glad to talk with them after 6pm EDT.

You can reach me at hardtailcruzer@yahoo.com to set something up if it would help.

We're committed to getting you on the road.

Be well,

Doug

 

[JusticeZero]

I'd agree with the directions part, those are usually the hard bit. Comments from my father (whose help I have enlisted, as he has two fully functional hands, and I do not) include: "This looks like it was written by people who don't build things - it says how to get the gross structure together, which isn't hard to figure out. The detail that is important is always the fine details of how far to put in each screw, exactly which screw to use, where the washers go, and so on - those are the things that if you don't do them right, you'll have to tear everything apart because some nut is rubbing something." He wants exploding diagrams and cutaway diagrams. His experience includes about fifteen years of rebuilding and modifying small propeller-driven aircraft, but he doesn't know how bicycles work exactly.
The account from the bike shop was that they called and asked for an estimate of time, heard "I don't know, I haven't built one myself." had some somewhat exasperated discussion looking for further information? then in frustration glared at the parts, decided the whole thing was "hokey", claiming the existence of pipe fasteners as their only evidence, and called their attorney so that they could threaten me if I tried to make them touch it again. That is the only bike shop readily available to me. The only other bike shop refused on the basis that they are too busy to accept any jobs of longer than 1-2 hours for a month or two. As noted, if this contained a new fork, I would be having much less issues.

 

[Kamatu]

The majority of the kit is plug and play, the only tricky bit I've found is putting the brackets on the front fork. The main thing is to get them square with the forks and as flat as possible. Evidently from reviewing the posts on the Yahoo! list, they can be slanted a bit in as John T advised one builder to spread them out a let it slide down.

All of the little baggies came with most of the bits for each operation bundled together. The only oddities were the inclusion of the brass bits that I think I've puzzled out, they were in the same bag with the bolts to put the chainstay fork onto the front of the fork brackets and the 4 nylon and 2 small steel washers to be used with those bolts were in the same bag with the bolts, washers and nuts for the fork brackets.

I've made some notes in my Tiara thread about where I think exploded diagrams could go and IMO, there could be a little bit better bit about attaching the headstem for various headposts since it doesn't look like there are that many variations. I got a couple of quick false starts from ambiguous (at least to me) instructions that a small pic would have fixed, but once I saw it, it was easy enough to reinterpret and install correctly. The biggest thing I could see would be to do a one page drawing with a "shadowy" donor bike and an exploded version of the front triangle with BB of the kit. I don't think you'd need one for the rear axle, but I've done that before to relube, so it wasn't a big deal to me.

Oh yeah, some of the bolts and such don't seem to fit, but the guys who built these got a little happy with the paint (rather that than too light) so you sometimes have to "screw" the bolts through the unthreaded hole, but all you are doing is cutting paint.

 

[Kamatu]

So, in the bike shop wasteland here, nobody has an adapter. Upon further review, the original Tiara stem fits nicely into the kit stem, with the minor problem of the side tube welded to it for the original handlebars. So, wait several days more or fabricate? I've waited long enough.


A little sawzall work takes care of most of the problem. Digging out my old and unused wimp bench grinder and putting an old cutoff wheel to work solves a bit more and wearing out the old, soft and aged stones (that really needed replacing anyway) got closer. Tomorrow, a run to Home Depot for some new grinding wheels, need to go down there for some conduit anyway. I've been too spoiled the last decade, my uncle has a serious bench grinder I've been using for all my grinding jobs that got past a little file work. Unfortunately, he is out of town....

 

[JusticeZero]

Okay, I finished the build. Issues:

The stop. We spent half of a day trying to figure out how this works, and never succeeded. I still have no idea how that stop is supposed to work. I don't see any parts that would do it, and the directions in the manual seem only to explain that it exists and works without giving any information of how to render it functional.

Triangle bracket thickness. The front wheel tried to come out because
1: the slot into which the wheel is inserted is not slanted to allow gravity and weight to assist in holding the wheel in place
2: axle was ever so slightly too long, the QR was unable to grip the fork until we added two washers between fork and axle as spacers.
Result was that on the first ride, the drive wheel slid halfway out of the fork, and required modification to repair - and still must be monitored.

Freerider bars. In order to get the freerider bars past the braze on the fork, extensive time with a hammer, chisels, and an anvil were used. Once the freerider clamp was bent far enough to pass the braze-on, then bent back into place, it worked (but was marred), but might not have had the threads not aligned themselves. When the unit was constructed, the derailler cable now rubs against the fitting, and will wear.
Suggested solution: Add space for a notch of the approximate size of a braze-on between the bolts to tighten the unit and the clamp itself.

 

[Mark B]

JusticeZero wrote: Okay, I finished the build. Issues:

Triangle bracket thickness. The front wheel tried to come out because
1: the slot into which the wheel is inserted is not slanted to allow gravity and weight to assist in holding the wheel in place
2: axle was ever so slightly too long, the QR was unable to grip the fork until we added two washers between fork and axle as spacers.
Result was that on the first ride, the drive wheel slid halfway out of the fork, and required modification to repair - and still must be monitored.

I ran into that with my conversion, too. The washer fix works for me and my wheel does not slip at all.

The stop thing had me scratching my head, too. I ran the screw in, but it doesn't do anything.

Mark

 

[Kamatu]

Heh, I didn't even think about the washers, I just put some on since I thought it needed them.

If by the "stop" you mean that annoying screw going into the clamp that holds the top bar onto the head stem? (if I have my terms right) I simply turned it to the slot on the stem and screwed it down tight. I think it is to stop stress on the top bar from pushing the stem extension off the forks.

 

[John Tolhurst]

The safety bolt, the Stop, is there to prevent the telescoping tubes coming apart. For them to come apart, the front tube must slope down steeply, and the stop prevents it from doing this.

To test its adjustment, loosen the quick release and see if you can extract the inner telescoping tube. When adjusted right, you should pull it down to mark 11" and no further.

To adjust, first remove the pin connecting the tube to the pivot clamp, then retest.