Hardtailing a V2K?

[RobertM]

Has anyone ever done it? I can see how I would do it easily, but I/m concerned that the shock loads on the bracket that anchors the shock/spring mount at both ends might be greater than they can handle. Probably not a realistic worry, the loads would be on the order of what the mounts would see in a bottoming out event, but I was curious if anyone had real world experience.
My motivations are three-fold:
One is a minor weight reduction.
Two is the possibility of mounting a rack to the (non) swing arm, rather than cantilevering it from the seat/seat mount.
Three is making rear fenders survive. I'm starting a separate thread on this, but both the previous owner of my bike and I have experienced short rear fender life. In my case the failures were fatigue failures which I'm blaming on high acceleration loads (compared to a ridged rear triangle) that the swing arm motion imparts to the fender. I could probably make a fender that mounts to the seat/seat mount to address this, but it would be nice to be able to use the swing arm.
Thanks in advance

 

[kizarmynot]

I don’t know if this is applicable to your bike, but there is a thread in the Q45 forum that includes a discussion of replacing the shock with an aluminum bar.
Post in thread 'Replace Q45 Shock with Metal Bar'
https://forum.cruzbike.com/threads/replace-q45-shock-with-metal-bar.15960/post-188188
There are at least 2 of us that have done the replacement.
It’s interesting you bring up shock loads because I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’m planning to continue using the bar until I go out on tour and then reinstall the shock at that time. My thinking is that a failure on local roads and trails is not good, but being hundreds of miles away and having a failure would be really bad.

 

[McWheels]

It's possible you might not need to. I had mudguards and a rack on my V2k and they were pretty well fixed in place.

I think there are a couple of things you can do to extend the life of the mudguards. First is cable tie them to the rack where the stays rub or come close. Second is add a bridge on the upper part of the rear triangle. The one in the picture is held in 4 places. 2 by the stays, one by the bridge, and one at the lowest front end of the rear mudguard with a polymer bush from [somewhere] to keep the spacing from the tyre. This setup did 6000 miles no questions asked before I sold it.

The pic also shows how I did the rack. It wasn't ideal, but the weight is taken straight down and the fwd arms are only there for stabilisation.

This being an early iteration of that bike, note the seat post may bottom out on the shock bracket pretty quickly. Once I went to an S-shaped post to get more recline, this also stopped being a problem.

 

[RobertM]

It's possible you might not need to. I had mudguards and a rack on my V2k and they were pretty well fixed in place.

I think there are a couple of things you can do to extend the life of the mudguards. First is cable tie them to the rack where the stays rub or come close. Second is add a bridge on the upper part of the rear triangle. The one in the picture is held in 4 places. 2 by the stays, one by the bridge, and one at the lowest front end of the rear mudguard with a polymer bush from [somewhere] to keep the spacing from the tyre. This setup did 6000 miles no questions asked before I sold it.

The pic also shows how I did the rack. It wasn't ideal, but the weight is taken straight down and the fwd arms are only there for stabilisation.

This being an early iteration of that bike, note the seat post may bottom out on the shock bracket pretty quickly. Once I went to an S-shaped post to get more recline, this also stopped being a problem.

Interesting. Do you recall if the mudguard was plastic or Alumin(i)um ?
My Al mudguards are support with similar wire stays, and at the bridge and the lowest front point. The first iteration survived maybe 3000 miles before what appeared to be a fatigue failure through the rivets of the higher of the two wire stay mounts.
In postmortem I decided the that I had not made the static install as stress free as possible.
I:
* Adjusted the length of the bush at the forward mount
* Slotted the mudguard at the forward mount to provide a bit of adjustement
* Fabricated a new stay mount and riveted it to the fender at a somewhat higher location.
* Cut out a section of the fender just behind the failed mount that was starting to crack, and made a riveted lap joint from the two pieces.

All said and done, it went maybe 3500 miles before failing just behind the lap joint. Probably wasn't fair as the lap certainly created a stress concentration.
Perhaps if I had done a better initial install the fender would have survived, but the small angular separation between the bridge and the forward-most mount make the whole fender seem under-supported.
I like the idea of tying the stays to the rack it seems like it should help.