Fern Cross Tourer

The geared sibling of my Fat Tyre Fixed:

This is a long running project that's nearing completion...

Built with a similar DNA but for different uses...where the fixed gear is the general flat-land mile muncher, this is primarily a cross/gravel race bike and secondly an ultra-distance/touring bike.

With that in mind the geometry is optimised around a 35mm tyre but it will take up to a 48 knobby or 42 with guards. There's rack mounts and routing for dynamo cabling however no brazed on rear light mount...thinking being: most of the time it will be stripped back and clean but if I ever wanna go world touring I can add dynamo, racks, lights etc.

The front-end is slightly shorter and higher and the rear end is shorter to make it more responsive in view of this being primarilly an off road bike.

Subscribed. This will obviously be good.

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Subbed. Dis gon be gud

As above

Woop 🙌

Ferntastic!

This is all in hindsight but I'll try to paint a picture of the process....

Tubeset and forks is the same as the FTF above: custom formed Columbus Spirit and an Alygn Prototype Fork

With the geo set, into the build...I started with the stem on this one, was making one for a customer and wasn't pressed for time so made one for this in tandem

I started work on this around March/April 2020, lockdown here in Berlin so spent a lot of time keeping busy in the workshop and initially it came together pretty quickly. Didn't document making the front triangle but there's plenty of that in other threads.

The rear triange:

The eagle-eyed amongst you will see I've marked out a knobby 45mm tyre but I've given it a ton of room to allow for a 48 with mud clearance, similar to the fork

Making and mitering the flat mount brake mounts:

Did a quick dry fit and it was tight getting the dyno cable through the stay past the mount so I milled a little notch in it to make things easier down the line:

And finally brazed in the internal routing:

Excellent thread and pictures.

Shortly thereafter I brazed the frame up, filed a fillet or two and then hung it up, not to be touched again until August

Looking forward to this, any plans for the paint yet?

Then I received a phone call from a friend asking if I fancied joining him to bikepack Le Route Des Grande Alpes - "The Route des Grandes Alpes is a tourist itinerary through the French Alps between Lake Geneva and the French Riviera passing over all the high passes of the Alps within France. "

Me: "Yes! Don't have a suitable bike but I've got a candidate...when?"
Him: "In 10 days"

What followed was an absolute frenzy of activity, working, on all the customer work I needed to do in time, by day and ordering parts, equipment and getting this finished by night. We didn't have stock of the tubing we use for internal routing but it arrived just in time:

It all came together and culminated in brazing on the last bottle boss on the friday evening:

Straight downstairs for a quick and dirty rattle can paint job:

Saturday: decals on and built up:

Sunday on the back of a bus heading for Geneva, me settling in for a solid 20hrs kip:

^ actual footage of me on that bus...

LRDGA KM 0, packed and ready to roll out:

As usual, top work.

It was an incredible round trip taking in 1300km, maaaaany altitude meters, every high pass between Geneva and Nice and Mount Ventoux on the way back for good measure

And possibly the best start to a birthday ever - a beer for breakfast at 2000+m following by a mega descent allllll the way down

The bike was a dream, only issue was a sidewall failure leading to a nervous descent but there was a bike shop in the valley with a suitable replacement

And since then it's been ridden hard from weekend trips

A 1000k trip through Germany at the start of summer

Another one towards the end:

A few cross races:

A gravel stage race:

And finally set up with knobbies and guards to ride to Bavaria for christmas:

Also testing a Ritchey bar and stem combo, liked the stem but the bar/hood interface not so much:

Over it's short life it's taken a beating, the paint flaked off and rust started to set in and so I decided I'd strip it, add a few features, get it painted and build it up properly, before it's too late

I wanted to add another clamp to the stem to allow me to change bars or the stem quickly.

Stem looks superb.

To give an idea of how it was built and planned updates

OG Build spec:
Headset: Alygn Prototype
Stem: Steel handmade
Bars: Deda RHM02
Brakes/Levers: TRP Hylex RS hydro flat mount
Shifting: 1x 11s, XT RD-M8000 paired with a Gevenalle shifter
Crank: Custom anodized Dura Ace FC-7400
Chainring: Wolftooth 40t
Chain: KMC X11EL Black
Cassette: SRAM Powerglide II PG 1130 11 -42...I think :)
Wheetset: 105 hubs, Stans Crest Rims
Saddle: Fizik Antares VSX
Seatpost: Thompson
Tyres: Rene Herse Snoqualmie Pass 700 x 44, then switched to Gravelking EXT 38s for racing

Your threads are always a treat, this bike is sweet

Issues/updates:

Bars:
Not totally in love with the bars but get on well enough with them. I like the flat drop of classic bars so tried out a Ritchey classic but didn't like to hood position it gave. Zipp SL88 (which I have on my track bike) offer's the best of both worlds but the reach is too long so will probably stick with a compact bar. I prefer a round top so will likely swap out the Deda RHM02 for an 01

Stem:
I like the looks and ride of the steel stem but only realised while cross racing that how much it flexes and so I'm having two stems painted: the steel for the looks and an alu one for the ride

Shifting:
Another issue that only became apparent in racing - in cross I ride almost exclusively on the hoods but found gravel racing that I wanted to ride in the drops more as holding an aero position on the hoods over rough terrain was roasting my triceps. The Gevenalle shifter is only accessable from the hoods and I found it super annoying having to come out of the drops to brake, change gears and set up for corners then accelerate, shift and go back to the drops on exiting.

I love the braking performance and feel of the TRP's so want to keep them and have/am toying with the idea of switching to Di2 a la with added sprint shifters for shifting in the drops:

For now I'm sticking with mechanical as I do like the Gevenalle outside of race situations and it's bombproof and suitable for long tours, will be evaluating in coming races this year though

Chainring:
Had some issues with chain drop using the Wolftooth (no doubt due to many hundreds of climbing km's in the smallest gear with extreme chain line causing excessive wear very quickly) - have bought a Garbaruk chainring which looks to have longer teeth in the hope it'll stop the problem

Cassette:
With the chain drop issue in mind I've gone for an 11 - 46 XT M8000 to broaden the gear range and reduce the amount of time I'll spend at the extreme

Wheelset:
Have been running these rims on the FTF without issue but on this bike a known issue reared it's ugly head in fairly short order, namely: the rim cracked around every drive-side spoke hole. Stans have since completely redesigned the rim but I'm not taking the chance and have gone with the slightly robuster DT Swiss XR391.

I also didn't really like the feel of the 105 rear hub: I've never before felt that pick-up was an issue but it's super slow on the these - you get a "clang" feeling when you jump of the pedals coming out of corners caused by the lag. I've gone with Hope Pro 4s as I've always been a fan of the reliability and servicibility and chose the 6 bolt option, again with a thought to future touring.

The old brake rotors were totally worn out so I've got some Hope rotors coming to match the hubs too.

Tyres:
tbh I've been very happy with boths sets of tyres for their intended uses and they've both got life left in them so they'll definitely see more use but I've always been a fan of Conti tyres and have heard good things about the Terra Speed so am keen to give them a go