Yak's Muddy Fox Courier, Trek Multitrack and other bikes

A few more pics from the first test ride and the towpath yesterday:

The bike looks really good!
I run a 70mm stem on my Pelago with drop bars, and I am very happy with it.

Ah cheers! Very reassuring to know, think I'll try some shorter stems and maybe raise the handlebars a bit

Unless you're really set on the fit with a setback seatpost, you could also try an inline seatpost. Should shorten the reach 15-25 mm as well.

i had a similar issue with my pomp, in the end i used a 60mm +35 stem which gives more height than a 100 +10 and a shorter reach, if i remember right.

obviously not on the same bike but it handles fine / i cant feel any difference, iirc you can also go mega short and offset with wide bars? if you're into that sort of stuff.

People also bullied me into using modern shaped drops and having a flat hood/bar transition, that helped greatly.

you might find some of this anecdata helpful, bike looks great fun!

Following up on what Maj said, I've used this tool a LOT to compare cockpit setups

Also not sure the bottoms of those bars are supposed to be parallel to the ground, but rather the tops should be horizontal and create a flat transition to the hoods, like so:

Amazing, thanks both. This is exactly why I started this thread in the first place! based on how it felt to ride yesterday, I reckon just angling the bars/drops as in the photo above should sort it. The seatpost was just what came with the bike so definitely not against trying out an inline post either

Sounds like a good plan.
I looks like a very fun and capable bike.

Meant to write in my last post "angling the bars and getting a shorter stem" should sort it, not just angling the bars. don't know why I wrote it like that that.

Having a fun morning procrastinating with the stem calc tool MisterMikkel posted. I checked again and my current stem is 80mm, not 90. Thinking of ordering the 60mm version of this stem from sjs to try. This might make finding a nicer looking quill stem in the future a bit more tricky as the VO/nitto ones don't seem to go much shorter than 80mm. Might just take the hit on positive affirmation from this forum and keep the quill adapter 😬😬😬😬

Should have some SPD pedals sorted soon and have a second hand spesh pizza rack to fit, so bike-wise should be all sorted for the scottish tour next month. Personal fitness-wise I am feeling verrry creaky after bank holiday weekend so I'm scheming some big loops round epping forest plus at least one london-cambridge ride between now and then to get a bit more in shape / iron out any last bike fit problems

While I was waiting for the gravelkings to arrive at the weekend, I gave the folder/pub bike a bit of attention. Managed to work out how the positron-style internal gear hub worked so I was able to remove the rear wheel, for tightening up the hub and truing it. Seems to have solved the play in the hub for now but I've read that these older shimano 3-speed hubs were prone to just wearing out with no way of servicing them, so might just have to chuck it eventually. Chucked on some old MTB levers and grips and some leftover jagwire brake outer. Wasn't sure if I was going to sell my wald 139 but now it's on this bike I'm really glad I kept it. Great little local runaround/beer getter/destination for free stickers.

Still needs a rear brake cable and some new pads, and I'm on the lookout for some serviceable tyres, but want to keep it a parts bin special to soothe my guilt about what I actually paid for it in the first place

Fitted the pizza rack & SPDs to the Trek yesterday, did a relaxed Epping forest ride with a pal with a bit of towpath action at the end of the day

The 60mm stem hasn't arrived yet, but I'd moved the seat as far forward as possible and readjusted the handlebar/lever position which definitely helped with not feeling so stretched out. Worryingly, my wrist became pretty painful towards the end of the day and is still pretty sore today. Reserving judgment til I've tried the shorter stem and possibly some cushy gloves or gel pads under the tape, but still slightly worried the frame's just too long for drop bars and trying to make it work will just be playing bike fit whack-a-mole.

On a positive note, got 'nice biked' by someone yesterday evening on a lovely black surly in Tottenham marshes, possibly 'on here'? Nothing lifts the spirits like spontaneous IRL bike approval from strangers

Also replaced the 7s cassette with a new 8s cassette and chain on the muddy fox. Not the most exciting update but I'm happy it's got a silver cassette again. Garden cat wasn't that impressed tho

I was looking at that caradice support and wondering what that crazy extra strap/support that you had put on there was....

Haha, rack-mounted garden chair for giving backies? Need to improve my bike photo skillz tbf but the cat was being cute

Good looking cat!

Yeh she's a real sweetie. Sadly not ours but she spends 90% of the day in our garden. Seems to like watching me work on the bikes. Very cute until she starts shitting in the plant pots

Anyway, back to bikes. Fitted this tiny wee stem yesterday, I was kind of shocked how smol it was when I opened the box. It's totally improved the riding position though, so thanks to Maj and MisterMikkel for the help with that. Wrist is still feeling a bit sore so haven't done a proper test ride yet. This thread is starting to become a cautionary tale of a 30 year old man riding drop bars for the first time since my teenage fixie skidder days. Been smashing Yoga with Adrienne recently though so hopefully that'll help a bit

Looking good!

You can use 1" spacers to get rid of the skinny neck look if it bothers you.

Cheers! Yeah I'd been thinking about spacers to tidy it up a bit. Now I'm pretty committed to this stem adapter setup I've ordered some.

Last few things to do before the Scotland trip are to tidy up the cables and retape the bars with some gel pads underneath. Might treat myself to an extra wrap of bar tape as well for some additional cush, or is that overkill?

Love this bike! Such a good combo of parts.

Good to meet you the other week for the cassette.

Cheers, and likewise! Yeah I'm super pleased with it how it turned out. Weird to have got to a point now where there's not much left to change with either bike. I guess ride them?

Lovely bank holiday weekend with the multitrack. Had a family gathering at my parents house, so on saturday me, my partner, brother and sister-in-law had an early morning ride down the towpath to broxbourne, train to cambridge, then ride from cambridge to my parents' village. Them on their brand new matchy-matchy shiny CdA's, my partner on her trusty raleigh mixte and me on the multitrack. The towpath bit was fun although I missed the muddy fox's bouncy tyres on some bits. The route to my parents place goes down the bike path next to the guided busway, essentially a 10 mile stretch of smooth, flat, straight, uninterrupted car free bike path. Normally I find this bit boring on the muddy fox as it gets quite monotonous just slogging it out and getting overtaken by land-skiers and mamils... loads more fun on the trek, felt like a proper roadie though, my MBUK-reading childhood self would've been ashamed

Had some nice fenland pootles on sunday, saw some baby cows, found out the pizza rack is perfect for transporting flowers bought from people's driveways:

After trying out my brother's CdA I realised my levers were too far forward so I moved them back and tidied up the bar tape, much more comfortable now.

On bank holiday monday me and my partner did the full 70 miles back home. The 20 miles was almost entirely on car-free lanes thanks to cambridgeshire's pretty comprehensive cycling infra

The middle bit through hertfordshire and essex was lovely, found a new-to-me route which I think is mostly on sustrans route 11? very quiet singletrack roads and windows XP-default-desktop-background-esque landscape. It was super hot and my partner wasn't enjoying the hills so much - her trek wasn't quite ready for a long ride so she took the mixte which doesn't have v wide gearing. We had the whole day to do it though so just took it easy with plenty of stops. (I didn't take any pics of this bit without my partner in them so had to use all my photoshop skills before posting here)

We got to stansted abbots to join the lea towpath at about 4, had a late pub lunch and a shandy before wobbling back to london. Saw some proper towpath characters including a triple tandem and a guy on an electric handcycle blasting eye of the tiger doing about 20mph

Really pleased with the trek now, think it's pretty much 'dialled' as they say. Despite my earlier reservations I love the woodchippers, they're so comfy in every position, and I can live with the stretch to get to the bar end shifters. I think the spacers have tidied up the headset adapter a bit, although they're too big e.g. the diameter is larger than the 1" part of the quill stem adapter. Certain I ordered 1"spacers so not sure if they're meant to be like that or they sent me the wrong size?

Doing the caledonian way next week with my dad which will be about 4 days of 60-70 mile rides, I'm no expert but probably not quite as flat as the fens, so hoping I'm up to it...

In other news, I rode the muddy fox a bit this week for work and have decided it's due a bit of an overhaul, bottom bracket is knocking/clicking a bit and the headset creaks, and I have a suspicion that the forks are bent as no matter what I try I can't get the brakes or mudguard lined up despite a perfectly trued wheel. If my suspicions are correct, I'm going to strip all the parts and take the f&f to a shop for straightening up and cold setting the rear dropout to 135mm, then treat the spots of surface rust etc before rebuilding with new bb & headset.

love this trek, cute and purposeful bike with just a smidge of retro mod where it matters

Second to last picture reminds me of the work of Balder Olrik

Haha, spot on! Maybe they just have a camera-shy partner as well?