Return of the Purple Surly Pugsley!...

 

Told you I would get all my old bikes back eventually!, selling them to friends when a previous job went `down the pan` and I got screwed out of wages it was a good idea to sell them to friends  on a `first offer to buy back dibs`... 

Left the best until last to buy back... was the Purple Pugsley... an original 1st generation Pugsley in the first colour run Surly did them in which was `Barney Zirple` purple...

Only a handful of Purple Pugsley`s arrived in the UK back in 2004/5...  These were built as Dealer Demo bikes or bought by riders who took them to the Iditabike Snow race in Alaska and beyond. As my own Grey frame was these were at first only available as a frame and fork set which you then added the Surly `Large Marge rims and Surly 3.7" (Actually 4")  `Endomorph tyres, and the first Endomorph  pre production tyres had gum (Tan colour) sidewalls (even rarer still own).  This 18"  medium size  frame set appeared for sale on eBay after the owner over in Ireland had never built it up due to family commitments ,

This was the 2nd Pugsley frame set Fatbike I built up using my own original Pugsley build kit, you can read that old blog post here about this frame set turning up and a lot more like how and why i was drawn to the `Fatside` when I first saw a picture of a Surly Pugsley; Purple Haze...

The bike did not look like the above pic though when I picked it up with the van as I it needed a make over after I went and bought it back from Ali,  

It was in need of some tlc after a lot of salt water exposure...

A seized seat post, corroded spoke nipples and had a new black fork fitted last year as the original fork had cracked...

But it's a steel bike and everything can be repaired easily and Colin at my local shop here in town soon had the seat post cut out and removed, in exchange of a 36 hole Symetrical lace Surly Large Marge rim I had in a huge collection of Surly rims I have collected up over the years, for a `Fat Unicycle he has now built - but that's another story!...

The frame paint was rough around the BB area but luckily the chain stays had a good coating of grime that would hopefully have saved the original paint, I already had a layback seat post to use on the rebuild once the seized seat post was removed which I would need using a medium size frame...

The fork had been replaced with the newer generation of straight tubed offset fork, a nice new fork which I already have two of as they come on the newer Pugsley 2.0 frame sets (in Orange)...

However I also own an as new/unused original Pugsley fork, 135 rear disc spaced and Canti brake mounts fork, so it would be great to get the colour matched to the original frame paint.  This fork I don't really have a use for so it makes sense to use it as it is the same shape and spec that would have been fitted originally...

A wee makeover...

I stripped the bike down and a few parts of the 9 speed transmission were still ok, but the rear mech was shot along with the square taper bottom bracket and the wheels are pretty rough with well used tyres corroded spoke nipples (2 were broken) and rough bearings in both hubs - these wheels really need rebuilt but I will bodge them up for now then prob swap them out for another pair, or rebuild with new spokes and hub bearings. I soon had a pile  of stuff to sort through and most of it was junked...

Luckily I have a massive storage of parts to rebuild Pugsley`s from years of owning, searching, and buying up cheap stuff from constant searches on eBay and sale pages online etc...

All the regular parts like head sets and seat posts...

To hubs...

Avid BB7 cable brakes...

Bottom brackets...

Shimano Alfine IGH and Single speed parts...

And the rarer (now unavailable) offset rims in various widths...

Only 2 pairs of Alaskan Snow 29" x 50mm wide Snowcat wheels I know of in the UK, this pair and another pair that are drilled which were originally owned by Motorman on his original red 9ZERO7 bike - now sold to on somewhere in the UK..

Newer rims that fit the old Pugsleys are the single wall `Marge Lite` 65mm rims...

29+. 29" x 50mm Rabbit hole wheels, several pairs now, this pair have a Shimano Internal Hub Gear (IGH) 8 speed Alfine hub...

And the monster 100mm wide `Clownshoe` rims which fit the newer last model Pugsley 2...

For now I will worry about the simple stuff, finding that purple colour for the fork...

The right purple...

I was wanting to get the bike rolling again on minimum outlay from what I had at hand in the Pugsley stock piles and paying a spray painter to colour match the purple was not really an option with the costs, esp this now during lockdown, so I chanced on a metallic purple spray paint on eBay...

And having tried it out on some tubing I soon sanded the new offset fork with wire wool, primed it then after several coats check this out for a matching result!

Drive chain...

Left to harden the paint on the fork for a few days I decided how to build the drive chain on this Pugsley, rather than re use 2 x 9 speed derailed gears, and having another Pugsley with 1 x 10 gears and one with an Alfine 8 speed internal gear hub (IGH) I decided to honour the Surly Pugsley with it's great reversible wheel concept and build it as a single speed with tool free swappable wheels to allow a quick change of gearing, I would leave the wheels that came on it for now until time allows to rebuild them, and later will prob fit the rare as hens teeth 29" x 50mm Alaskan made Snowcat rims for single speeding summer trails. The bike will probably go 1 x 10 speed eventually but for now it will go single speed...

First off to sort out the parts and a Single speed kit with a 20t sprocket was fitted onto the Shimano freewheel rear hub and a screw on 18t sprocket onto he front Surly Ultra rear hub - as you may or not know Surly cleverly used a rear disc brake mount on the forks so a single speed rear hub was used on the front allowing swappable wheels for single speed gearing options or if a rear mech/freehub freezes up or fails out in the wilderness somewhere....

Another  tube in the wheels and a couple of spoke nipples swapped out and the sprockets were soon on and the wheels ready...

I swapped the crank arms for some old Suntour square taper arms I have as they only have a single chainring option and fitted a Surly Stainless steel 32t chainring and a Hope bash ring that was still on the bike from when I built it...

A new £20 Zitto square taper bottom bracket was fitted after repacking the bearings with marine grease, The axle length is a slightly too long 155mm (152mm is a more ideal width for Pugsley) but the Suntour crank arms were not to wide so a decent chain line would still be achievable...   

Cranks and previous pedals were soon on...

Single speed chain length for two gearing options...

From experience with the chain stay length of a  Pugsley means if you use an odd number on the rear sprocket a chain can be cut to run the wheel all the way forward - doing this in the larger of your two chosen gear ratio sprockets should allow enough chain tension to be taken up on the horizontal drop outs with two small cogs - ie my 20t fitted will be forward in the chain stay the smaller 18 tooth further back to take up the chain slack.  Still with me on that?, right,  I discovered early on using Alfine hub gears that running a 32t (even number) chainring If the rear cog was an odd number -17t. 19t, 21t, 23t, etc... then you need to fit a half link...

Add this onto the chain then with your wheel fully forward (using the biggest of your rear cog options) you can cut the chain and going the split link should have just a little bit slackness...

And now for the genius way Surly came up with part of their concept - a tool free chain tensioner which makes the affair simple... The Surly Tugnut...

With two hole positions and using the spacer for 9mm quick release or with out for 8mm bolt on axles they are simple to use and tension chains...

They fit in the Surly chain stays and work a treat... and check out the bottle opener for your post cycle beer!...

I also have one I adapted to be able to use with the Shimano Alfine hub that need to use an anti rotation serrated tab...

Back to the rebuild and the brakes and cables were a bit shot so treated the old Pug to some new Avid BB7 cable disc brakes along with Shimano MTB cables...

All my Fatbikes use this set up, prepped with copper grease and cables oiled prior to fitting they offer `in the field` tool free maintenance with ability to wind off the pad clearance if in wet sand, you will need to fit a rear  `+20mm` mount to the front brake to a Pugsley as it uses a rear brake mount position on the fork remember...

The Thomson layback seat post was way longer than needed so 4 " was sawed off and sawn edge smoothed on the grinder...

And we were nearly done!

I added some Ergon grips bought down the local shop, then realised there is an old pair of original bar end Ergon on my shop bike! so these are now on that and get near daily use!, These Clark grips are ace value at £12 - a third of the price of genuine Ergon grips...

After that it was out with degreaser and the remaining bike parts degreased and washed, this revealed good paint condition on the chain stays and once dry I added some spare Surly fork and down tube graphics. I only have one white and one black complete Pugsley sticker sets left which I am keeping to use as templates for more to get made later...

Looking not bad!...

And a nice addition to my Pugsley collection, all three original 1st generation Pugsley`s, all with different drive chain set ups, all the same basic concept...

Viva la Pugsley!...

More soon...