Woodsmoke vs Cutthroat
My bike stable has three bikes now: a Soma Saga touring/commmuter bike, a Salsa Cutthroat bikepacking/gravel bike, and a Salsa Woodsmoke mountain bike. I love all of them. But I've got turmoil about my 2x system, and if I'm going to go 1x, I think I can further optimize. There's a few Woodsmokes around in a size Medium, so I'm tempted to buy it and do some swaps.
The Problem(s)
So, I do love my Woodsmoke and Cutthroat, just as they are. However, I think they could be better.
The Cutthroat's 42/28 gearing is fantastic, but it's so hard to find compatible stuff for it. If I can't get some chainrings that fucking work, then I'll definitely need to do a 1x, much to my chagrin. If I do a 1x, then I'm seriously limited in my gearing. A 34t oval would be the smallest I can run due to the power meter sizing. And a 36t oval or 38t round is the tallest I can run, which is a bit smaller than I'd like.
The Woodsmoke is a bit, well, small. I'm going to be running a 100mm stem on it! And a larger frame would be nicer for a bigger frame bag. It's not a huge problem, by any means.
It's a bit frustrating that I can't share wheels between the bikes. A gravel/cross country/touring wheelset should be great for both a flat bar and drop bar setup, and it'd be nice to have a bit more versatility.
Let's add a medium Woodsmoke frame to the mix and see what happens.
A New Woodsmoke
The M Woodsmoke frameset comes with a rigid Firestarter Boost fork, Wheels Mfg thread-together BB, and a full frame bag. Very nice.
My Small Woodsmoke can donate all of the flat bar components. Derailleur, shifters, brakeset, handlebars, etc.
So, what does the Small Woodsmoke wear? The parts from my Cutthroat! Turns out, almost all of them will donor nicely, too. The wheelsets will need Boostination, but I think I'll be fine doing that. Then I can build a dynamo front wheel that'll be shared between both mountain bikes!
I've checked and the geometry of the small Woodsmoke can be easily made to support the Medium Cutthroat fit that I have now. So it's all good to go.
The Upgrades
Since I won't be investing a ton of new parts into this setup, I'll have a lot of points that actually improve.
What's funny about this is that the Woodsmoke - as a 1x bike - will be a more capable road bike than the Cutthroat. It has shorter chainstays and can have a taller chainring - I could easily run a 42-54t chainring on the bike, whereas the Cutthroat is limited to a 38t, or a 36t oval. It's also a more capable mountain and gravel bike, with the more aggressive head tube angle.
Tire clearance is an improvement on the Woodsmoke, too. For long, non-technical riding, like the Baja Divide, it'd be great to have some really fat tires and drop bars. The Tally Tango on a drop-bar Woodsmoke would be amazing.
I want a Firestarter Boost fork for the Woodsmoke anyway for some touring and bikepacking adventures. Having a compatible fork would allow me to swap really easily. And then I can have a simplified wheelset story.
Generally speaking, the big wins here are simplicity, compatibility, and standardization. No more front derailleurs. No more Standard Thru Axle spacing stuff. Everything will be Boost, XD, etc and will work just fine with each other. I can get a single dynamo/touring front wheel for both bikes.
Q-factor won't even be wider. The Shimano XT cranks I got for the Cutthroat should work fine on the Woodsmoke.
So, downsides?
Well, cost. The frameset is listed at $1800. It's way too much, but I think at $1000 or $1200 it's reasonable. I think my Cutthroat frameset (plus the stuff I can't donor) should make around that much.
I'd have to spend some cash reworking my roadie wheelset to work with the Boost standard. And I'd need some bigger disc rotors for the road wheels, too.
Aesthetics. I love my Cutthroat's look. It's so cool. It's my sunflower bike. I love it. It was a dream bike for so long! And now I'm really considering selling it?
Overlap. It's literally the same bike frame. Just a different size. Feels pretty silly to have so much overlap? Especially since I'll be able to run my burliest wheelset with drop bars... or my fastest wheelset with flat bars. There are a ton of allowable configurations that just don't make any sense.
Gear range. As much as I want to keep that 42, I could still easily get a 40/26 setup on the Cutthroat and have a huge gear range. This is probably the right answer. Shit even a 38/24 setup wouldn't be awful.
It's a lot of work. I'd be redoing the hydraulic brake lines, again, and moving over all the cabling and crap. That's going to be annoying! And it's a long time to only have the Saga available.
Availability of large chainrings for a single setup on a 104BCD spider is also somewhat limited. Wolf Tooth and Absolute Black top out at 36t oval. Garbaruk has a 48t oval 104BCD, which is neat. Still, limited availability is a trick.
The Cutthroat's carbon layup is designed for bump compliance and absorption - comfort. The Woodsmoke is not designed with this in mind. I've always felt that the Woodsmoke is very comfortable, but I've almost exclusively used it with big rubber and a squish fork - a rigid fork and 2.2-2.4" tires probably won't perform the same.
Configurations
OK, let's list the variables:
- Wheelsets:
- 27.5+ HED wheels
- 29+ Duroc wheels
- Road/Gravel ENVE wheels
- 29er Stock Wheelset ?
- Dynamo front wheel ?
- Forks:
- Rigid
- Suspension
Probably won't want to swap the seatposts much - the dropper will stay on the flat bar. I also don't imagine wanting to swap the forks that much - when I think "I want a rigid fork for the Woodsmoke," I really meant that I'd want a rigid fork for the occasions where fatter tires make sense than what the Cutthroat can run.
So what wheelsets will I ever want to use on both sets?
- Drop Bars/Rigid Fork
- 27.5+ HED Wheels
- Yeah! This would be cool for bikepacking, especially in a mullet setup. Probably less likely to use this vs the 29+ wheelset, but I don't see why I wouldn't use these for some trips.
- 29+ wheels
- Yes. Definitely! Would be great to have that float and rollover and speed.
- ENVE wheels
- Obviously
- Gravel/Touring/Dynamo wheels
- Obviously
- Flat Bars/Suspension Fork
- 27.5+ HED wheels
- Obviously
- 29+ wheels
- Obviously
- ENVE wheels
- This seems extremely unikely. I doubt I would ever do this.
- Gravel/Touring/Dyrnamo wheels
- Yeah, I'd definitely run a dynamo up front. But I imagine that, for any ride where a dynamo makes sense, I may prefer one of the other wheels in the rear. So the dynamo wheel should be good for tires from 2.2-2.6 inches probably. A 29x2.6 would go great with a 27.5x2.8 or 3.0 rear, and an i30 rim could handle 2.3 to 2.6 decently well.
I feel pretty good about this.
Geometry Differences
| Part | Cutthroat (M) | Woodsmoke (S) | Difference |
| Top Tube Effective | 565mm | 591mm | +26mm |
| Seat Tube Length | 482.6mm | 381.0mm | -101mm |
| Head Tube Angle | 70.5 degrees | 67.8 degrees | -2.8 degrees |
| Seat Tube Angle | 73 degrees | 73.3 degrees | +0.3 degrees |
| BB Drop | 70mm | 62mm | -8mm |
| Chainstay Length | 445mm | 409-417mm | -28-36mm |
| Headtube length | 115mm | 100mm | -15mm |
| Fork Length | 483mm | 507mm | +24mm |
| Fork Offset | 45mm | 51mm | +6mm |
| Wheelbase | 1057.4mm | 1096-1112mm | +39-55mm |
| Stack | 619.5mm | 606mm | -13.5mm |
| Reach | 375.6mm | 409mm | 33.4mm |
| Standover | 787.1mm | 734mm | -43mm |
Now, my understanding of bike geometry isn't perfect, but I'll try and go through the list and see how I anticipate that'll affect the performance of the bikes.
Top tube effective being +26mm means that I'll need -26mm of effective stem length to maintain the same reach. This will increase the sensitivity of the bike to steering.
Seat tube length being nearly 100mm shorter means I'll need a much longer seat tube. A 400mm seat tube should work, and the Syntace P6 is 400mm - should work just fine indeed! I should double check this first, even though the diameter isn't right, I can at least check the height.
Head tube angle should result in a more aggressive and playful feel, at the expense perhaps of loaded speed and stability. That's a good trade.
Seat tube angle is slightly steeper. That means I'll have slightly less reach offset from the seatpost height.
BB drop is 8mm less, which means that (given the same tire size) I should be 8mm higher off the ground. So the Woodsmoke will actually run smaller wheels/tires than the Cutthroat!
The chainstays seem to be the biggest difference. Between 28-36mm shorter. Long chainstays are a major feature on touring and gravel bikes for the additional stability they offer. I may end up regretting losing out on this. Short chainstays make it easier for the front wheel to come up - but that may just mean that technical climbs are easier. I've never found the Woodsmoke to be bad at climbing - just the opposite, in fact.
Headtube length means I'll need a bit more exposed head tube to get the spacer height I want.
Wheelbase is longer on the Woodsmoke by a good bit. This should increase stability, especially while descending.
Stack is 13.5mm lower on the Woodsmoke, so I'll need to make up for that in the stem.
Reach is 33.4mm longer on the Woodsmoke - the effective-top-tube-length stat is only 26mm more, since the seat tube angles are different.
There is an additional 43mm of standover clearance on the Woodsmoke. This means a smaller frame bag, but it also means that I can more easily run top tube bags.
Calculating the New Stem
I'm currently running an 80mm stem with a 16 degree rise, and about 68mm of spacers. Given the 70.5 degree head tube angle, this means I have -22mm of spacer reach and +65mm of stem reach - for a total adjustment to the top-tube-effective length of +43mm, for a total length of 634mm.
Meanwhile, the stack from spacers is 64mm and the stem stack is 46mm, for a total stack adjustment of +110mm and a total stack of 729.5mm.
With the Woodsmoke's 67.8 head tube angle, I'll get a more extreme effect from the stem and spacers. So the same spacer amount (68mm) will give me a -25mm reach from spacers. I need to recover another 23mm from the stem. We've got 13.5mm less frame stack and ~1mm less spacer stack, too, so we need to get a stem with +14.5mm stack and -23mm reach. That means we need an extreme angle.
Plugging this all in to my calculator, I'm seeing that an 80mm stem with a 35 degree angle with give me a stem reach of 43mm (-22mm) and a stem stack of 67.2mm (+21.2mm). According to my calculations, this puts me at 6mm more stack and 5mm more reach. These numbers are nearly identical with my Soma Saga, which is very comfortable. At 70mm and 35 degrees, I'm exactly the same reach and 3mm less stack. That works for me.
Will a Medium Woodsmoke even fit?
The Medium Woodsmoke has +20mm effective top tube and a +9mm stack. I am currently running an 80mm stem with 6 degrees of rise. By my calculations, a 60mm stem will have the exact same stack/reach. I do actually want slightly less stack and slightly more reach, I think, and simply flipping my current stem will give me 6mm less stack and 24mm more reach. Given that I'm about to try a 100mm stem on the Woodsmoke... Yeah. I think that'll do just fine.
UPDATE
The Small Woodsmoke got drop bars and became the Cutsmoke. However, the 68 degree head tube angle and short wheelbase made it feel very unstable at road speeds, and the handling was very twitchy. Not really suitable for a long haul adventure bike. I ended up converting back to flat bars and it is now my girlfriend's bikepacking bike. Gravel duties have been taken on by the 3T Exploro I recently acquired.
Meanwhile, the Medium Woodsmoke is extremely comfortable on longer rides, especially with aerobars. So it is now my adventure/bikepacking bike.
Comments
Post a Comment