The Mule gets a Makeover

"The Mule", AKA the Specialized Rockhopper Expert MTB that M1 uses for bikepacking and general transport (M1 doesn't have a car) has had a good life. Don't worry. The Mule is not dead.

The Mule has seen nine European countries, and rolled through farmland, along coastlines, through wetlands teeming with wildlife and over several significant mountain ranges including the Swiss Alps and the Pyrenees. Not bad for an entry level bike that cost £700 eight years ago.

And The Mule has proved to be a very reliable machine for bikepacking, too. Over the four European bikepacking trips that The Mule has undertaken, nearly 7500 miles have been cycled, heavily laden. And that's not including the trips The Mule has done in the UK, either for bikepacking or more generally. And in all that time, the only mechanical failure has been a single broken spoke in Spain in 2022. The Mule hasn't even had a puncture in those European trips (although an inner tube did fail once; not technically a puncture).

It's a pretty good record. This excellent reliability record is to be explained in part to the fact that M1 services the bikes once a year and replaces components whenever necessary (and sometimes "just in case"). And of course, using good quality components is a factor too. That said, relatively cheap KMC chains are usually selected and close to bottom of the range SRAM cassettes. Key to the absence of punctures are the Continental Contact Plus tyres that we use on both The Mule and Bikey McBike Face, M2's bike. They're brilliant.

But, The Mule is not immune to wear and tear. On returning from this year's trip, The Mule was limping a bit. More specifically, the rear wheel was exhibiting some lateral movement or to be more technical, wobble. This was emanating from the hub. Furthermore, the derailleur, after a thorough clean, was also found to be somewhat wobbly at the top pivot. In both of these cases, replacement was called for. Repair wasn't really an option.

The chain was quite worn from all those miles and the cassette, too.

So, it was decided to buy The Mule some nice new wheels, and replace the cassette, chain and derailleur.

There's a plan to go somewhere quite remote and tough for next year's trip and this has been mysteriously alluded to in this blog a few times. Slightly less mysteriously, the plan is to go to Central Asia. The chosen route will be paved in part and unpaved and very rough in others. A risk assessment has been carried out for this trip and amongst the bike-related risks identified, a failure of either wheel was highlighted as "probably a showstopper"! There's no repairing a damaged rim. A spoke? Yes. But if the rim goes you've had it. Ditto hubs unless you carry the spares and tools required. And obtaining spares would be nigh on impossible in the more remote parts of this route. The kindness of strangers and hitchhiking would probably be the only way out of such problems.

Prevention is better than cure though, so the plan had always been to treat The Mule to some bomb proof wheels, designed specifically for touring and capable of handling a heavy load. To that end, after some research, M1 decided to order some custom built wheels from a small, custom wheel builder based in Wales. The company is called Ryan Builds Wheels. Hard to believe but the company is owned by a bloke called Ryan and... he builds wheels. My kind of brand. There can be no confusion as to what Ryan Builds Wheels does, right? Correct.

The website makes ordering custom wheels very easy and there are "ready to roll" wheel sets available, too. M1 ordered the following custom wheels:

Hubs:

Bitex BX207 Six Bolt Disk Touring Hubs - Black

Axle Front:

100mm QR

Axle Rear:

135mm QR

Freehub:

Shimano HG 11 Speed (Steel)

Rims:

Ryde Andra 40 25mm internal, super tough

Rim Size:

700c / 29"

Spoke Count:

36/36 (Stronger wheels for bike packing and more powerful riders)

Spokes:

Sapim Strong Silver (bikepacking / more powerful riders)

Nipples:

Silver Brass

There are a few compatibility issues to be wary of when speccing custom wheels. The freehub must be of a type that is compatible with your cassette and support the number of gears/cogs that it has. The Mule has a 10-speed cassette but with a spacer ring, the Shimano HG 11-speed freehub would be OK. Rims must be of the right diameter and they must be of a width that supports the width of tyre that you intend to use. It must be possible to mount the wheels to your forks using whatever mechanism they support, be it quick release (QR) skewers or through bolts.

M1 thought he knew what to order but equally, knew that if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. So, to be safe, a call was placed to Ryan Builds Wheels. And that call was answered by none other than The Man Called Ryan. You'll never guess what he does for a living by the way.

Ryan turned out to be a thoroughly nice guy and he was happy to discuss M1's wheel needs and help ensure that there would be no nasty surprises through ordering the wrong thing.

The hand-built wheels arrived surprisingly quickly, and M1 got on with fitting them as soon as the other parts had arrived. 

In the process, as is his forte, M1 came up with a number of "dumb questions". This is something M1 excels at. But rather than guess or risk it, an email (or two or....) were sent to Ryan to check points of detail with him. Ryan was incredibly patient and clear in his answers. It was nice to be so well supported.

Ryan built these wheels for The Mule

It's worth pointing out that the Bitex hubs use sealed bearings rather than the "cup and cone" type that The Mule's old (and cheap) wheels had. M1 is very pleased with this as there have been many occasions in the past when he's had to disassemble those hubs so as to be able to scrape grass and other crap out from them! The rubber seals those things have are not that effective when it comes to the varied and sometimes challenging terrains and weather conditions that come with bikepacking.

The Ryde Andra rims have a reputation for being the strongest rims out there, capable of supporting very heavy bikepacking loads.

Today, The Mule's Makeover was completed. The utterly lovely new wheels are on. Tyres, tubes and disk rotors have been transferred to the new wheels and they've been locked onto The Mule's forks using new QR skewers:

Rear: Shimano Deore FH-T610 Quick Release Skewer - 135mm

Front: Shimano Deore HB-T610 Quick Release Skewer - 100mm

Other new parts for The Mule that were fitted today are:

• SRAM PG1050 10 Speed MTB Cassette 11-36
• KMC X10 10 Speed Chain Silver 10 Speed 114 Links (but two links removed making it 112)
• Shimano Deore RD-T6000 Trekking SGS 10 Speed SGS

A new front mudguard to replace the one that was abandoned somewhere in France is still to be fitted.

Obtaining Parts

Selecting and obtaining The Mule's new wheels was a joy. It's a shame this was not the case for other parts! It's getting tricky to find 10-speed drivetrain parts and the usual SRAM PG1030 was not to be had for love nor money, necessitating selection of the more expensive PG1050. Worst of all was the derailleur. The Mule uses the Shimano Deore groupset which no longer seems to be available. The Mule's original Shimano SLX Shadow Plus derailleur couldn't be located anywhere and it took some help from M1's local bike shop (LBS) to identify the Shimano Deore RD-T6000 as a suitable alternative. Shimano indicate that only their fancy Linkglide directional chains should be used with this derailleur, by the way. M1 was concerned it might be hard to find this specific chain when in the back of beyond, but the LBS were of the opinion the usual KMC chain should be OK. Time will tell whether or not this is true!

That's It

So, it's a big day for The Mule who will resume standard transportation duties again soon. Fingers crossed everything works as intended. The hex key for adjusting the derailleur limit screws is in The Mule's frame bag, just in case.

Those hand-built wheels from Ryan Builds Wheels look lovely and you can just feel the quality and strength. Again, the proof of the pudding will be in the riding, but right now, M1 is very happy to have bought from Ryan Builds Wheels. M2's bike will need new wheels next year and they'll be ordered from Ryan.