daywalkerJoined: 09 Nov 2007Posts: 6108Location: Hatertown
I used to keep up on my blog with this shit and it may still end up there, but for now I figured I'd put this up.
We just picked up a and built out a Disc Saga for Moira, and I have a Wolverine that's been sitting on my wall since October. They're very similar frames but there are some differences.
- Seat tube / head tube angles are more or less the same
- Both have similar tire clearances
- Saga has lower bottom bracket (80mm) vs Wolverine (70mm) - Saga will be marginally more comfortable
- Saga has less fork offset (45mm) vs Wolverine (50mm) - Wolverine *may* be marginally better at handling front loads
- Saga has longer chain stays than Wolverine. Probably due to the lower bottom bracket - will provide a more comfortable ride. But the Wolverine will be a little more responsive, have better power transfer, and marginally increased crank/pedal clearance.
- Saga has higher head tube stack. It's going to result in a sliiightly more relaxed/upright body position. But only slightly. Arguably better for distance riding. Builds are going to look a little more derpy without some conscious thought and effort put into it.
- Saga threaded/tapped the seatstay/chainstay/fork bridges for fenders. So fucking nice. Wolverine did not - I guess they needed to pay for those stupid dropouts somehow.
- Saga has the disc caliper inside the rear triangle and routes cable along the bottom. Also super nice.
- Saga has a slightly better standover by virtue of it's gently sloping top tube.
- Saga has 3x water bottle cages. Wolverine only has 2x.
- 700c Saga cannot be built up 650b - Wolverine can. Actually this is questionable. The 700c Saga frame has 80mm of BB drop, going 650b might drop things too low. Not to say you couldn't make it work if you were really of a mind to, but it might get stupid. If you're small enough to get the 26in frame, it has only 50mm of bb drop and the website copy states you can do 650b if you prefer. But if you're already doing 26in, why bother (that's rhetorical, just cork it tire zealots).
Overall, Saga has slightly more sturdy tubing than the Wolverine, will put you in a slightly more relaxed body position and is a little better for distance riding and pannier carrying than the Wolverine. With threaded bridges, 3x bottle cages, and spare spoke holders, it has a few nice ammenities and is a little nicer to work on. Overall, it's a pretty sweet touring rig with a lot of sporty characteristics. If you're considering a Surly Disc Trucker, do the Disc Saga instead.
Overall, Wolverine has slightly lighter tubing, slightly more sporty geometry, and might front load a little better than the Saga (depending who you ask, comparisons forth coming). It's not out of the realm of pannier tourer but is sliiightly better suited for semi-rando or monster cross stuff. The dropouts provide a lot of flexibility that I personally think is stupid, but other than sacrificing the threaded bridges to pay for them, don't appear to have a lot of drawbacks beyond a very minor weight penalty (talking ounces here - and it's still lighter than the Saga) and Fred and Ben's pointless derision. With 70mm bb drop, the 700c Wolverine has proven to be up to the task of going 650b. With 80mm bb drop it's not clear if the same can be said of the 700c Saga - but signs point to no.
These bikes have a crapload of overlap but there are some differences, minor they may be.
Last edited by tehschkott on Sun Mar 06, 2016 3:05 pm; edited 15 times in total _________________ GREAT UNITER / ORACLE / ELDER
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Andrew_Squirrel
Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 3:42 pm
Joined: 01 Mar 2010Posts: 2098Location: Greenwood
tehschkott wrote:
- 700c Saga cannot be built up 650b - Wolverine can. With 80mm of BB drop on a 700c frame, going to 650b drops you too far (by their reckoning). Not to say you couldn't make it work if you were really of a mind to, but it might get stupid. If you're small enough to get the 26in frame you can do 650b, but at that point why bother (that's rhetorical, just cork it).
Good report!
Would the Compass Switchback Hill tires allow you to do the Saga in 650b mode if you expected to run them most of the time?
tehschkott
Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 3:51 pm
daywalkerJoined: 09 Nov 2007Posts: 6108Location: Hatertown
I have no idea. Maybe?
The copy for Saga says you can do 650b for 26in, but nothing about doing it for 700c. Given the whopping 80mm BB drop on 700c frames and the lack of language around it I'm inferring that it may get a little silly if you try. If it could do it I'm assuming they'd say so - their lack of comment here is speaking to me.
But who knows - they don't say shit about 650b for the Wolverine and it obviously does that quite well. But it also has a slightly higher bb. So who's to say.
Is Freerange carrying Soma? Maybe we can get Kathleen to give it a shot. Someone want to talk to her?
123 not it
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Alex
Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 3:59 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006Posts: 3128Location: Roosevelt
tehschkott wrote:
- Saga has the disc caliper inside the rear triangle and routes cable along the bottom. Also super nice.
Is the cable in housing or exposed? Having the cable in housing has the downside of allowing it to fill with rain and then freeze or corrode.
tehschkott wrote:
The Wolverine has slightly lighter tubing, slightly more sporty geometry, and will take a front load a little better than the Saga. It's not out of the realm of pannier tourer, but is sliiightly better suited for semi-rando or monster cross stuff.
Neither of them have particularly low trail, and the higher trail of the Saga actually probably works better with a front load. Higher trail doesn't always mean worse experiences with front load, it's more like a bi-nodal graph where the worst handling with a front load is somewhere around 50-55mm of trail (depending on tires too of course).
A high trail bike (like the LHT) with front load handles well, you just have to muscle it more than you would a low trail bike when going around corners or riding on dirt.
A mid-trail bike (50-55mm range in my experience) feels squirrelly with a front load.
tehschkott wrote:
The dropouts provide a lot of flexibility that I personally think is stupid, but other than sacrificing the threaded bridges to pay for them, offer a lot of build flexibility and don't appear to have a lot of drawbacks (beyond Fred and Ben's pointless derision). Unlike the Saga, you can use a 700c Wolverine frame for 650b wheels without issue.
They also make the chainstays wider, increasing the chances of chainstay/heel issues. I don't know why people use sliders (which cantilever out behind the seatstay) instead of rockers (which don't), they just look so much worse. Rockers also typically have space for the disk caliper inside the rear triangle.
tehschkott
Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 4:30 pm
daywalkerJoined: 09 Nov 2007Posts: 6108Location: Hatertown
Alex wrote:
tehschkott wrote:
- Saga has the disc caliper inside the rear triangle and routes cable along the bottom. Also super nice.
Is the cable in housing or exposed? Having the cable in housing has the downside of allowing it to fill with rain and then freeze or corrode.
tehschkott wrote:
The Wolverine has slightly lighter tubing, slightly more sporty geometry, and will take a front load a little better than the Saga. It's not out of the realm of pannier tourer, but is sliiightly better suited for semi-rando or monster cross stuff.
Neither of them have particularly low trail, and the higher trail of the Saga actually probably works better with a front load. Higher trail doesn't always mean worse experiences with front load, it's more like a bi-nodal graph where the worst handling with a front load is somewhere around 50-55mm of trail (depending on tires too of course).
A high trail bike (like the LHT) with front load handles well, you just have to muscle it more than you would a low trail bike when going around corners or riding on dirt.
A mid-trail bike (50-55mm range in my experience) feels squirrelly with a front load.
tehschkott wrote:
The dropouts provide a lot of flexibility that I personally think is stupid, but other than sacrificing the threaded bridges to pay for them, offer a lot of build flexibility and don't appear to have a lot of drawbacks (beyond Fred and Ben's pointless derision). Unlike the Saga, you can use a 700c Wolverine frame for 650b wheels without issue.
They also make the chainstays wider, increasing the chances of chainstay/heel issues. I don't know why people use sliders (which cantilever out behind the seatstay) instead of rockers (which don't), they just look so much worse. Rockers also typically have space for the disk caliper inside the rear triangle.
INteresting. Thanks Alex!
We're using hydro disc brakes and I don't recall any stops - I'm going to say it's full housing, no exposure.
Neither of them are dedicated low-trail front loaders and that's fine. But one may be slightly less bad and I'm curious to see which. Was talking with Denny about his Wolverine - he crunched some numbers and came to those conclusions. Paired with my limited low-trail experience, the increase in offset seemed to reinforce his position. However your interpretation of the same gives me pause. Both bikes are getting front racks and bags - will be able to do some comparisons and find out for ourselves. I don't expect big differences between them, but we will see.
I don't love the Wolverine dropouts, but I sorta don't care too. I didn't know the Disc Saga existed - it just wasn't on my radar. If I had I may well have have bought a Disc Saga instead - lower bottom bracket, threaded bridges, 3x bottle cages, and uncomplicated dropouts are all compelling arguments IMO. But I bought a Wolverine so this is what I will roll with. It's going to be a fun bike in it's own right and there's a fair amount of overlap between the two. I wanted to get it down somewhere, and appreciate the feedback.
Last edited by tehschkott on Wed Mar 02, 2016 4:43 pm; edited 1 time in total _________________ GREAT UNITER / ORACLE / ELDER
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rza
Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 4:40 pm
Joined: 22 Jul 2013Posts: 452
There's a 54cm saga disc built up for sale at JRA right now, I rode it 2 days ago. They're asking $1200 for it, new. Just in case anyone is seriously interested, OR wants to go up there and put eyes on it/finagle them into letting you try weird stuff on it. The folks up there are really nice. Plus, they just moved into a new space with a LOT more space.
tehschkott
Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 5:09 pm
daywalkerJoined: 09 Nov 2007Posts: 6108Location: Hatertown
Here are a couple initial build pics taken the night before FHR. Still getting cockpit dialed in, missing front fender, and have yet to get the rack/bag mounted. Will post proper pics after finished.
I'll be eyeballing tire/fender clearances when I see it on Saturday. That's one area the Wolverine is slightly limited (in 700c), imho.
I'm going to investigate my current stable. Honestly I bet 80mm bb drop would be just fine with 650×42 or 26x2.0.
tehschkott
Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 5:43 pm
daywalkerJoined: 09 Nov 2007Posts: 6108Location: Hatertown
Please do.
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Alex
Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2016 9:21 am
Joined: 18 May 2006Posts: 3128Location: Roosevelt
I'm running 75mm drop on Gifford (frame is built for 65mm, but it has an eccentric BB rotated to near the bottom) since originally building it up. I occasionally get pedal strike on corners. My pedals aren't small, and clipless pedals probably wouldn't strike. I've almost always ridden this bike with 42-584 tires, sometimes in the summer it wears 50-584 tires without fenders.
80mm is likely too much drop to run 650B tires unless you use the new Switchback Hill. It sounds like the Wolverine would fit those fine though, and they are great tires.
I don't think 10mm in bottom bracket height really makes a difference in stability. It does change how long your seat tube length can be, a lower BB has a longer seat tube for the same standover.
tehschkott
Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2016 12:21 pm
daywalkerJoined: 09 Nov 2007Posts: 6108Location: Hatertown
But a lower bb does play a part in the handling does it not? Most tourers have low bottom brackets, most cross bikes have high bottom brackets, and road bikes fall somewhere in between - and the range isn't great. We're talking 10~30mm of drop is all that separates a cross from a tourer typically. Clearly lots of details play into it, but your reply suggests it doesn't play any part except to lengthen the seat tube. Am I misunderstanding something?
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Alex
Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2016 12:28 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006Posts: 3128Location: Roosevelt
I'm telling you that I don't think it really matters with handling. I can flip the BB on my bike by 20mm, and it doesn't make a noticeable difference to me.
Lots of other things matter a lot, but I don't find BB to be one of them. I do prefer the fit of a bike that has a lower BB, because it lowers the saddle height making it easier to start and stop. The right BB height is going as low as you can without pedal strike.
Cyclocross bikes and mountain bikes have higher BBs to increase ground clearance, not to change the handling.
tehschkott
Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2016 12:41 pm
daywalkerJoined: 09 Nov 2007Posts: 6108Location: Hatertown
Ah. I was under the impression it raised the center of gravity, providing some nimbleness at the expense of a little comfort - and increased clearance was cherry on the cake. Shows what I know.
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jimmythefly
Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2016 9:38 pm
Joined: 10 Jan 2007Posts: 1491
Cornering clearance is also affected by crank arm length, Q factor, and pedal size.
I made some drawings a while back showing some of these factors.
The reference for these was 70mm BB drop, 175 cranks, Shimano SPD pedals, 146 qfactor 700x32 tires is what I ran on an old Trek Road bike and worked great.
This one has the Trek on the left. On the right it shows how if you went to a 700x52 tire, you could build a frame with 92mm bb drop and still keep the same clearance.
This one has the Trek on the right. It shows how on the left if you used a big BMX pedal (PDMX30 shown) how much you would have to raise the BB to 48mm drop to keep the same cornering clearance.
Trek back on the right (sorry). This is another way to look at it, for a given frame and crankset, if you change pedals how much does it affect lean angle?
For MTN bikes there are issues of smanging your chainring on a rock or log, so actual BB height matters. And that + crank arm length also might keep you from smacking a pedal on a rock on the downstroke. So cornering clearance/lean angle are not the only things worth looking at.
I think I still have the cad file this is based on. Holler if you have some specific measurements you want to see compared.
Andrew_Squirrel
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 11:27 am
Joined: 01 Mar 2010Posts: 2098Location: Greenwood
Doesn't your front end steering geometry also factor in. As in most high trail bikes require less steering input but more leaning into turns for an equivalent radius where as a lower trail front end requires more steering input and less lean?
dennyt
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2016 1:05 pm
rocket mechanicJoined: 02 Aug 2005Posts: 2708
The Wolverine is a fun bike and I recommend it :)
The Haulin' Colin rack bolts right up to the fork. The tire clearance limits without fenders are, as pictured above:
Front 29 x 2.25 (Schwalbe Rocket Ron 700 x 57)
Rear 29 x 2.1 (Schwalbe Thunder Burt 700 x 54)
I didn't like the sliding dropouts when shopping for it, but I actually like them now. I find myself adjusting the wheelbase to be as short as possible for whichever tire I am running. I should get a road front derailleur to increase tire clearance, the MTB derailleur I'm running has a clunky clamp for larger tubing. I've had zero problems with the dropouts moving, after days of climbing in the granny gear with overnight gear on gravel roads and trails.
I'm not sure how much clearance it would have for 650B wide tires because the chainstay dimples don't extend very far back. I'd be happy to let someone test fit their wheels on my bike to check this out.
I haven't tried installing a rear rack on it, but my fender stays on the brake side are custom-bent to clear the caliper. Look closely in this area if you want to run a rear rack.
I haven't ridden a proper low-trail bike, but I have ridden this one enough to know it's way more fun than my old Kona Jake. It doesn't feel squirrely with a load up front, and I've descended some steep singletrack without any worries.
I'm currently running Schwalbe G-One 700 x 38 tubeless with fenders. They make a nice high-pitched whine on fresh asphalt. Waiting for a nice 700 x 50 tubeless road tire to come out...
tehschkott
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2016 1:49 pm
daywalkerJoined: 09 Nov 2007Posts: 6108Location: Hatertown
That's rad Denny. Thanks. I saw similar - took my wheels off the Bad Monkey and threw them in. 2.1 Vulpines (measuring 2.156 / 54.77mm) fit in the rear and still had enough room for fenders. Room for bigger on the front.
We mounted 2.2in Specialized Enduro tires to Moira's Saga and went to Banner Forest yesterday. $10/ea in the used bin at Recycled - score. Clearance with fenders - check.
The tires mounted and inflated on WTB i30 rims meausred 2.034 at the tube - didn't measure at the knobs like I should have. Still, ample room.
The Saga and Wolverine may not take every tire made in the line of big volume tires, but I think concerns around a lack of tire clearances may be with little merit. Tire vendors often lie about tire sizes and err on the big side, frame fabricators err on the small side. Taken together it does not add up to a lack of tire options or clearance problems. On the contrary it's likely there are more options than are evident from the numbers gotten from copy - you just need to get in there and find out for yourself. But the odds are in your favor.
Way to up your game Soma. I am impressed. Didn't think I'd see the day.
Last edited by tehschkott on Sun Mar 06, 2016 3:17 pm; edited 3 times in total _________________ GREAT UNITER / ORACLE / ELDER
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tehschkott
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2016 2:44 pm
daywalkerJoined: 09 Nov 2007Posts: 6108Location: Hatertown
BTW, Alex your bottom bracket comments sent me into a short rabbit hole. It seemed contrary to what I'd learned so dug into a bit.
My take away is: popular opinion holds with my impression - but those who actually build frames and know what they are talking about understand things as you stated: Lowering BB doesn't increase stability - center of gravity doesn't play into it. You were right.
Lowering the bottom bracket increases the length of chain stays, seat tube and down tube; Longer tubes = more comfortable & marginally better braking. It's not an argument for stability, it's an argument for comfort.
Raising the bottom bracket shortens the length of chain stays, seat tube, and down tube. Shorter tubes = more responsive/better power transfer and increased crank/pedal clearance.
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jimmythefly
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2016 6:01 pm
Joined: 10 Jan 2007Posts: 1491
Good to know about tire clearance on the Wolverine.
That Saga looked all kinds of rad with those huge tires on it blasting through the mud.
Moira
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2016 8:11 pm
MoistraJoined: 28 Nov 2014Posts: 712
jimmythefly wrote:
Good to know about tire clearance on the Wolverine.
That Saga looked all kinds of rad with those huge tires on it blasting through the mud.
I'm not very experienced with trail riding - but from my noob perspective the Saga was super fun and handled really well. The flatbars were a product of necessity (from moving over MB-3 components), but I think they work really well for a Saga set up as an adventure-touring bike.
Alex
Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2016 3:19 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006Posts: 3128Location: Roosevelt
tehschkott wrote:
Lowering the bottom bracket increases the length of chain stays, seat tube and down tube; Longer tubes = more comfortable & marginally better braking. It's not an argument for stability, it's an argument for comfort.
I still think that cornering clearance and standover are the best arguments for picking a given BB drop. It's a lot more effective to change tube stiffness by picking different tubes (diameter or wall thickness) than to make them marginally longer.
tehschkott
Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2016 3:32 pm
daywalkerJoined: 09 Nov 2007Posts: 6108Location: Hatertown
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