The Fnhon Gust is a 16 inch folding bike, which means that it is meant to be a casual bike, not a race bike. A normal front single drivetrain is all that is needed. Some may even prefer the simplicity of a single speed drivetrain.
In this case, a good quality 11 speed drivetrain will be installed, to cater to both low speed climbing and high speed cruising. It will obviously not be a speedy bike like road bikes, but there is nothing stopping us from using top end road bike components on this Fnhon Gust.
Wheelset selection is important, as we need a freehub body that can accommodate a 11 speed cassette. Weight was kept low with a sensible selection of lightweight carbon handlebar and aluminium seat post.
The drivetrain is mainly made up of the crankset, cassette, chain and rear derailleur. For this bike, a Dura-Ace 9000 groupset was supplied, which also matches nicely with the black colour of the frame and fork.
Dura-Ace 9000 rear derailleur, short cage version. Very lightweight at just 160 grams!
Dura-Ace 9000 11-28T cassette, with 5 titanium sprockets. Very lightweight at 195 grams.
Cassette installed on the 16 inch wheelset! Looking good and lightweight.
To match with the rest of the components, a Dura-Ace 9000 crankset was also provided. As it will be a front single drivetrain, only the crankarms will be used, while the original chainrings are not needed.
Just 305 grams for the right side, which is really lightweight.
Left side weighs 178 grams, including the crank arm fixing bolt.
A narrow wide front chainring is necessary, to prevent chain drop during shifting. Usually I will use Wolf Tooth chainrings, as they are proven to be very good. In fact, I use them on most of my bikes, such as on the Dahon MuSP, Fnhon DB11, Fabike C3, etc.
However, the Wolf Tooth chainrings are really expensive, so this time, I sourced for lower cost alternatives. I found this Stone branded narrow wide chainrings on Taobao, and they seem to have pretty good reviews. The price is about half of a Wolf tooth chainring, so I think it is worth trying.
Each chainring is machined according to your required size. Comes in many specifications to fit practically all cranksets.
Chainring bolts are included, which I didn't know.
Looks to be of good quality, although the arm design can be quite plain.
With the signature cutout on one of the arms to fit Shimano road cranks. On older Wolf Tooth chainrings I had to cut it out myself.
Narrow wide tooth profile for better chain retention.
Weighs 128 grams, which is pretty heavy as it is a large 52T chainring.
Problem! The chainring bolts provided by Stone does not fit into the holes on the crankset. Just slightly too big.
It was the first time I encountered this issue, where the chainring bolt was too big to fit into the holes on the crankset. After comparison, I found that the Stone chainring bolts were just slightly bigger than the usual Litepro chainring bolts that I used.
Luckily I had already ordered Litepro chainring bolts, so installation could carry on without any delay. The Litepro chainring bolts fitted without any issue, just like the many chainrings that I have installed previously.
Dura-Ace 9000 crankarm with Stone 52T narrow wide chainring
This settles the drivetrain, and in the next post the installation will begin, with more information regarding the brakes.
thank you for sharing your bike building journey. I am trying to build my first folding bike too.
ReplyDeleteCan you please share the source for the drive train parts? Is it from taobao also? Thanks.
The Dura-Ace parts are supplied by my friend who took it off his road bike.
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