A bike I wanted to keep.
My dad’s friend, Chris, approached me about doing a 1x conversion on an old gravel bike he had. The bike was as legendary as legendary bikes can be in our local bike riding circle, mainly due to the name being so cool. Known to us as “Jake the Snake”, the 61 cm cyclocross rig was taken on many off road adventures, night rides, and rips around town since the late 2000’s and has passed through all male members of the McCabe family. It’s just one of those bikes that has lore to it.
Chris was looking to get his son, Leo, more into riding, and realized that while he could buy Leo a modern, lightweight gravel bike, not only would Leo not like that, but it wouldn’t have the “something special” factor to it Jake the Snake has. So instead, he came to me to upgrade Jake to a more rideable do it all bike.
It came to me as a 3x with a non-indexed bar end shifter for the front derailleur that would graze your knee as you turned. The wheels were bomb proof but not tubeless. And it was a 9 speed.
Chris wanted Jake’s facelift to make the gearing really easy for climbing steep gravel hills when bike packing while making it a 1x, and for the upgrade overall to be a work of art.
The most complex part of the upgrade was scoping out the drivetrain. I didn’t want to rack up thousands of dollars on 12 speed wireless components, so I went with 11 speed. 11 speed 1x drivetrains with large cassettes takes some research to pull off, but luckily it is well documented
I built my Crux with Shimano GRX components, and I knew that those would be reliable and compatible with large rear cassettes up to a point. While the GRX line does not have mechanical brake shifters available, road shifters are compatible.
I had done the research on the rear derailleur gear tooth limit for my Crux, going with a 46T on the standard GRX-RX812 cage though Shimano’s spec lists 44T as the max, which is a well documented hack. I decided to get a Goat Link, which is a longer derailleur link made by Wolf Tooth that extends the max cog capacity of the GRX derailleur to 50T, and a Sunrace 11-50 Cassette to match. Using the Goat Link is another well documented method to extend gear range for 11 speed drivetrains, though a rather extreme one. When I installed the Goat Link, I thought it was an intermediate part between the existing derailleur assembly and the derailleur hanger, and after a while of trying to figure out why the derailleur lateral limits were so far pushed to the drive side, I realized the Goat Link is meant to replace the upper derailleur link in the derailleur assembly.
I went with Shimano 105 R7000 shifters, but in the end, I should have gone with Ultegra. The bike shifts well enough with the 105 shifters and would shift perfectly I’m sure with a smaller largest cog in the rear, but the stress put on the derailleur with the high extension of the b-screw to get the derailleur to shift into the 50T results in high cable tension from shifting, and the shifters are not quite precise enough or strong enough to match. Thus, it’ll not get all the way to the center of the indexed shift, and one will have to shift twice and once back sometimes. Practically, it’s not bad at all, but if I were riding this bike all the time, I would want the upgrade.
To get an 11 speed cassette in the rear, I had to get new wheels with 11 speed free hub spacing. Basically the only gravel rated rim brake tubeless wheelset on the market today are the Ritchey Comp Zeta wheels. They’re pretty sweet, boasting some wide rims, and they fit nicely in Jake the Snake’s existing U-brake set up. Jake came with a set of 38 mm tubeless compatible Pathfinder pros which seated on the Comp Zeta’s nicely.
After getting all these parts and a used GRX RX800 crank (which was kind of an unoriginal pick, but it is nice and is easily retrofitted with a smaller than stock Wolf Tooth 38T chain ring), I realized I was missing a bit of artistic flare. Luckily, gravel drop bars are the perfect place to get a little spicy. I browsed, and I could have gone crazy (I’ve seen some >50 cm wide bars at gravel and CX races), I went with a shallow drop Ritchey flared bar with a unique squiggle on the drops. I knew I wanted to get flared shallow drop bars, since the flare is nice for riding technical terrain, and the shallow drop is comfy and cool to have on a gravel bike where fun is prioritized instead of speed. The squiggle on the drop gave the little bit of flare I needed. I finished off the job with new bar tape, cables, housing, and a select few bolts, and it was complete.
This build takes a frame full of character and complements it with modern parts that make it ride well, and the result is so fun to ride. I rode this around my neighborhood before dropping it off, and it was so enjoyable. Comfy, versatile, fun, and cool. And there’s something nice about riding it with flat pedals. I seriously wanted to keep it. I’d feel so cool riding this around town on a casual ride. There’s something beautiful about pure cyclocross bikes where the top tube is level with the ground, the original frame paint job still looks awesome today, and the orange pedals add something that keeps it on the fun side.
Original Parts:
- Frameset: 2009 Kona Jake the Snake 61 cm, alloy frame, carbon fork
- Caliper U-Brakes
- Bottle Cages
- Seatpost and Saddle
- Pedals
- Specialized Pathfinder Pro 38 mm Tires
- 0 mm stem (for someone who is a little short for a 61 cm frame)
Upgrade:
- Shimano GRX RX800 Crankset
- 38T Wolf Tooth Chainring
- Shimano Ultegra Threaded Bottom Bracket
- Shimano GRX RX812 Rear Derailleur
- Wolf Tooth Goat Link Rear Derailleur Link
- Sunrace 11-50 11 Speed Cassette
- Shimano 105 11 Speed Chain
- Ritchey Comp Zeta Rim Brake Wheelset
- Muc-Off 44 mm Tubeless Valves
- Shimano 105 R7000 STI Shifters
- Ritchey Flared Handlebars, 44 cm, 24 degree flare, shallow drop
- Wolf Tooth Alloy Bar Ends
- New cables, housing
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