Mt. Bike Now

If I can scrape together the money in the next few months, I will have some new mountain bike wheels. Just got an email from Industry Nine accepting me into their grassroots program! This is pretty cool, I applied last year and didn't hear a thing and figured the same would happen this year. Probably going with the XC 29er version which are their straight pull hubs laced to Stan's Arch rims. I'm sure I am light enough to go with the 355 or Crest rim but I have dented enough rims from running low pressure to err on the more durable side. Oh yeah, I still ride bikes in addition to geeking out over parts I don't own. After being knocked out with the common cold for close to 2 weeks I did my first hard ride in the same amount of time this Sunday. Went with the gang from around here that will be headed to Southern Cross to get in some gravel miles. My legs are getting back some snap and my sinuses no longer feel like they are ready to explode. Amazing what some rest will do when it is really needed.

Here are the photos… unfortunately, the trails are soaked here, so I just rode it through the Shelby Farms dog park and on the surrounding gravel/pavement. Once I have a rear brake and opportunities to really ride, the brake lines and steertube will get trimmed up:

The question burning in everyone’s minds right now (or not) is “How did you make the fork work?!” It was a bit of an all-day process that involved phone calls to several places. The SRAM rep (who didn’t fully understand that an integrated headset doesn’t have a change-able stack height) had told me to try Cane Creek and Chris King for a solution since they offered bottom bearing sets in various stack heights. I figured it’d be worth a shot to call around anyways and see what type of ideas the techs at those companies might have… First, I called Cane Creek. They never answered my voicemail. Next, I tried Chris King. They aren’t all that hot on integrated headsets, but they do make various thicknesses of 1 1/8″ crown races, so I was hoping maybe they had something in a 1.5″ that could help me out. They were interested in my problem, but still no dice. After that was FSA. They don’t make any sort of fat crown race, but I thought that since they made the headset that they might be able to help. The tech there was really interested in the whole plight of the small-frame 29er vs. tapered headtubes vs. tapered steertubes. We discussed the various manufacturer’s headtube lengths that I’d posted earlier, and he took down my contact information so that he could call me after he talked to the company engineers. In the meantime, I had Tim, the mechanic from PB&COtwenty12, trying to hunt down the specs on the Willow Koerber Superfly crown race spacer. It looked as if the build was indefinitely stalled. Then, I checked my email and saw a comment on my “conundrum” post from Eric (the Niner tech I’d talked to previously) asking me to call back. When I finally got in touch with him, he told me that some shops had made everything work by filing off the vertical portion of the compression ring that was unable to seat into the top bearing due to the extended fork taper. I didn’t take a “before” photo, but it looked like this (photo is upside down from how it fits into the top bearing):

So, I took to the bench grinder and had at it. Once that part was decimated, I filed off the sharp edges and tried it out. Once I snugged the cap & stem down, the fork was snug in the headtube. Woohoo!!! I packed all of my parts up and headed home to prep for a morning bike build in the living room.

A few observations about the A9C/XX build:

-The internal cable routing is tough. I generally have a knack for internal routing, and I have to say, I cussed at it a couple of times.

-I don’t have a rear brake yet. They’re backordered. Without that, the bike weighs 21 pounds, 1oz. This is barely a pound more than the SS. Chock it up to different saddles, a lighter BB insert, carbon bars, lighter wheels (Crest rims vs. 355s), and lighter tires on the geared bike. I’ll post the final weight once the brake gets here.

Here’s a photo of the ground down compression ring. I’ll put photos of the bike in a different post so I can just make a gallery:

And a teaser:

1) Moose Mitts These things have been pretty amazing so far. Hardest part was actually getting them due to the handmadeness of them. I ordered them around mid November and got them one week ago after a USPS slip up. Trails Edge in Michigan makes these all by hand and it shows, high quality stuff. Cost was $60-about the same as some piece of shit Gore "Windstopper" gloves I bought last year. Quotes mean they did not work well. But yeah, Moose Mitts. I am able to wear them from 35-40 degrees with no gloves. Add a thin XC glove down to 25 or 30. Rode this morning in 14 degrees with a very thin fleece running glove and was fine. Get some. 2) RBH Designs VaprThrm socks I have only ridden in these twice but they do what they say. The whole vapor barrier idea is to contain sweat to keep insulation dry. The socks were 35 or 40 bucks and made with three layers laminated together to eliminate the plastic bag in the shoe feeling. One thing with them is they take up some extra room in cycling shoes so they would NOT work in a tight fitting pair. I have used them in my Shimano winter boots and my summer mesh shoes (this morning, super cold) and they work great. Feet are sweaty and warm. I'll take that over cold any day. I think with some Grabber toe warmers I have will have the cold feet deal pretty much managed. Available direct here. In other news, I have been looking at SS cross bikes way too much. I want one for next year. Something about 16 pounds would be sweet. I am going to just patiently wait and watch ebay for 9 months or so. Maybe something will fall in my lap (besides a beagle with static) soon.

Vassago is having a nice Black Friday sale right now, $329 for all steel frames. Not posting a link, refuse to advertise for them for free. This would be so much cooler if I actually needed one of these... Don't need a mountain frame at all, but I keep trying to convince myself the Fisticuff cross frame is a good idea. Only problem is the 90 MM HEAD TUBE...I just don't get it, that is the ONE thing a cross bike should have different fit wise than a road bike. A taller head tube. Unless you like running 100mm of spacers and a Zoom Heads Up riser. The comfort look. I wonder how many caffeine addled morons got trampled trying to get a toaster on sale today. People should be prepared for some physical contact going into a frenzy like that. I know better and am on the couch drinking coffee, which I really doubt will result in me getting trampled or bit.

The Maestro system.

It's all just good dirty fun.

Warning! To those people expecting some musing on how my life is at present or some philosophical comment then you will be sorely disappointed. The following contains extreme mountain bike geekery, technical content and descriptions that may or may not contain the word "rad". On Wednesday my fantastic sponsors, Cyc'd for Bikes, presented me with my long awaited new bike. The Anthem X29. I have spent the last two days setting the bike up and waiting for the rain to stop! Today I was just starting to think there was no chance of testing it out when a little break in the weather presented itself and I jumped on it. I headed out to Ironbark and Bunya to try and miss the worst of the muck and not trash the trails. My plan worked a treat as the trails around Ironbark were pretty dry up on the ridge lines and it gave the chance to test out the Propedal feature on the rear shock. It works. You'll hear that a lot. Everything works on this bike. It has been a long time since I have ridden a dually and the Anthem did not disappoint me one little bit. It was cool to just sit in the saddle and not suffer trail chatter and the fatigue that comes with it. I climbed up a technical trail and the rear wheel stuck to the ground and provided masses of traction on the slippery rocks and roots allowing me to put my energy into choosing a line and pointing the bike towards it. While this was all very nice, it was hardly surprising or earth shattering. When I got over to Bunya was when the real fun started. Traction. That is the buzz I got from my singletrack blast. I hit corners hard as I normally would on my XTC but the difference was if the corner was broken or the trail a little loose the Anthem just stuck. Everything was smoothed out and I could just pedal and turn the damn bike. I liked it. My plan for this bike is for the longer enduros and 24 hour races next year and maybe some shorter races on the harder courses. I hope the ability to let the bike do some of the work for me may help keep my fatigue levels down a bit and let me go for a lot longer. Hopefully. The other really nice feature of the bike is the brakes. The Avid Elixir CR's are a huge improvement over the Juicy 3's on my XTC. There are heaps of adjustments and I could really set the feel up perfectly for me. Nice. I guess my final comments should go to the bikes weight. It came out at 11.9kg stock. If I choose to put my race wheels on to the bike it will knock around a kilo off that weight. Thats really respectable. I still have a long way to go in the set up process. More messing with shock settings, bar heights and seat heights. All these little things make a huge difference when you intend to sit on the bike for a whole day. From my first short bash out on the bike in wet muddy conditions though, I reckon my Anthem will be a winner.