Project 29er: Out of the Box

The RIP 9, wheels, and OEM fork arrived today. I haven't done much beyond take it out of the box and weigh it. Nothing was even remotely close to it's claimed weight, the frame was a whopping 7.62 lbs (3456g), the wheels 4.33 lbs (1963g), and the fork 4.05 lbs. (1837g). This pushes my earlier estimate of the total weight to 28.51 lbs. Still lighter than my present bike, but a bit porkier than I had hoped. I can live it with though.

Holy Hydroforming Batman!
Contrast with the strictly straight tubed Burner.
On the right, hiding its shame in the shadows
is LeKG's hybrid, visiting the shop for some TLC.

Bottom bracket junctions aren't what they once were.

The Turner's old Chris King hubs get a new lease on life.
I would have loved some new red CK's, but even I couldn't justify the expense.

Front wheel built up by George at Bike29.
Hub was originally a 9mm axle, but fortunately for my wallet
a 15mm through-axle conversion was available.

The OEM Fox F29 RL.
Claimed weight 3.5 lbs.
Actual weight 4.05 lbs.
...and my bike gets fatter...

More tech changes since my last new bike:
A monster 1.125" to 1.5" tapered head tube.

Project 29er: What Will It Weigh?

I was bored this weekend. So I weighed every component of my RIP 9. I'm not a weight weenie, as can be seen by my choice of frame, but I like charts. Charts with colors are even better!

It will surprise no one to hear that many manufacturer's claimed weights are less than the actual weights. What is surprising is that some brands actually overstated their products weights. Ritchey's SuperLogic bar for example, was 3 grams less than published. That's probably with the normal +/- for a part like this, but it's nice to see some honesty.

Regardless, my goal of a "lightweight" RIP 9 seems promising. If the remaining items are anywhere near their published weights the whole thing may come in under 27 lbs (though I'll believe that when I weigh the finished product). Even if the weight goes as high as 27.5 lbs, for an aluminum framed, 4.5" travel full-suspension 29er this strikes me as quite reasonable, especially considering many of the parts are not exactly "lightest in class" (i.e. brakes, pedals, seatpost, tires).

We'll see...

Project 29er: Nearing the end of Fed Ex fun

The end of the frequent visits from Brown Santa and the FedEx man are coming to an end. A few final items arrived today. Now we are waiting on the big stuff, the wheels and the frame. Wheels should ship out today and the frame sometime this month.

Originally I had planned on using my old black Salsa seatpost clamp and rear skewer, but color accessorizing madness got the better of me.

I am reusing these 959s, I love these pedals, and they last forever. In the 15 or so years I've been using clipless pedals I've really only used two sets, these and some 747s, which are now on my road bike. Not sure what it takes to kill them, but it would probably kill me too.

Same as my old bike. If it ain't broke...

I see a pattern here...I was going to reuse my Avid Juicy 7s, but a good deal on Avid Elixir CRs (185mm front/160mm rear) at Speedgoat caught my eye and the bonus white-black-red color scheme sealed the deal. Plus I want to have enough parts left over from my old bike for next winter's diversion: Project Singlespeed

Project 29er: Finally, a frame.

The Winner: Large Black Anodized RIP 9

After a lot of research I had narrowed my bike choices down to two: The Santa Cruz Tallboy and the Niner RIP 9. My local LBS is a Santa Cruz dealer, which is a big plus, but in the end the Tallboy's $644 premium over the RIP 9 and the inability to actually see one in person doomed it. Admittedly the Santa Cruz is a good deal lighter than the RIP 9, but that extra $644 goes some ways to making the Niner a bit lighter via component choice than it might otherwise be.

I ordered my RIP this weekend from Five Hills bike shop in Waterbury VT. The owner George Wisell talked me out of my original plan to build up my old Chris King hubs with some Stan's ZTR 355s, instead we opted for the slightly heavier, but more robust, ZTR Arch rims laced up with some 14/15g spokes. I'll wait till I have a picture of the wheels to reveal the colors, but it's going to be a change from basic black of my last several wheelsets.

In other news, a few more parts trickled in:

Jumping on the Ergon bandwagon and see if it is all that.

Some ho-hum stuff.

The weekly bling: Ritchey carbon fiber alloy matrix WCS 4-Axis stem. Claims to be be strong enough for mountain biking...I certainly hope so.

Project 29er: New Arrivals

Today we'll be shooting in black and white because that is how I feel. Why? 15" of snow followed immediately by torrential rain (which is still going on as I write this).

The one bright spot was the arrival of some new parts today (plus some "recycled" parts from old bikes).

A holdover from my old Specialized FSR, Salsa's timeless QR seatpost clamp.

I like wide tires: Schwalbe 2.4" Racing Ralphs. At a claimed 640g they seem worth taking a chance on.

Most blingtacular item in today's shipment: Race Face NEXT Carbon Cranks.

I passed on the moderately lighter and more pricey NEXT SL cranks as they are astoundingly fugly. The NEXTs look like a part from a Terminator, the SLs look like something C-3PO would use to wash his back, what with the yellow swoosh graphics and the gold granny ring. I'm down on the whole colored ring thing. If I am ever spotted riding a bike with color-coordinated TruVativ Noir cranks, please, shoot me, because clearly I will have been taken over by aliens.

Another holdover, but this time from the Turner: A Thomson setback seatpost. It's a 27.2 and most of the frames I am looking at are 30.9s...Problem Solver shims to the resuce.

Also from the Turner, a WTB Rocket V SLT, this one is barely used.

XTR 12,14,16,18,20,23,26,30,34

The only shifters for me. SRAM's may be better for all I know, but the way these are hardwired in my brain, I just don't think about it.

Project 29er: Snow Delay

Sigh. Today's crazy storm delayed a scheduled shipment of bike bling. FedEx calls it a "delivery exception" caused by a "local weather delay". I call it being a Sally.

Project 29er: And so it begins

Bling-a-ding-a-ding-dong.

There are many simple pleasures in life. Time with family and friends. A good meal. A day in the mountains. Helping the less fortunate.

For me there is also this: Getting new bike bling in the mail. This is even better if said bling is not simply an upgrade for an existing bike, but is rather the precious building block of an entirely new bike.

I am currently in the joyful state that is the latter. I've decided to take the plunge into wagon wheels and get a 29" wheeled mountain bike (a.k.a. a 29er).

I've yet to decided on that particular bike I want, but I've narrowed it down to either a Santa Cruz Tallboy or a Niner RIP 9. "Narrowed it down" might be an exaggeration, since on any given day I also hear the siren call of the Niner Jet 9, the Titus Rockstar 29, the Gary Fisher Superfly 100, the Specialized Epic Marathon 29, etc., but I think it will probably be the Tallboy or the RIP 9.

Anyway, there are a few things I know I want for the new bike, regardless of what the frame ends up being. One of those is a wide flat bar with a lot of sweep. I currently run an old (non-rise) Titec Hellbent on my Turner Burner and I love it (barring the occasional tight squeeze between trees).

Titec currently sells the similar bar, the Flat Tracker, but at 375g it's a bit of a boat anchor and not nearly bling-tastic enough.

Scouring the interwebs I found the solution, Ritchey's SuperLogic Mountain Flat bar. With a 10 degree backsweep and at 620 mm wide it is quite similar to my old HellBent. It also sweeps forward and then back, a fairly unusual design that helps keep stem length under control (a concern for me because with my super-freak long arms I always seem to be running an absurd stem length).

Best of all is the weight, a feathery 130g (claimed).

It's not a complete bike yet, but it's a start :-)

Sweep the bar.
Do you have a problem with that?
No, Sensei.

Failure

Well, it's over. The 100 Days of stupid came to an end on the 60th day, last Friday.

I was feeling a bit under the weather Friday and didn't run during lunch. Worse, I had to help a friend move from Concord to Bennington that night. "No problem" I thought, "I'll get on the trainer when I got home". But by the time the move was complete I was feeling really awful -- a mini Key Lime pie provided as payment for the move, while tasty, was causing me world class stomach distress. When I got home I knew this lark had come to an end. I felt so miserable I wasn't even upset about it, I was just happy to go to bed.

So now I wonder if I should try to finish out the next 37 days (most likely), *restart* the 100 days (very unlikely), or move onto to something new, like PX90 or getting back into Ashtanga (less likely). With the snow flying early this year and my Crotched Mountain season passes maybe I can can come up with a ski-related challenge...

100 Days of Stupid: Day 47-55

Came very close to taking a day off the last 9 days.

On Wednesday I hadn't done anything by 7:00 pm, was tired, and just not in the mood to run. On the way home from some errands in Peterborough I decided to stop at Temple Mountain and hike up. If I had gone home without doing that it definitely would have been over.

Friday I got creative, moving three tons of wood pellets into the wood shed. It took 45 non-stop minutes to lug 150 40 lb. bags, so it was something. Real exercise? I'm not sure, certainly it isn't as hard as running up Pack. I asked the Bride to make a ruling and she said it counted, though I suspect this was simply because she didn't want to help (in which case I'm certain she would adjudicated my effort insufficient to achieve the required stupidity).

Today I came even closer to failing than Wednesday. After a miserable night of sleep Friday and Saturday night I was in full-on zombie mode. I took a nap in the afternoon, got up at 3:30 and headed to Kimberly and Dave's Octoberfest party in Exeter. We didn't get home until 9:30. The Bride forbid my from doing a night hike, certain that something bad was going to happen (coyote attack?). So what to do? Yoga seemed my only option, until I remembered my track stand. Doug was hassling me about not doing any road riding, so this would sort of shut him up :-) I rummaged around in the storage area under the dining room and miraculously was able to find all the parts. I fired up Netflix, started the Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and all was good for day 55.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 43-46

Not even halfway and already I resorted to back-to-back days of hiking. Pathetic. Though since I'm the only "contestant", I'm guaranteed to come in first :-)

Had a fun night hike up Pack Thursday night with S1, S2, Pat, Matt, Tracey, and Bruce (and mutts Billie, Danny, Bella, and Coby). Sadly Le KG was a no-show again due to work, as was Francesca, for the same reason. Hopefully we can get both of them and Senja in on next week's hike.

Tonight Chris B. and I did a night ride at Massabesic. Perfect cool weather. We hit Fire Line and Long Trail at decent (nighttime) pace to start, but then slowed it down and chat/rode Woodpecker (x2), Lady Slipper, and Deer Run. Wrapped up a little over two hours, just as Chris' light was dying, so the timing was perfect. Lesson 1: Assuming you don't kill or maim yourself, you never, ever, ever regret going for a MTB ride. Lesson 2: You can never spend too much on a light rig.