The "Orange Crush"

Wednesday is my day off, and it worked out that the FedEx man was supposed to head over to Guitar Ted Laboratories and drop off the Black Mountain Cycles Monster Cross frame and fork. I was in great anticipation of this farme and fork, since I want to use it in just over a week at CIRREM.

You might know how it is when you are expecting the delivery man. Checking the windows. Was that a noise outside that I heard? Yeah.....pretty much paranoid! I couldn't even work down in The Lab since I was afraid I'd miss the guy and he would leave the dreaded "yellow note" saying he'd try again tomorrow. Time seemed to drag. I made lunch. Still no delivery man.

Well, around about noon I heard the tell-tale sound of a diesel truck motor. I zoomed up to the front window. Drat! It was the "Brown Santa". Not at all the guy I was looking for.

Then about an hour later I heard the same type of noise. It was the FedEx truck! Yes! When the guy knocked, I actually counted to ten before opening the door, just so I wouldn't startle him. He slid the box inside saying, "Whatever it is, it ain't heavy." And it wasn't my Brother either! (heh! Sorry, it's late as I write this. I am a little punchy) Anyway, I ripped open the box, as you can imagine, and saw the "Orange Crush" color right away. Pretty cool.

Once again, I am impressed with Mike's work. I had the pleasure of riding a Haro Mary when Mike designed their 29"er, and I could see similar details in the cross frame. Even the box it came in was reminiscent of the frame box the Mary came in. Hmm.....Anyway.

If you are wondering, yes! I did get it built up. I threw it together with a somewhat temporary build just to get the thing rolling so I can get things dialed in with regards to fit, and what not. Obviously, the easy thing to do was to set it up single speed, which is what I did. Well, easy is relative. I had forgotten how testy Shimano cantilever brakes can be to set up. (I used an old stash of brakes I had saved since the 90's. Old STX cantilevers.) In fact, some of the parts I used go back to the 80's.

I'll detail all that out later, but for now, I am rather stoked to be riding a Black Mountain Cycles bike, and my test ride was pretty dang smooth. Yeah......smooth!