A Fat, Magic Carpet Ride: Complete!

Okay, yesterday I posted a teaser pic from my first ride on the titanium Mukluk. (I also posted a different one on Twitter and Facebook, just in case you follow me there.) At any rate, here is the final build. I'll talk about the components today and why I chose them.....

Salsa Cycles Mukluk Ti

Some of the parts I've detailed before, like the front hub and the carbon FSA SLK series parts, but I'll go over everything again here briefly.

Frame/Fork: 19"/Large Mukluk Ti frame with a Salsa Enabler steel fork- The Snow Dog is the same size, fits me great, and that's why I got the titanium frame in the same size. Result? Fits perfect, just as I expected. I could have gone with a carbon fork, lost a bit of weight on the build, but at the cost of versatility and at a much greater expense. Result? The Enabler fork wins. I need that versatility, and the weight savings wasn't worth the cost monetarily or in terms of limiting my options.

The other reasons for getting this frame are many- First off is that, (obviously), it is titanium. Weight savings were not the driving factor here.What was the decision maker was ride quality. Sure, I could have gotten a titanium El Mariachi, or another brand's titanium bike, but the Mukluk Ti wins over all those for the fat bike factor. However; there are options other frames made out of titanium for fat bike wheels cannot match. I can put a single speed set up on this one, for instance. Plus, it could be set up with drop bars, out fitted with racks and/or frame bags, and be a touring bike for off road with either fat bike wheels or a special set of 29"er wheels. Those same 29"er wheels can also turn this into a full time geared or single speed off road bike for anywhere. I could even use a suspension fork in that instance.

Wheels: Obviously a very important component of a fat bike, the wheels were chosen to be configured for year-round use. I went with 70mm Uma II rims from Fatback Bikes via Lacemine29. Mike Curiak, the wheel builder at Lacemine29, recommended these rims over all others for my purposes, and I am satisfied that these will be a great balance of off-road-ability and fat biking strengths. They built up very nicely, considering they bounced around my basement for three months plus!

The rims also feature a bead seat, which looks a lot like the ones you see on 29 inch tubeless type rims. Very secure for ultra-low psi settings in softer conditions.

The hubs for this build are a hybrid set up. I used an old, rare Surly single speed disc hub in anodized purple. The rear is a standard Mukluk 2 hub in black anodized color, since Salsa doesn't offer purple hubs.....yet. (Just hoping out loud here!) The rims and hubs are connected by Wheelsmith straight gauge spokes and brass nipples. Standard 3 cross build. Rim strip, which is visible through the cut outs in the rim, is "chrome duct tape". Surly tubes with wire bead Larry 3.8"ers, for the time being. I plan on getting some 45NRTH Husker Du tires later in the winter or early spring.

Finally, to top off the wheels in the looks department are these pre-production Salsa Cycles skewers in anodized purple. These skewers are refined now to have captured springs, washers,  and stainless steel collars. These will become available at some point. Don't know when though. These were kindly sent over by Salsa Cycles, so that is as much as I know!

Other bits are purple as well. I'll get to those as I go along here, but for right now I'll mention that Chris King head set in purple ano, which I've told the story about here before.

The brakes are new, 2012 Avid Elixir 9's. These have some refinements in the master cylinder to make bleeding more easy, as well as the calipers, which also were tweaked. The levers are carbon, and the calipers are a kind of gun metal blue anodized hue. The rotors are also new, as can be seen here. Elixir 9's basically take the place of the current Avid Elixir CR models. These brakes were sent over by SRAM at no charge for test and review, by the way. I will be writing up my thoughts on those later on Twenty Nine Inches.

I'll also be shortening the rear brake line and using Avid's new bleed kit to do that with, so stay tuned for how that process goes in the near future.

Moving to the handle bars and stem, these were parts provided by FSA from their SLK line of parts. Again, look for a review on those. The grips are Ergon Bio-Kork models which locked onto the FSA bar with zero issues so far. No twisting or turning! Plus I get the comfy feel of the shape with the material which shouldn't make my hands get cold in winter and have already proven themselves in summer time for me.

I'm running one, lonely shifter which is a SRAM TT shifter on a Paul Components Thumbies mount. This shifts the SRAM X-9 rear derailleur in gray and carbon over a SRAM 10 speed cassette with a 36T low gear.

My crank set is the old, ISIS drive type Bontrager crank, (with removable spider!), which is mounted with an E-Thirteen "Guide Ring" in their "Grape Drink" color that has 32 teeth. Hovering over this chain ring is a MRP chain guide which mounts from the bottom bracket, which is a FSA Platinum DH 100mm spindle model. Gotta have a chain retention device of some sort with a 1X10 set up, and the MRP guide should keep the Shimano 105 10 speed chain in line for me.

I figured a 1X10 drive train would be more than enough for where I ride these fat bikes here. On The Snow Dog, I rarely ever get out of the middle ring at all. If I ever do want to go with more gearing range, it will likely be lower, and I can add a granny ring to this crank set, mount my other thumb shifter, and mount a direct mount front derailluer for those times when low, low gears are necessary.

Of course, I needed a chain guide with this set up, and it had to mount in between the cup of the bottom bracket and the shell, and the MRP version here does just that. The bottom bracket is the best you can get to fit a  100mm wide shell in ISIS right now.

I used some old, crappy Welgo flat pedals for now. At some point I will replace these with nicer flats for winter and SPD's will go on for spring, summer, and fall rides.

The seat collar is a Salsa Cycles in purple ano. The seat post is another FSA SLK piece, and that is crowned by one of my favorite saddles, a WTB SST saddle.

So, how does it ride? I can't say much yet. I am still getting acquainted with the bike and I want to see that the parts are all working in harmony yet. Then I can ride it without thinking about things like, "what was that noise?", "Did I tighten that?" (thought for the third time after checking it twice), or "I need to tweak that saddle height/angle a bit".

Once that anxiety and nervousness has passed, I can focus on just riding the bike and I'll give you all a better assessment. That should happen soon after a couple more shake down rides. I will say now that it appears to be very much like the Snow Dog in terms of handling and the feel of the ride is different. Oh yeah.....and it is lighter too. By a fair amount, I'd say. It'll get lighter too after I get folding bead tires, new tubes, and different pedals.

Okay, that's my new Mukluk Ti, which has been dubbed "By-Tor". Hope ya'all enjoyed the tour!