Unplanned Success

Current state-o-the 'Buck

Saturday's fat bike ride tweaked out my legs again, so Sunday was going to be a planned off day. Something about riding those fat bikes really knocks it outta me, especially since Triple D. I guess I have not quite recovered 100% from that day just yet.

So Saturday night I stayed up until the wee hours to get all of the T.I.V8 cues written that I could. I now can say that they are all written down but about 20 miles worth, which I am leaving open dependent on just how the event will end, which I should have made clear to me very soon. Once that happens, all the cues will be formatted and that should be that barring any corrections that may need to be made.

Yep! Sunday was going to be an off day, and I was doing great at that until I went down to the Lab to weigh something. I got a bit distracted though. I had my OS Bikes Blackbuck hanging in my repair stand waiting to have some wheels installed, pedals installed, and front brake mount changed to accept a 185mm rotor.

Curvy stays

One thing led to another and the next thing I know, I am wrist deep into grease and turning wrenches. I added a couple of things to the old 'Buck. The wheel set came off my retired 2007 El Mariachi. This is an Industry 9 single speed specific wheel set with Bontrager Duster rims. Pretty "buzzy" sounding hub, by the way. Really buzzy!

The hub already had a Boone titanium cog on it with the matching spacers, but I had to rearrange those to dial in the chain line a bit. I found a black Salsa quick release for the rear, and I'll have to track down the front one. Got a silver one in there right now from some off-brand replacement wheel set.

I had already mounted these Czech made Rubena Scylla tires to the rims, tubeless of course, and the post mount brake set up on the Tower Expert fork was swapped to get the front wheel in there. Once that was done I scavenged my Shimano clipless pedals from the El Mar and it was all ready to ride.

Well, I got outside, wearing my clipless shoes for the first time this year, I think, and took off for a short little test ride. I have to say that riding a 29"er now seems like cheating. After so many fat biking miles this winter, the single speed with the "skinny" 2.1"ers seemed easy to ride and almost too twitchy. Now when the snow does finally go away, the ol 'Buck will be raring to go, and it should be a hoot to ride this way. I was glad I got it put back together and that it turned out well.

Oh yeah....I did get back home and I weighed that part after all. Even though I wasn't supposed to ride at all today, it sure felt good for that short few moments.