The Heart Of The Bicycle

For me, it's all about the head set.

Whenever I build up a bicycle from the frame and fork, I find that there is one thing that is vital to the process going forward. There is one singular component, that in my opinion, if you don't have this, you don't have a bicycle.

Sure, you have to have the obvious. Two wheels, because, well......that's how the dang thing got its name. But beyond the obvious, there is one component, that if I don't have this in hand, I almost cannot do anything else on the build until I obtain it.

That would be the head set.

Think about it- if you you do not have the head set, you cannot have two wheels, and what you are working on is two bad unicycles until you get that part installed and mount the fork. I have to have a head set or, in my mind, there is just no use to doing anything else. You cannot string up your cables, (or in a Di2 scenario, your wires), you cannot mount your brakes with their levers, unless you don't care that they dangle without purpose. You pretty much cannot effectively do anything but mount your crank set and derailleurs.

But what's the point of that without a head set?

So, in my case it was my old Badger that I wanted to rebuild, but I had no head set. Guess what? I didn't do anything with that idea until yesterday when I got a hold of a used Velo Orange Grand Cru head set. By the way, what the heck is with that name? "Grand Cru? seems like there should be an umlaut over the "u" in Cru and a back catalog of hair metal music to go with that name. Hmm...... Didn't I see those guys in '88?

Ah...... Sorry! 

More on the Badger soon.......