The Inbred Lives Again

Saturday night it was rideable again.

I mentioned on Friday that I had this old Inbred 29"er frame and that a new set of WTB Ranger 2.4" tires had sparked an interest in building it up again. Well, it didn't take long to get around to it.

Saturday we had massive winds out of the Northwest here. They were 30mph constant with higher gusts here in town for a couple of hours and in the 20's mph for the entire day, pretty much. Out in the country I would imagine it was far worse.

So, going out to the gravel to ride was a fool's errand as it would be in the woods. Not to mention the recent flooding, which has rendered the trails unrideable anyway. Nothing to do but go work on bicycles and write reviews. I spent much of the morning writing and then all afternoon, between doing family things, working on the Inbred. The build wasn't too tough since I had everything at hand to complete it.

A little of the build was from the "Fat Fargo" that I sold earlier in the year. (Or was that last year? I cannot remember)  I had stripped off the controls and stem in one piece which included the brake calipers. So, the entire control layout and levers were intact with wrapped bars to boot. There was one issue with this though, the stem was all wrong. I needed a riser stem and I didn't have a spare laying about which would work. But I had one on another bicycle.

The Pofahl single speed had a white Bontrager high rise stem that I had always meant to replace because it was just not "right" looking on that bike. The white would, however, look perfectly fine on the white Inbred. Swap time! I put a place holder stem on the Pofahl and took the white stem and made a test fit to the Inbred. It looked really good and measured out within reason for me to make it fit.

Final form.........for now.

Then I had a spare wheel set sitting here that was perfect for mounting up the 2.4" WTB Ranger tires. Tubeless, of course. (More on these tires later) Then I had to find the 10 speed XT derailleur that would work with the shifters. Yes- I had one in the bin. The bike came with a front derailleur when it was dropped off to me, so that was done. Now, there was a Thompson 27.2mm non-offset post on the bike but I am not a fan of Thompson posts so I swapped it out for the much better design of the Salsa Shaft post. The saddle I found was a white Bontrager Affiinity one, perfectly suited to this rig. Then I had a set of the Desert Series Mesa MP pedals from Fyxation sitting there which needed to be used. Yeah........they are brown! So what.

The chain was a bit of another touch and go deal. I needed a slightly used 9 speed chain and I found one real quick, but it was two links too short. I dug, and I dug around, and finally I found a 9 speed SRAM chain I'd used on some single speed in the past. A few minutes later I had pieced together a chain to work. Okay, so you may have noted I have a ten speed shifter, rear derailleur, and a 9 speed chain? Yep. That;s because I have a 9 speed cassette here. Don't ask. It worked on the Fat Fargo as well. That said, the plan is at some point to swap to a ten speed cassette and chain.

So, added some cages, a couple of bags, kitted it out......Boom! The Inbred lives. It will see a lot of Winter time commuting duties and if we ever get clear trails, I'll be doing single track on it too. Stay tuned........