Circled Back

The Black Mountain Cycles "Monstercross", or as we know it, "Orange Crush".

 Back eleven years ago when I got this Black Mountain Cycles "Monstercross" frame, I didn't have the means to set it up as a geared bike. So in its first incarnation, this bike was a single speed. 

It spent many years as a geared bike, but a few years ago now I set it back up again as a single speed bike. I found some old Sugino touring cranks I had off an 80's Specialized Sequoia which were 180mm, and I stuck those on there. 

But I also had a different handle bar on the bike to begin with. I ran a Salsa Cycles Cowbell on this bike since that handle bar came out, but that wasn't the first one I used on the ol' Orange Crush. Nope! The first one was the mysterious Luxy Bar, which I have three examples of in my possession. Two are polished, one is black anodized. I had used one of these on my original build for the Orange Crush. 

So, something came in for testing for Riding Gravel which precipitated a handle bar swap on my Fargo, where one of my Luxy Bars has been since about 2016. I swapped that over to the Orange Crush over the weekend, and now this bike is practically what it was when I first rolled it out for a ride back in 2011. 

The Luxy Bar is weird in a very good way.

I like the Luxy Bar for single speed gravel riding a lot. I have one of my three on my Pofahl Signature custom single speed bike. I love the swept extensions for grinding up a climb, so ever since I've had the Orange Crush singled out, I've been thinking that it needed a Luxy Bar. This swap fixes that problem! 

I took it out for a neighborhood cruise yesterday and it was all very good. I think it will probably stay this way now for a long time. I may eventually lace up different wheels for it, but for the time being, these HED Ardennes+ are doing quite nicely. 

The levers are Gevenalle levers meant for shifters. You can see the perches on there yet. I either need to get silver bladed road levers or just take those mounts off. There would be a threaded hole left behind, but it would work just fine and save money. 

Oh, and that blue anodized thing is part of my Bar Yak cue sheet holder. I had that there on the Fargo and it transferred over with the handle bar swap. The handle bar tape is the Grepp bar tape I got to review. This is the third bike I've used that roll on and it still looks great and works like it did when new last year. Pretty cool to have that sort of versatility of use and lifecycle for a product that generally degrades and gets tossed in short order. 

Anyway, I like the stuff. 

And there ya go! The BMC Orange Crush, back the way it was, sort of! I hope to get this one out on a longer ride this Fall sometime before it gets too cold. Gotta see how it all works out on the gravel roads with the way it is set up now.

Note: Standard Disclaimer applies to the Grepp tape, Bar Yak, and Luxy Bar.