The Inbred Returns

Escape Route: Alleys

You saw Saturday that I received a Wilde Bicycle Co. X Country Bar to test out. Well, you cannot do that testing without putting it on a bicycle. That seems obvious, but here at G-Ted Laboratories the choice of which bike to install it on is not quite as an obvious choice as you might think. 

After a little bit of thought the choice became clear. I resurrected the OG Inbred, again, after it had set in my spare repair stand for what? A year plus some? I think I tore it down sometime in 2021? 

At any rate, I had to do a bit of work to get it up and going. Back last time the Inbred was up and running it was set up with a drop bar and a dropper post. I had a 2 X 10 gear set up, which ironically had been straight-up pulled off my old Fargo Gen 2 bike and slapped onto the Inbred. That set up was originally put together in 2015! 

I had some head scratching time, thinking over how I wanted to accomplish the build with the X Country Bar. I had a flat bar on the Inbred already in an aborted attempt to resurrect it earlier and that had the front derailleur being operated by a SRAM TT shifter mounted to a Paul Components Thumbie. I had the other TT shifter as a bar end shifter and the other Paul Thumbie mount sitting in a bin. So, with the bike having a Shimano rear derailleur it presented a choice. Pull all the other stuff with the exception of the Shimano rear derailleur, and go Shimano, or use the SRAM stuff, find a SRAM 10spd rear derailleur, and use those Paul mounts which might be pretty cool with the X Country Bar.

The "maiden voyage" was in the Green Belt

Moderate to severe drought conditions all Summer have decimated Black Hawk Creek

Trouble was that I could not find a 10 speed SRAM derailleur that I thought I had. I asked N.Y. Roll if he had one and he did not, but he asked a mutual friend, Joe, if he had one. Joe didn't realize I was asking for an MTB rear derailleur and proffered up two road SRAM ten speed rear derailleurs. Bummer! 

But eventually I did find my errant 10 speed rear mech so the plan came back into focus. Saturday evening I slapped everything together. Now, yes- These are some tired old drive train parts, but if this sticks, meaning that "if I like the way it all shakes out", I will upgrade those bits then. At this point, everything is functional and works perfectly. 

The Inbred emerges from the shadows to live again!

History Time: The On One Inbred I have here has been around as long as this blog has been around. I found out that On One was trying to establish a US distribution partner in 2005. However; the partners didn't come to terms and a small amount of On One product was being off-loaded at pretty cheap prices. One of the things the rep had, who often visited the shop where I worked, was a list of things on close-out. On One Inbred frame and forks were listed but they did not have 20" frames, only 18's. I took a chance on the 18" frame and fork.

I built it up originally as a single speed. Because I used 180mm cranks the saddle to bar height wasn't too ridiculous. I rode the bike in the very first DK200 in 2006. Then I rode it as part of a team at a 12 hour event in Boone Iowa. My only 12/24hr MTB experience. Our team, all single speeders, won our category. Then the Inbred kind of fell out of favor as "the" bike as I got other bikes and time went on. 

By 2009 I had sold the bike to a co-worker named Craig. He rode it in that year's GTDRI. Then he gave it to his brother who rode it in Colorado and Kansas amongst other places. His brother eventually returned the bike to him. Then one day, my old co-worker, Craig, had remembered that I had asked for dibs on repurchasing this frame. He dropped the bike off at unawares to me. I found the bike, partially assembled, on my workbench in 2016, seven years after parting with it! 

Thick carpet of leaves here on the Green Belt trail.

It'll be awhile before we reach peak Fall colors, if we ever do.

So, after that the Inbred kind of was in various states of assemblage and although I ended up with the fork, it was broken. Fortunately I had an On One Carbon SuperLight fork to take the steel fork's place. So, that went on the bike, it went through that drop bar phase, and now we have it back again in a flat bar set up as a 2 X 10 geared, SRAM bike. 

Marky-Mark trail. True single track experience.

So, the final build here is the aforementioned SRAM TT shifters on Paul Components Thumbie mounts, a SRAM x9 rear derailleur, a SRAM front derailleur, a 10 speed cassette 11 - 36T, the 2X Origin 8 crankset with a 44T X 29T combination, and that turns a SRAM PC-950 9 speed chain (not a typo). The brakes are Avid BB-7's pulled by Deore levers. I used a Cane Creek Thudbuster post because my Redshift Sports ShockStop seat post wasn't long enough. (Darn it!) That is topped off by an older WTB Laser V saddle. The Wilde bar, of course, and Salsa lock-on grips. The wheels are WTB Team i23 laced to American Classic hubs. Those are set up with tubeless Hutchinson Kraken tires. 

I've never seen this pond, along Marky-Mark, totally dry.

"True" single track. Again, on Marky-Mark.

The big test ride was going to be a two-pronged goal for me. First, I wanted to see how far along the Fall colors were. Second, I needed to do my bi-annual inspection of Marky-Mark, the trail I helped to install in 1996 in the Green Belt. It is essentially a cut-off trail which bridges the two forks of the Green Belt Trail along Ridgeway Avenue. 

A sandy section of trail on the Green Belt Lake loop.

A little clearer look at the Inbred.

The Green Belt is in a pretty highly stressed state. The usual lush green strip along the Black Hawk Creek has been stunted and browned to a crisp in several areas. The creek itself is about as low as I've ever seen it before and I've been going through this area since the mid-1980's. 

I checked out Marky-Mark last Spring and it needed a lot of work. Two or three dead-falls were too big to ride over and were in need of removal. I don't have that sort of tool,or tools necessary to accomplish a removal of a tree like that, so when I went through Sunday morning I was not hopeful that it would be clear. 

The Green Belt Lake is alarmingly low as well.

The other bit of "true" single track in the Green Belt is this cut-off from the lake to the main trail.

Surprisingly, Marky-Mark was 100% rideable! I was a bit surprised, but pleased, by that. Obviously someone else has taken some "ownership" in the bit of trail. Whatever the case may be, the trail is all there and in outstanding shape, given the dry, hot weather we've had. 

The bike and the handle bar? Yes, they did well. I was pretty pleased with the successful initial test ride. Of course, I'll have to put more time in, and some gravel and dirt miles to come, before I can say anything more about this handle bar.