Country Views: Pep Talk

Escape Route: Sans Souci Bridge

 Well, things just didn't work out for me to get out on Memorial Day weekend, but on Tuesday, which was functionally a Monday in my brain, I did get away for a bit. 

It was a fine hot day, little breeze to speak of, and I wore the Summer type kit as a result. The new flowery Twin Six jersey made its debut. I rode the pink BMC, of course, in preparation for the upcoming BRAN gravel ride. 

I wanted to head out South, but the Sergeant Road trail has an ancient railroad "bridge", (more like a drainage crossing), which is collapsing after all the decades of usage. I really didn't want to use that trail anyway, as it makes you cross three major roads at intersections which carry heavy traffic. It's a bad design for cyclists.  

Anyway, I ended up going North again, but not without some dismounted scurrying across a section of Broadway Avenue which is being prepared for new pavement. Watching out for re-bar and ropes, I tip-toed across the compacted gravel and remounted going North on Burton Avenue. 

Looking back from where I came. 

 

Gravel straight ahead!

I was worried on this ride. Worried I wasn't going to ride well in Nebraska. Worried that I hadn't done enough time in the saddle. I know.....worry gets you no where. But that said, it is hard to put it out of your mind. 

 

The gravel going up Burton was fresh and a little deep in places. The going was difficult. This did not play well with my mental state at the time. I tried to distract myself by looking around at the scenery. The crops barely peeking out of the soil. Green ditches, trees all leafed out, and a few ditch flowers brightening the roadside helped. 

Fortunately there were no issues with the bike, just the motor was a little off!

Curious cattle watched as I rode by their shed.

I looked at the watch and realized I was going to have to go East on Mt. Vernon Road. I then made it over to Sage Road and back toward town. I was still battling doubt and worry, but by this time I was rationalizing my situation a bit more clearly. 

The road improved as well. Now I was out of the freshly laid gravel and on more "average" conditions gravel. Average for around here anyway. So this made me feel a bit better, even though I was going into a headwind heading South. 

 

I'd likely be riding with people, and that would take my mind off of myself. I would not be in a big hurry. The average day mileage is a little over 58 miles and I'd have all day to do that. Yes, there is a 72 mile day, and one that is 60-something, but I'll make it work. I just have to keep pedaling. 

I ended up giving myself a bit of a pep talk there. It helped, and I felt a lot better about things once I got back home.  

I'll try to ride every day this week for at least an hour or so just to get used to being on a bike every day. Then next week I'll rest up, pack, and hopefully get myself out there and on the bus to Valentine. 

Onward.....

BRAN Gravel: Decisions Made

 It is getting closer to crunch time and the bags need to be packed up. Decisions need to be made. Last week I wrote about bike choice and for myself, it came down to two bicycles.

The Salsa Cycles Fargo Gen I is a crowd favorite. I posted an image on Facebook and Instagram of that bike and it got a lot of views. It would be the "People's Choice" bike to take on BRAN for the gravel route. 

This may not be fair, as I did not post a similar image of the Black Mountain Cycles MCD.  The bike may have received as many views as the Fargo. I can only say the two bikes got a different take here on the blog as commenters seemed to lean toward the pink machine instead of the venerable veteran choice. 

And the MCD is actually the bike that is going to Nebraska this time. I thought about this a lot, but a couple of things came to mind which swung the pendulum towards the BMC. One of those has to do with tires and what I heard randomly at work last week. 

A man came in to the Collective who said he was from Northwestern Nebraska. We got to talking about things and the subject of goat heads came up. In case you are unaware, goat heads are round-ish, smallish thorny bombs of doom and can ruin a bicycle ride in a hurry. 

The man said that in Western Nebraska this year the goat heads are at a higher level than normal. He suggested to not even roll my bike through grass out there. And he strongly suggested I run a tubeless set up. 

Of course, both my bikes under consideration are tubeless currently. However, only one has puncture protected tires, and that is the BMC. I just mounted both sets up within the last few months, but I will inject just a little extra goop into the Schwalbes before I go. Plus I will take a Stan's DART tool, extra sealant, and valve cores. 

I also mounted my XTR 11 - 40T cassette which is paired with my 46/36T crank set. This gives me two gears of 1 to 1 or lower which should be enough to get me up any hill I encounter out there. As I (vaguely ) recall, the hills aren't super steep, but longer than we have out here in Iowa. The elevation profile on Ride With GPS also suggests this with climbs of a mile to a mile and a half in some places. 

You may be wondering if my GRX derailleur will actually work with this cassette. While Shimano does not suggest that it will, if you carefully choose the correct chain length and use the B tension screw you will find it shifts in and out of the 40T cog quite nicely.  I even still have a little B tension screw sticking out beyond the derailleur, but I wouldn't push the capacity any further than 40T and expect great shifting. 

 So, there is the bike I am taking and how it will look. The water carrying capacity is great. I have low enough gearing with fast enough road gearing to suit me. The Schwalbe tires roll excellently on pavement and there will be paved sections of this ride nearly every day significant enough in length that this will make a difference. 

There is a Redshift Sports ShockStop Pro stem on this bike which should help take the zing out of the gravel. The Ritchey Design Venturemax carbon handlebars will help as well. Their flattened ovalized top section will be a nice respite for tired hands on long climbs. 

Now I have to go through my tool roll and top tube bag to see what I do or do not have. I may need to get rid of some stuff as well. Otherwise this is it. Now on to packing the rest of the gear up! 

Country Views: Cool May Day

Escape Route: Riverside bicycle trails East.

This Spring has been wet, April was super warm, but now May has entered the chat. And it has cooled down a lot. We've got frost warnings, low 50's, and gray skies. Yeah, you get the weather you get. Just ride, right? 

So, Friday afternoon on May 1st I had a chance to go for a quick ride. I was thwarted in my attempt to go down near Washburn, Iowa last time and I just felt like I needed to get that done. So, I departed the HQ here and headed down along the river toward Evansdale. Once again, I found the bike trail closed. 

So, I did some urban scrambling and came into Evansdale on the main drag, which hasn't changed at all since the 1950's, I would bet. The last bit of road between Waterloo and Evansdale is so narrow. Fortunately there is a fairly wide dirt shoulder, but the cars and trucks passing by are so close you feel like you could reach out and touch them and they are on two lanes so narrow they cannot move an inch to the side without possibly running into an oncoming vehicle. 

Maybe someday that will be addressed and we can have a real separated bicycle path like Evansdale has on the Southeast side going to Elk Run heights. 

Maybe.... 

The trees are almost all leafed out. The river is full again. This looks normal for once. 

The chip seal part of Foulk Road just past its dead end to the CVNT.

I finally got on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail (CVNT), and then a short while later I turned Right onto Foulk Road. My plan was to go up and see if I could ride McKellar Road and the dirt part of Weiden Road. I didn't know if these dirt roads would be passable after all the rains we had in April. 

Stopped by a train of empty flat bed cars? Weird!

McKellar Road was fine. It looks weird with no crops though!

The dirt was fine on McKellar, which made me hopeful I'd be okay on Weiden Road. Every field along the way had just been worked up and planted. Maybe this season this area will be all soybeans. It was all corn last year. 

My Dad used to call these a "honey wagon" IYKYK

Later on the Sun tried to come out, but it just wasn't quite there.

Weiden was full of water pits, but all had work-a-rounds, so I made it through. Then it was just time to loop it back around to get going home. I didn't have time to get a big loop in on this day. I did make it home after a couple of hours of riding though. 

Stacking days....... 

Bikes Of 2025: Black Mountain Cycles MCD

 It's another end-of-year period on the blog. You know what that means? Yep! Another round of my bikes I used in 2025. This round-up will not include some of the bikes I did not use this year much, or at all. I focus only on the bikes that played a big role in my riding during this year.  As always, any changes or future plans for any bike I feature will also be detailed. I hope that you enjoy this year's round-up.

 The Black Mountain Cycles MCD has been a part of the stable now since 2018. This is kind of a transitional model between the Monster Cross and the Mod Zero model currently offered by Black Mountain Cycles. So, this MCD has been discontinued, but a Mod Zero is a great alternative and better in some ways to the MCD. (In case you were wanting something like this bicycle.)

I always wanted a pink bicycle. I am maybe weird this way, but ever since "Captain Dondo" wrote about his pink Specialized mtb in "Dirt Rag" I have thought about owning a pink bicycle. Then I missed out on Mike Varley's offering of a pink BMC Monster Cross model and I was sure I missed the boat there. However; in 2018 Mike tipped me off about his offering a pink MCD model, one of the first of the run of this model, and I bought in immediately. 

I think of the MCD as my "skinny tire Fargo", or a Vaya-like bicycle. I've ridden both extensively on gravel and there are characteristics of both Salsa models in this MCD. That's a good thing. 

In fact, initially I set the MCD up to mimic exactly my then Fargo Gen I set up. It made this bike instantly comfortable and easy to get along with. 

I swap out wheels so much on this bicycle I never really get a chance to hone in on anything super-specific about the way it rides, but I'll just say it is very good. 

Changes? Well, maybe sticking to a single wheel set and tire combination for a season! I might switch out more components to GRX, or maybe a new group set at some point. I have enjoyed the carbon VentureMax handle bar on this bike, so this component will not change. 

My only big change I really want to see is riding more on this bicycle than I did in 2025. The MCD was minimally used this year, and I often wished it could have been out with me more than it was. This will be a goal for 2026. 

Two Things

Where Do I Take My Bike Now?

The city I live in is called Waterloo, Iowa. It has a population of over 67,000 people and it has zero bicycle shops as of last week. The only shop within the city limits, Waterloo Bicycle Works, closed its doors for business. I was there last week and listened as the owner was asked if he was going to relocate, or re-open at some point, and the answer was not positive. I cannot say more since I do not speak for the owner there. 

So, it looks as though we're out of luck here when it comes to a local bike shop. There are other shops nearby in Cedar Falls. One just across the city limits and one on the West side of down town Cedar Falls. There is also a big-box Scheels bike shop, but yeah.... Not really a local bike shop there, per se'. This for a metropolitan area covering 170,000 plus people in the official metropolitan statistical area. 

I hear there is an eBike shop in Waverly, a mere 12 miles North of Cedar Falls, but yeah.... This does not seem good to me. With the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective being the only bicycle related business  in town now, I suspect I'll be hearing from more people about where to go for repairs, since we do not handle that need at the Collective. We defer to those trying to make it in retail, since we are non-profit. 

Strange days here. 

Goodbye Monstercross!

The time had come. The ol' 2011 Black Mountain Cycles Monstercross just wasn't getting any love anymore. 

Longtime blog readers know I do not like a bicycle sitting around which I don't ride, and the BMC Monstercross wasn't getting ridden at all anymore. It's too nice a bicycle to just let sit there. 

So, I think I found a 'good home' and I decided to pass it along to someone who was looking for a nice bike to get the single speed experience. I think this bike will fill this rider's desires nicely.  

Now, before anyone says, "I didn't know you were selling that!", you should also know I did not sell it. This simply was just an opportunity I found to make someone happy and help them get into a single speed who has been a very kind person to me of late.  

So, the Monstercross will get ridden, and I will remember with fondness all the adventures I had on this bicycle. The first Renegade Gents Race, the Moonlight Metric, and several gravel rides into headwinds, through melting snows, and across rutted Level B Roads. 

The bike owes me nothing. I got all the good out of it I wanted. It sold a lot of bicycles for Black Mountain Cycles as well, if what Mike Varley told me is true, and why wouldn't it be? So, old Orange Crush is off to a new life with a new owner who, hopefully, will share many a fun ride.  

Maybe I'll see it around here being enjoyed someday?  Hope so. 

Friday News And Views

Image courtesy of Keith Bontrager's social media.

"First Bontrager bike with a license plate."

  Since the advent of putting electric motors on bicycles, I have posited this idea would evolve into fully electric powered, two-wheeled vehicles. It would appear that Keith Bontrager, now retired, has been tinkering with just such an idea and has published an article on Medium detailing his efforts.

The article is long and essentially takes you from Bontrager's initial thoughts on electrified bicycles through his evolutions in prototyping and finally to a vision for the future which he feels will pull more people out of cars and on to two-wheeled transportation. 

This quote is pretty much the overall philosophy he has regarding pedelecs versus fully motorized two-wheeled vehicles: "An electrically powered bike without the pedals is likely to appeal to a large portion of the population who are not too wild about pedaling a bike around. If pedaling is not important to those folks, why not just remove them. That will reduce cost and complexity, and add useful cargo space."

Comments: I urge you to read Keith's words and caution you that much of it is technical in nature, but will reveal a reality I think is coming. That being the fully-electrified, no-pedaling vehicles with two wheels which will be what people really want. Cyclists will have a hard time with this, yes, but Keith's vision is what will be successful in the end, not restricting electrified two-wheeled vehicles to having to be pedaled.

Image courtesy of Black Mountain cycles

Black Mountain Cycles Reissues Road Frame/Fork:

Five years ago Mike Varley of Black Mountain Cycles discontinued the Road frame and fork from his steel bicycle line.  However; interest in having more made for the Japanese market has sparked a reissuing of the frame and fork in its original colors

The frame and fork can handle 32mm tires with ease, maybe 35's, and has fender mounts. This is a 'true road bike' so only caliper brakes here. The price is tentatively set at $895.00 USD depending on "what the hell" goes on with tariffs. 

You can learn more from the BMC Road page HERE. 

Comments: I usually do not talk much about pure road bicycles here, but I do have two BMC's for gravel and they both have been excellent bicycles. I have seen one of the original BMC Road bikes up close and they look really nice. I've been told they ride even better than they look. For the asking price, this is a killer deal and would be a better bike than whatever aero nonsense bike you can name would be for most riders.

Hmm.... I have an old Colnago which can run wider tires but for the fork I have on it now. This bike would solve my road bike issues and have tires the size I'd actually want to ride.  Very tempting....

Image courtesy of GRVL

GRVL Hydration Packs:

GRVL, a newer name in the market for gravel riding aficionados, has just introduced a new hydration pack for gravel riding. Featuring recycled materials in its construction, the pack is made to allow for ease of use and to provide the usual hydration pack benefit of having a water/hydration fluid available to the rider without reaching down for a water bottle. Many riders say a hydration pack makes them drink more due to the ease of accessibility to their hydration fluids. 

Other benefits and features include:

•  Hydration Bladder Included – Easily removable for convenientfilling and cleaning.

● Tailored Fit – Adjustable shoulder and waist straps with
elasticated sections provide a snug, comfortable fit that
allows for unrestricted movement and breathability.
● Quick-Release Harness – A simple 1-click, 4-point system for
effortless on-and-off functionality.
● Secure Storage – One large zippered compartment for the
hydration bladder and essentials, plus a hanging loop for easy
drying and storage.
● Reflective Detailing – Enhancing visibility for early morning
and late evening rides.

The GRVL Hydration Pack costs approximately $127.00USD depending on tariff situations at the time of ordering.

Comments: Hydration packs have always made a lot of sense for many riders. This version of the idea looks great, is made responsibly, and should work well. One thing - They only offer this to fit "up to" a 44" chest size. Well.....that leaves me out. Also, the I find their lack of vowels.......annoying.

Shimano 100 Works Book:

An incredible gift from a former co-worker and blog reader came on Tuesday of this past week. It is a 'coffee table' book of Shimano's 100 "best" products celebrating 100 years of Shimano's existence back in 2021.

According to my research, which could be wrong, this book was made available by lottery to those who entered to possibly be chosen to purchase one of 100 copies of the book which were published.

In following with the theme of 100, these books originally went for $100.00 dollars each, if you were chosen to buy one. I have seen a few on ebay with higher asking prices, so if you were to want to get one, it is possible, I guess.

I've no idea how my benefactor was able to get a hold of this, but obviously he did and now I have it in my possession. It is pretty humbling to think someone would want to buy this for me.

So, a public "thank you" was necessary and you know who you are who deserves this acknowledgement. Thank you!

Where We Came From:

In case you missed it, another couple of podcasts dropped this week in the "Where We Came From" series which is a podcast and blog post series describing how gravel cycling came to be, who were it's movers and shakers back in the day, and how things were done back then which led to the dominance of gravel cycling we know now in 2025.

On the occasion of Trans Iowa's 20th anniversary, I interviewed Jeff Kerkove, the co-founder of the event and one of the main influencers of how events were done  back then. In this episode you'll get Jeff's remembrances of how the event came together, his background as a cyclist which was important to getting gravel cycling and culture headed in the direction it ultimately went, and his thoughts on Trans Iowa's influence.

That episode can be listened to on Spotify HERE or you can get it on your favorite podcast provider platform. 

Next in the series we were able to corral a local gravel grinding pioneer, Mike Johnson, and get his take on how the early gravel scene worked and what he used to conquer events like Trans Iowa, the DK200, and other events leading up to his successful Tour Divide attempt. 

Mike shared what it was like before there were gravel specific tires, bicycles, and accessories. How nutrition needed to be figured out for ultra-distance events. Things like lighting, mud clearing, and clothing were all unknowns facing these early gravel pioneers and Mike was giving us great examples of these challenges they all faced as gravel grinders.

If you want to give this episode a listen you can check it out on Spotify HERE. 

Both these podcasts also help mark the 20th anniversary of the first Trans Iowa. I could have chosen many others to do this with, but this came together in a hurry and it worked out well for all involved. I suspect others from this era of Trans Iowa and gravel events in general will get their shot at telling their stories as long as we can record them. Stay tuned for more...

That is a wrap on this week! Get out there and ride some bicycles!

Country Views: A Road With A Chameleon Personality

Escape Route: Traffic on the Sergeant Road Trail

We've had a switch from hot, humid weather to a few days of cooler, less humid air here in Iowa and I was able to get out to enjoy it a bit on Wednesday. Days like these in August don't come around often, so I was blessed to be able to take advantage of the day.

I also needed to ride the fat Resolute tires I have here to review and I had a special place I wanted to take those tires to. This place, curiously, is not well ridden or even well known to locals, as far as I can tell. One person, maybe two, ride it on occasion other than myself, and typically I never see any other bicycle tire tracks out there. Once you've seen this road you might wonder why this is such a rare treat for the locals to partake in. Don't as me for the answer. I have no idea why local gravel cyclists don't flock to ride down this spectacular road. 

I was riding the pink MCD Black Mountain Cycles bike this time and with the weather being what it was, normal cycling garb was all that I needed to be wearing. Since this particular road I was going to ride was South of town, I headed out on the Sergeant Road bike path. I had the unique experience of having to pass a mower doing trail maintenance which was a bit sketchy, but once I got by it was smooth sailing out to the gravel.

Washburn Road. That's Hudson, Iowa's water tower over on the left horizon line.

Real American Gravel

I decided to make the approach to this particular road from the West side, which I typically don't do. However; I wanted to make sure I could actually ride this road as the Western side gets wet and can flood out much easier than the hilly, more well drained Eastern side of that road. This took me just East of Hudson, Iowa and then South of there a bit further. 

Just a bit further....

Petrie Road's Level B section. Yes....this is a road!

Well, maybe you guessed it before you saw the image above, but it is indeed Petrie Road. I've said this before, and I fully expect this to happen, but this 7/8ths of a mile of awesomeness is probably not long for public consumption. I fully expect this road to be gated and turned into a C Level Maintenance road soon. So far though, it has escaped that fate. Not that the local farmer adjacent to this road hasn't been trying to get it closed off. 

This is the same section of Petrie Road as shown in the previous image from 2016.

The local farmer that lives just to the South of this road has wanted this closed up since I spoke with the wife of the couple that farms the land there back during T.I.v12 in 2016. Since then, that Level B sign has disappeared, and the green street sign indicating this is Petrie Road has also mysteriously disappeared. Only the street sign pole remains. Hmm... 

And as you can see, zero maintenance has been done on that road since we did T.I.v12. It is fairly obvious that someone is wanting this to be declassified, and I am betting I know who that someone is. 

But anyway....

This road changes personality at least three times in less than a mile.

The thing that I love about this road is how different it is in feel and terrain as you travel it from one end to the other. On the East side it starts out as a typical gravel road. Then about an eighth of a mile in, it goes to dirt two-track, and then it crosses a low water crossing which is typically only wet during Spring run-off. This is all big rock and dirt. Then it goes up, two-track, sandy, and with embedded rock. Then it goes on with a big mud hole up top that very rarely is ever dry, descends down a silty two-track, and then about a quarter mile of flat, grass-filled and severely rutted out two-track which skirts several mud-pits and water filled ruts. 

Now I did that in reverse and about 50 yards in my front tire self-steered up a rut unexpectedly, since I could not see anything for the four foot high weeds, and I was dumped unceremoniously off my bike with another ridge from a rut hitting me mid-back and across the bottom of my shoulder blades. Fun times!

Coming out on the East side.

 

Back to your regularly scheduled gravel program!

I was okay and rode the rest of the way out to the Eastern exit of the Level B Section and on down Petrie Road to its other terminus at Ansborough Avenue. The gravel had been refreshed down here and it had been done very close to when I rode these roads. There were no good lines and the Resolutes had to do for getting me through it, which they do quite well. 

I did not see a deer this time but I was ambushed by a dog. The dog appeared out of a ditch and was silent until the mutt took off after me.  Fortunately this mutt's angle of pursuit was off and I was out in front of the pooch enough that I was able to crack off a nice "dog sprint". This was enough to break the dog's engagement and I was dog free! I did see another couple of dogs in a farm yard but they gave me nothing but a few barks as I cruised on by them.

The Pink MCD

It turned out all to the good and I made it back home in one piece. All the while I was wondering why folks around here don't take advantage of Petrie Road's varying personalities along that section of Level B road. One day, sooner than later, it won't be an option. Too bad for those who don't get down that way now. They are missing out on some good fun!

Finding Purpose

Last May I had a plan to go fixed gear on my Black Mountain Cycles "Monstercross" bike better known as "Orange Crush" on these pages. I've written a ton about this bike over the years, but if you are not familiar with it, see THIS post. 

Well, I think I am abandoning those plans to go with a fixed gear set up. The wheel set I was going to use is set up for 1/8th inch pitch chains and chain rings. That means I'd have to spend a bit of money on a chain ring and a chain and..... Well, I rode the bike again recently and thought I'd like to keep it as it is as far as the drive train goes. 

The plan a year ago was to make this bike a flat bar bike, and that fizzled out as well. I still have the brakes and levers for that project in the basement still in their boxes. So, why has it been so hard for me to get going with....anything, having to do with this bike?

The answer: Progress in this gravel bike field. The bikes I have now are light years better at what I am using them for and the Orange Crush is 'just okay'. That breeds apathy for the bike and that's not good. It makes it hard for me to find a purpose for the bike to hang around here. 

The big thing on this bike is the geometry. That's the deal-killer for me. The bottom bracket drop is 65mm, and that's ridiculously high these days. The front stack height is pretty low as well. To be perfectly fair, Mike Varley wasn't designing a "gravel bike" when he designed the Monstercross. It was, as the name might suggest, a variant of cyclo-cross bikes with wider tire capability allowing this bike to do some MTB-like trails.

Before there were "gravel bikes" this was my gravel bike.

But I got the Monstercross because there weren't any gravel bikes in 2011. You used whatever you could get that made sense at the time to ride gravel with. I used the Orange Crush. At the time, it made sense. Now? 

I would love the bike if it had about 10mm more bottom bracket drop and a degree slacker head tube angle, but it does not and will not ever be like modern gravel bikes. 

So I have spent the better part of three years trying to find purpose for this bike. I just cannot justify spending any money anymore on the bike. It has become an antique, of sorts, and even newer Monstercross bikes are not like mine. They changed, got better with the times, and maybe if I had one of those frames I'd just transfer over the parts and then ride on. But that would also be a big investment into a bike that still isn't quite what I'd want these days. 

Maybe it is time to retire this frame and fork. I might have to look into something I could transfer the parts to, or just get out of it altogether. I mean, it isn't like it is 2011 anymore around here. I've got plenty of gravel bikes. I don't really need a rim brake gravel bike. But if the right thing came along? 

Maybe then.

No-Coast Plans

I put studded tires on in January that never needed to be used.

I have a rule of sorts around here. If I have a bicycle that isn't getting in the rotation for use, I need to change something so it will get used, or it goes away. I have two bicycles at the moment that are in this stage with me. The old Salsa Cycles Mukluk that I dubbed "Snow Dog" and this Black Mountain Cycles Monstercross that I call "Orange Crush". 

The old BMC hasn't seen much use over the past few years since I pretty much retired it from gravel grinding. It has a few things going against it that just make it hard for me to use anymore when better choices exist right in front of me here. For example, this Monstercross is one of the original run of frames Mike Varley did back in 2011. It has a 65mm bottom bracket drop, which, when I got the bike is what you had to put up with to ride gravel. 

As it turned out, I found that bottom bracket height to be untenable for myself on loose gravel. The stability of a lower bottom bracket is a real thing, in my opinion, and helps me - at least- to plant the bike on those high speed, sketchy descents and in corners. So, that alone makes this bike a hard sell for me in 2024. 

But there are other quirks to this bike that make it kind of an outlier in today's Guitar Ted stable of bikes. Quick release wheels being one of those things. I actually have two wheel sets specifically for this bike alone. One I set up with studded tires and with that massive amount of snow we had last January I figured that with the way things melt around here studs would be king. Well, after one week of warmer temps and wholesale melting of snow, the studs never needed to leave the confines of Guitar Ted Headquarters. They were useless.

I know this isn't a fixed gear cog, but you get the idea.

Recently we had a fixed gear bike donated to the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective. Now, fixed gear is a term many here don't even know. Of course, riding fixed gear is practically unheard of around these parts unless you are one of a handful of individuals that are fans of the no-coast biking experience. 

So, when I looked at this I thought that we'd have a very difficult time finding a home for this Reline 925 unless it was a coaster. So, I removed the fixed/fixed wheel and its matching front and subbed in a converted freewheel rear and matching front wheel to make the bike at least somewhat desirable to the locals here. I mean, it still is a single speed, which is another hurdle to overcome with the populace, but at least you can coast on it now!

So, that solved the Collective's problem with that bike, but now we had this wheel set. Hmm.... Maybe I should buy it, put it on the BMC, and have a dedicated urban fixie bike again. See, I disassembled my old Raleigh Grand Prix fixie "rat-rod" bike a year or so ago, and have been without a fixed gear bike since then. 

Saturday I rode the Orange Crush down to the Collective and test fit the wheels. They are spaced at 120/100, but the rear axle is long enough that with ten millimeters of spacers and room enough for axle nuts, I can make it work. The chainline seems spot on. So......

While I haven't pulled the trigger on this set up, I think I am going to. Otherwise the BMC is going to get decommissioned and I would likely just tear it down to frame and fork. We will see soon enough what happens. Meanwhile I have an old Mukluk problem as well. 

Stay tuned....

Bikes Of 2023: Black Mountain Cycles MCD

 It's another December here on the blog. You know what that means? Yep! Another round of my bikes I used in 2023. This round-up will not include some of the bikes I did not use this year much, or at all. I focus only on the bikes that played a big role in my riding during this year.  

As always, any changes or future plans for any bike I feature will also be detailed. I hope that you enjoy this year's round-up. 

The Black Mountain Cycles MCD from early in 2023

Since 2018 this has been one of my favorite bikes in my stable of many bicycles. The MCD (Monster Cross Disc), is the model that was the answer to the original Black Mountain Cycles Monster Cross bike "modernized' question. Modernized in terms of the brake standard, obviously, but also in terms on the geometry and frame design. 

A lot of "gravel/adventure bike" influence affected what became the short-lived MCD model. This bike is now kind of a transitional model to what is now called the Mod Zero, which is also a model that absorbed what a Black Mountain Cycles Road Plus frame did. (biggie 650B tires) You can read all the nitty gritty on the evolution to the Mod Zero HERE. 

All that to say that, well, here is another kind of rare frame/fork that I own. There aren't many of these around. And in my view, this is the bike that encompasses what a Salsa Cycles Vaya did for me without the stiffer tubing and this MCD has better tire clearances. 

From a ride in October with Jason Boucher, (Who can be seen in back ground here)

 Anyway, I rode this a fair amount during 2023 and you'll continue to see this bike throughout 2024 as well. No big changes are coming to this bike either. Not as far as I can tell at this time. "IF" I could, I'd maybe upgrade the drive train to the latest GRX stuff, but the mish-mash of Shimano stuff on here now is working fine. (10 spd cyclo-cross crank, Ultegra 11 spd levers, Ultegra front derailleur, GRX rear derilleur, TRP Spyre brakes, 11 spd SRAM cassette) 

I do miss having fork mounted bottle cages/Anything Cage mounts. The Mod Zero has those. But other than that, this bike really is a gem. And of course, it is pink! That makes it even better, despite all the side-eye looks I get out in the country!