It May Not Have Frozen Over...

but it's at least a little cooler in Hell, today. I actually went to a store and bought a new bike, for the first time since 1998. It's a GT Peace9er, a "29 inch" wheeled (700c) single-speed mountain bike.

I was planning on building up a 29 for the commute, because the Pink bike is going to revert to a 1x8 configuration for pulling the trailer. and I started figuring out costs and realized that I could go down to Performance and buy this for less money. Factor in the 20% credit to my Team Perf card, and the bike came in at under $400.00. Even after I lace a flip-flop hub into the rear wheel so that I can have a fixed gear instead of freewheel, it will cost about $200.0 less than building one from scratch. (That's the advantage of OEM pricing over what I pay.)

The ENO hub on the pink bike is driving me crazy. I posted earlier about how it rotates and lets the chain loosen. What I haven't mentioned is how much I hate trying to re-tension the chain after that happens. I don't know if it just doesn't like the dropouts in the pink bike, or if this is a common problem, but every time I try to tighten the bolts, the hub rotates. This either tightens or loosens the chain after you think you have it adjusted.

I spent 30 minutes trying to get the tension right, Thursday afternoon, and finally settled for "good enough". And, "good enough" is unacceptable to me.

So, the pink bike gets its Rolf wheels back, 8 speeds on the rear, single ring in the front, and will keep the trailer hitch. The GT will become the commute bike, once again using the seatpost mounted rack, since it has no rack eyelets.

I've been curious about the whole "29er" movement, and I figure this will be a good (cheap) way to try it out.

Next post: modifications. I may have bought a stock bike, but I sure won't ride a stock bike!