Busy Weekend

I started my weekend off by playing hooky from work and going snowboarding.  I have only been on my board once, in the past three years, and that was when I took my nephew Kyle up to Eldora, three Christmases ago. I am still sore from using different muscles than normal (and from falling on my ass a couple of times).  The snow was not the best I have ever been on, but it wasn't the worst, either.

Saturday was spent in the shop building, putting together my new 29er mountain bike.  I bought an unbranded frame from Bikes Direct (the same place I got my first 29er frame, which is now in Pennsylvania, with the nephews), and built it up using some parts from the FUNK ti bike, and a couple of new pieces that I bought specifically for the build.

The FUNK now has cyclocross wheels and tires, an old Sachs New Success rear derailleur, and a single chainring crank, but is otherwise the same as it was before I started this project.

For the new build, I put the XT-hub wheels, XT crank and XT rear derailleur from the FUNK, plus an XT front derailleur, Avid brake levers, Profile handlebar and Gripshift shifters from Randy Caley's old mtb. I bought new tires (CST Ouster 29x2.25 folding bead), a new 9-speed chain (I had a 9-speed cogset in my parts bin), Ergon grips, a Cateye cyclometer, and some Nashbar-branded Tektro disc brakes.  Also from the parts bin, a seatpost and a black Cardiff saddle finished out the build.

There's a lot of black, with just a few accents of silver. Kinda reminds me of my motorbike.

Speaking of the Scrambler, I recently got a new Triumph Sprint front brake lever assembly from eBay, to replace the stock assembly.  The brake fluid master cylinder on the Scrambler has always been a problem for me. I replaced the stock "pee cup" with a cnc'd version, last year. But, having that sticking up above the bar made me nervous, especially when riding off-road.

 This is what I had..

This is what I installed, today.

The modulation is a bit stiff, with the new setup. I think I will look for a brake caliper to match, and see if that improves the feel. (But, that is down the road. For now, this will do.)

Some views of the bike, with the new lever:

Since I was tired and sore from snowboarding, I decided to go mountain biking and break the new 29er in, today, after I bled the brakes on the Scrambler. The fact that it was sunny and 60 degrees here, today, helped make the decision to go pretty easy.

It was a slow ride, but fun. I felt almost like I was cheating, since the suspension fork smoothed things out, so well. I was not particularly faster on the downhill (unless you remove the brake levers from my bike, I am not likely to get much faster on the downs than I am on my rigid bike), but I was a lot less beat up at the bottom. I am hoping that will allow for some epic rides, this coming summer.

That's the plan, anyway...

This coming week, I hope to get the fixed gear mtb set up, and I need to install the replacement Campy Ergo shifter/brake lever on the red bike (I got one off of eBay, for a pretty decent price, last week).

Busy, busy...
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