Troll Fever

We at the shop saw that the new Surly Troll's were being released a couple of weeks ago. A couple of us were very excited that the newest version of the Troll was going to be coming in the color purple, plus the fork comes set up to fit the Salsa Everything Cages! Well needless to say a couple of us decided that we needed to have a Troll. This brought up the fact that neither of us wanted to have the others idea of what their Troll should be. Luckily when building a bike from the frame up, it provides quite a of freedom of choice.

I decided to go with the Salsa Woodchipper bars, because I am a fan of the mountain drop bar. Jason decided that the On-One Mary bars would definitely do the trick when it came to steering his Troll down the road (and off road for that matter).

I was looking to build something that would be the perfect commuter/adventure bike no matter the time of year. The troll can fit up to a 26x2.7 tire. That is a pretty big footprint, without having to switch to a Fat frame. So I began by lacing a pair of Shimano M529 hubs to some Atomlab Pimplite hoops. I went with the Pimplites because they were one of the widest non Fatbike rims I could find, which leaves me with a wider footprint when I throw spikes on for the winter. Some Avid BB5's to stop. I went with road levers and rear derailleur (all thanks to Aaron) and a mtn. front derailleur and crank. It was decided that the Schwalbe Fat Frank's would be the best way to keep the wheels rolling until the snow flies.

Jason went a little different direction with his wheels. We did end up using the same hubs ( because they are inexpensive yet bombproof ) though he laced his to  a pair of Stan's rims so that he can run his setup tubeless. From there the Continental Xking's in 26x2.4 were put on the rims. He is stopping courtesy of the Avid BB7's. Shifting is taken care of with a mix of old school and new with vintage Shimano LX crank and rear derailleur and Microshift flatbar shifters.

We both wanted our Troll's to be able to carry all that we needed, so I chose to run a rear rack with Jandd Economy panniers. For hydration I have a couple stainless salsa cages on the fork.

These frames are so versatile! Here you see Jason is running a Revelate Tangle bag, and Gas tank. Five, yes five Profile Designs water bottle cages!

So far neither one of us is able to find anything wrong with these frames, they are just so damn fun!

Ti Mukluk

Last year we sold Andy a Salsa Mukluk 2. Andy loved his Mukluk, he took it on the standard winter rides, traipsing throughout the countryside enjoying all the new found adventure that the fat tires beneath him had to offer. The last time the bike was in the shop the Surly Nate's that he had wrapped to his Rolling Darryl's were stained with the familiar reddish orange dirt that signifies a trip to the mountain bike playground known as the Cuyuna Trails. Well after a year of this beautiful relationship it was time to move on up! The componentry on the Mukluk 2 didn't leave much in the way of wanting. That meant a new frame and fork, and some other little bits.
    It was a thing of beauty first seeing that red Chris King headset being set into the ti headtube, there is such a great contrast between the two colors. From there the White Brothers Snow Pack fork was put in its rightful place out front for all to lay their eyes on the carbon goodness. E13 cranks made there way over from the previous incarnation along with the wheel set, though we did change out the black spoke nipples with some sweet red ones. Carbon Salsa Pro Moto bars were mated with a Pro Moto stem and the SRAM X9 triggers were installed along with the Avid brake levers. When all was said and done this bike turned out to be an absolute thing of beauty!

the Mukluk 2

Barefoot and Beautiful!

 Ready for all the Adventure!

NEXT SATURDAY!!!!

You know you want to!

Carbon Touring Bike!?!

Carbon and a cross country tour are two things that are very rarely uttered in the same sentence. I came in the other day to work and there was a Cannondale Synapse carbon frame bike sitting on the wall. I asked where it came from, because I didn't remember us selling one with that groupo last year ( it was a 2011 model). They said it had been dropped off by a gentleman who was touring on it. Touring!!! I exclaimed, on a carbon bike with no rack mounts or fender eyelets!?!? I was informed that he was carrying all of his necessities in a plethora of Revelate Bags right on the frame. He had also switched out the 700x23 stock tires for some Continental 700x28 Gatorskins. A nice, smooth rolling, pretty much bombproof tire. I had not even realized that the Synapse could run a tire that wide. Well the bike got its needed repairs and was out the door, but here is what it looked like all loaded up.

  Now That is a lightweight touring rig!

Many times throughout year...

We have someone that comes in having a specific vision of exactly what they want out of their bicycle. They often times go with a custom build. Usually there is a stock frame picked out, from there we go on to help the customer build their dream bicycle. Every once in a great while, we have a customer with a non-traditional geometry i.e. long legs mixed with a shorter torso, or in my case, short legs and a long torso. Well one of those types approached us earlier this year. We all decided the best option for him would be a custom frame from Waterford Precision Cycles located in Waterford, Wisconsin. As you can probably imagine having a frame custom built for a person requires a fair amount of time and thought. Then of course there is choosing a paint scheme for the new frame, whether or not to go with a lugged frame, if you want lugs polished, what fork to go with, how you want the bike branded........so yeah a lot of thought goes into just getting the frame. After months of planning and many calls made back and forth to the soon to be proud owner of this fine frame this is what was the result

the color chosen was cinnamon sprayed over an underlying gold layer, decided to go with lugs with a high polish

polished lugs are truly a thing of beauty!

Waterford dropouts

steel fork painted to match

Now that we had this beautiful frame here and in our hands, we had to decide how we should build it up. The customer wanted a smooth drivetrain with plenty of shiny parts! Well we were going to make damn sure that he got exactly what he was looking for! We started off by lacing some super smooth White Industries hubs to some incredibly shiny Velocity Razor hoops, by way of the Sapim CX-Ray spokes. Super Shiny!!! We decided that Sram Red would be the most complimentary drivetrain for the frame. A Sugino OX801D Compact Crank was chosen to keep the legs spinning, FSA carbon bars, Fizik tape, and a high polish Ritchey stem. The sun hitting this bike makes it looks like it is on fire!

mmmm shiny!!!

external cup bb on a Sugino crank, never thought I would see the day

branding

the Sram Red brakes, and Chris King headset compliment the polished lugs quite well

So if you find yourself looking for the perfect bicycle you should probably come on in and talk to us about it!

He is no Dummy, but his bike sure is!

Recently some of you may have seen my Facebook post about Nick's stolen Extracycle. The bad news is that his bicycle has still not been recovered. The good news however is that he now has a sweet new whip!

This is Nick with his newly acquired Surly Big Dummy. 

    The Big Dummy is Surly's version of the SUV. Built to haul many things that would otherwise be quite difficult if not impossible to carry on your average bicycle (not that any bicycle is average). It is long and sleek, you may think this extra length would make the Big Dummy harder to handle. Not the case the Dummy stays quite agile through turns, in fact it handled very well around the tight confines of the store when i took it for an initial spin. It sports Continental Town and Country tires on bombproof Salsa rims all laced to Deore hubs, making it perfect if you wanna hit a trail or two on the way home.

longer than your average bike!

Since Nick rides in all weather, fenders were a must

stock Shimano derailleur traded for a Sram X7

Sram grip shift and a Surly Open Bar to keep everything upright, comfortable, and dependable

Nick wanted a Deville Bomber longboard mounted on the back, so of course we obliged, looks pretty rad!

loaded!!

Nick also got the biggest lock I have ever seen to go with his Big Dummy, so this one will surely be quite safe for many years to come! We are glad that we could help get him back on the road, if you need help making your dream bike a reality you should definitely stop by and let us help.

It Has Been Too Long

Wednesday morning at five am I began to pack all of my snow gear. Now those of you that know me well may be wondering why in the world I would get up that early.... I had good reason. Soon I would be on my way to Afton Alps to enjoy an absolutely beautiful, sunny day on the hill! Another element of my excitement was that there were going to be winter reps from the Midwest with their 2013 lines and I was going to be able to demo them!!!! So needless to say, there was not much sleep the night before. We arrived around ten and as soon as we pulled in you could see all of the tents filled with next years skis, and snowboards. I got changed in the chalet, and headed out to see what I wanted to ride first. There were tales of the Rossignol Krypto-Mag being one of the most epic boards out there, so naturally that was going to be the first ride! It was awesome!!! Super responsive, yet rigid, and boy howdy was it fast!!! It was set up with the Experience Bindings, the bindings got a facelift since last year, with canted footbeds and a new highback. At the same time as I was out trying the new snowboards for the year, Craig was over checking out the new skis. At lunch we all convened and got a lil grub, shared our likes and dislikes, then headed back out to try some more.

 

Snowboard brands out repping were Rossignol, Flow, K2, Ride, and that one other company...

 

Craig talking with a rep

 

Some of the 2013 Volkl line

 

Getting ready to tear it up on the 2013 One Mag from Rossi

After riding all of the Brands I would say I really was quite happy with the two brands we already carry, that being Rossignol and Flow, I did however find the Ride and K2 boards to be pretty damn nice! On the Ski side of things, the general consensus of our group was that the Rossignols were consistent as always with their high end offerings, and who wants to ride low end?!!? That being said I am sure their price point skis are still higher quality than most in the industry. The dark horse in the race here was Volkl though. Everyone was raving about the way that their upper end was just dialed in. So, you may just see some of those Volkls gracing the floor of Paramount next season!