Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Me and My Tranny

Everyone loves the curves on a sexy Tranny, and now I have my very own to play with in the woods...

Like most trannys; it's got just "one coque"

It will even open my beers for me;

Okay... enough silly Tranny references! At any rate, I broke down and picked up an Ibis Tranny. If you haven't seen one, it builds up a pretty versatile machine! You can run it with gear like a regular hardtail, or you can run it as a single speed. The unique beauty is in the "Slot Machine" rear triangle, which pivots/extends so you can adjust your chain tension without eccentric bottom brackets, chain tensioners, or trying to even-up your sliding dropouts. Heck, you can even take the rear triangle off, and pack the bike in a smaller bag if you want to do some traveling with it.

I was of course building this up as a single speed, and in this build, the bike has a nice sweet, clean look to the drivetrain.

To celebrate the new Tranny-love, I hid my road bike, and spent the whole weekend on the trails in Ned, testing out the new bike. My previous single speed was fully-rigid, so between the 100mm fork, and the buttery smooth carbon frame, this onen almost feels like cheating. "Almost"... it's still very much a single speed.

As I had hoped it would, it rides amazing... just like the Silk Road I had last year, and my Hakkalugi cross bike. It's fast, real fast. The 1,350g frame built up pretty light, right at 20lbs., though I was hoping for it to be slightly lighter. At the same time, I didn't really get any true lightweight parts for it. It will "get" a lot faster, as I spend more time on the trails, remembering how to ride the dirt - that always takes a couple rides during road season.

Now if I could just get out of this stupid cube... I could go play with my tranny.

No comments: