The Return of Winter

As fully expected, winter has returned. Since I don't get to ride outdoors as much this time of year, it's usually bike maintenance, new bike bits, and working on bikes that keeps me on the proper side of the balancing act referred to as "sanity".

Some might argue that Cyclocross season is a long time away... but as far as I'm concerned, it's just about to start! The first races on the calendar so far, again this year, is the awesome Cult Cross Series! Be there, or be square. And with any luck, I'll get the new frame that I have on order, in time for the races. Not just so I can show off the shiny new steed, but I don't know if I could handle getting a new cross bike and not getting to race it until September! Horror! Anyway... look at this beauty, the Ibis Hakkalugi!

This bike is going to be "weird"... with 9 more gears than "The Hulk Bike" has... like a lazy-man's bike or something. I'm planning to run the SRAM Force groupo on it, so I converted the crankset over to a single ring set up, using a nice stiff 42T Race Face chainring, and one of the sweet, super light, BBG chainguards. I'll run an N'Gear chain stopper on the inboard side to keep things in place.

One of the best parts of the single ring set up is that it means more projects for me! I mean, you'd be crazy to not take 37grams or so of shifter-guts out of the left hand shift/brake lever!

Heavy;

Starting to come apart;

Definitely, apart;

"Much" lighter now!

Now I know how to take apart SRAM shifters. The pretty cool part, is that it should be fairly easy to put the guts back in, when I get bored and decide it would be pretty cool to run double rings up front. That will likely be the trend next year, as all the Euro-pros are running double rings. I'll never be cool at this rate.