Menage a trois

Check out Declan Cox from Valley Cycle's bike:


So much potential. So tastelessly executed. Sorry Dec, but putting neon green Lizard Skins grips, Titec carbon bars and an SDG I-Beam saddle on a vintage Merlin Titanium frame that deserves something classy from vaguely the same era is just wrong.

Fashion gripes aside, I've ridden this bike offroad and it's super sweet. I've yet to come across a rigid singlespeed that handles as well as this baby.

Here's my Cross Check after the transformation that was blogged a few posts ago:

This is yet to be taken to the trails, but if the way it feels on the streets is anything to go by it should be a ripper. 700x32 Smallblock Eight tyres, EA50 riser bars, 38x18 (free) and38x16 (fixed) gearing. Bummer that I didn't get the time off to go to Vegas for the SS nationals. Brett might get the chance to hurt himself on this bike instead.

Last up, check out what you can get from Surly, fully built, fixed and ready to go:

The Steamroller complete. Pretty well specced with Surly 1x1 hubs and a Surly sprocket, and great value at around $1300. My flatmate Karen plans to use this as a round town bike, having ridden my cross check in one of its previous fixed-wheel incarnations and loved it. I'm looking forward to putting a few miles on it too. These guys must be taking the piss with the included owner's manual though:

Converting the converted

Preparations are underway for NZ's first singlespeed National Champs next April in the magical singletrack of Rotorua's Whakarewarewa forest. Well, Josh and my preparations are underway, first trying to secure the weekend off work, then picking a suitable (or unsuitable) steed on which to compete... na, make that participate. I dug out an old, old Giant Iguana from the pile of bikes that have been traded in at work for a promotion, but after an hour of trying to extract a jammed solid seatpost, gave up and returned it to it's home in the corner of the workshop.

Josh, meanwhile, is putting his Surly Crosscheck through it's umpteenth transformation in the last few months, this time adding riser bars and and cross tyres but keeping the wheel in fixed mode, although there is talk of free-ing the wheel in the name of sanity.


With my SS back in Aus, and the pile of crap for conversion just too much to cope with, I'm thinking of pony-ing up for one of these babies.
I can get it pretty cheap, and I can sell it off at the race afterwards... or will the 29 bug bite me and inspire me to more upgrades in the name of cool? Time will tell. We'll keep you posted on the Surly's surgery and our beer-drinking training (mine's going pretty well so far).