The background is a two foot jump into the tri/biking/everything active world, and has the fitness and skills to do well from the start, but not exactly a "real" mountain bike.
After breakfast, I came home and was going to nap on the couch, but thought I'd try Jon Nutbrown to see what he was doing with his old Devinci Desperado hardtail frame - it was sitting in the basement with La Ruta mud on it from Jon's first crack at La Ruta. Perfect actually. Dropped by, watched Gavan play a while, and caught up with Jon and Kelley. Left with a muddy frame and a few miscellaneous parts.
Came home, stuck the crankset and fork in my dishwasher, and went to town on the frame with cleaner. I'm not a fan of un-needed v-brake mounts, so I filed the right side one off for over an hour and painted it (left one stayed as it had a slick disc brake line mount on it). Collected up all the parts I had, figured out what I needed still and who could be called on to part with a few items collecting dust in the garage... as everyone knows a muddy and used bike part is way happier than a dusty and unused one.
Pat Doyle had a sweet set of XTR hub/Stans Olympic rim wheels as well as a few other tidbits (more on this later), Craig had some tires, handlebar/stem, some misc tools and accessories, and a set of headset/fork tools I was going to need.
After dinner at my parents, I did some build prep, but the new bike rider herself came to help on Sunday morning.
The end result is the desperado frame, XT bb and cranks with brand new FSA chainrings, new chain and XT cogs, new Shimano brakes (in white no less), new XTR derailleur, fully housed derailleur cable after drilling out the guides, ended up with a Thomson stem/Easton bar based on fit, Specialized saddle, XT pedals, Nobby Nic in front and a Maxxis Monorail in the rear, Sid fork, a Chris King inset as I couldn't find parts for the existing headset, and the sweet XTR/notubes wheelset, with a new XTR freehub to boot. Lots of scrubbing, polishing, greasing, tightening, tweaking, etc. led to a 24lb hardtail with a lot of potential and a pedigree of some really good bike rider karma from Craig, Pat and Jon who have passed along extreme amounts of climbing, endurance and downhill prowess no doubt. I really like how it turned out, it's pretty sweet. It proved handling agility on some good kitchen laps.
Since it wasn't a two ride weekend, might as well make it a two bike weekend. When I was picking up stuff from Pat, I mentioned the moving thing and that I might need a simple commuter bike just to go the 15 blocks. He said "here, buy this"... and long story short, I did. Dangerous when he had other "tid bits" sitting around. I thought it'd be small at 54cm, but it's a big fitting 54cm repainted Kona Jake, cable stops filed off, White Industries Eno hub to provide chain tension on a non-SS frame, and a set of brakes... that's it. I'll slap some platform pedals on and cruise in with a suit on once the slop melts. Price was right on both!
Wow, busy weekend! First thing - that MTB is one heck of a build, very nice! Second, nice work on the commuter - I'd slap some fenders on it, but other than that it will be perfect for your new, short commute!
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