The "25.4 is Dead to Me" Revolution

I think I might have misinformed you in Tuesday's post regarding last weekend's ride with the infamous Craig Barlow and the rest of the nobodies. So maybe there was one mechanical I failed to mention...

photo cred: Big Worm

My rear tire felt a little squishy, but Industry Nine's big idea man Eric White suggested we pour some of his Teddy Graham crumb's into the rear tire to help the Stan's fluid coagulate. Needless to say it worked like a charm, and I fully endorse this sort of behavior now.

Now onto today's topic.

It's not like I asked for it. The planned obsolescence of an industry, whatever you want to call it, forced my hand and pushed me down the path to a better future I didn't even know I wanted. When I found out that my 25.4 X 70mm Thomson stem didn't play well with the Niner crabon frok steerer tube I had to think fast since the Six Hours of Warrior Creek was just days away.

From the Niner Crabon Frok Book of Armaments:

Injury and death sounded like a poor option so the only other thing I could do was to steal the cockpit from the Death Stick. After the race was over I ignorantly postponed my search for a real long term solution, and with PMBAR around the corner I realized late last week that something must be done.

I wanted to keep running my MOOTSbars, but finding a 25.4 X 70mm stem these days is pretty rough. Sure there are some old skool downhill stems made from a 1/2lb of aluminum and held together with nine bolts, but I wanted something with an XC weight and definitely something less stupid looking. This was proving to be quite an uphill battle, and the forces of corporate evil were working against me. I knew that I could get a shim to get the MOOTSbars up to 31.8, but calling MOOTS and asking for a favor so I could build up my Niner? Poor form indeed.

So instead of taking my problem to George I went looking for OPS (other people's shit) on eBay. It wouldn't be fair to take advantage of George in this situation since I'm probabaly gonna hate the first three things I try and end up swapping parts a few times. Why drag him into my cycle of self hatred and extra expense? Also I discovered that when I put the MOOTSbars and Thomson stem on the Death Stick not only did I lose my moto look without the fat riser/stem combo I also lost brake lever clearance on the top tube. Meh, I needed a stem and bars to pull the full swap off.

So here's how things ended up after spending a minimal amount of money on eBay:

A close up for those of you with poor eyesight:

The bars on the Death Stick? The cheapest, whitest bars I could find on eBay fitting all four of my qualifications (cheap, white, 31.8, and with some rise). The stem on the Meatplow?

A Shimano PRO FRS AM/XC MTB stem that fit the same bill quite nicely (cheap, white, 31.8, and with some rise). A small amount of rise will allow me to run the stem upside down when I have the EBB in the low position or flip it when I run the EBB on the high side. Brilliant, I know.

For those of you in the know I am aware of this other rule from the Niner Crabon Frok Book of Armaments:

Those spacers are there just to get the sizing right until I receive my sexy Park Tool SG-6 from Bike29 hopefully today or tomorrow. Then I will proceed to get it right, get it tight.

Those of you with a keen eye might have noticed my handiwork that I accomplished over the course of my lazy past Sunday:

Sure, it's no custom h8'er headbadge, but you do what you can with what you got. You know it looks good.

Others of yinz might wonder just how I will mount my number plate since my old high tech number plate mount was only 25.4 compatible.

Well, I have to admit I was thinking ahead on that one. I've had this ready to go for a few months now.

Success. The 25.4 is Dead to Me Revolution is complete.

I win, 31.8 wins, and Thad loses.