Signs of the Apocalypse

So yes, I bought a fjork to put specifically on the Misfit diSSent Brontoawesomeous Meatplow V.5. Not a hand-me-down from the Superbeast, but a bona fide intently purchased piece of cycling hardware replete with moving parts.

Why?

I was marketed. That's all I can say. The right email hit my inbox at a moment of weakness, visions of squishing down mountains in Breckenridge filled my mind, and the phone was dialed. Baller George did not try to talk me out of it, as if to say, "Go ahead, jump off the ledge. It might be a fun ride on the way down."

He is not invited to any future interventions.

I wanted white.

There was no white to be had.

I could not see what the black fork would look like after much searching on the web. I knew it would be mostly black, but what color would the accents be?

Please, dear Lord, anything but red.

Proof that God is holding a grudge against me for something I did at the Breck Epic Awards last year (God, it was Thom who sat on that guy's pretty framed photo, not me).

At least I was able to get the 15mm option, which was key.

My Industry Nine wheels are compatible with the addition of these goofy chunk of aluminum.

I had to bug Cane Creek for a new 1.5 lower headset race. They also included a new pair of Cane Creek socks, size large. Size large? They have met me, so I must assume they guessed at the size of my feet based on the ORAMM podium photo.

Mounting up the fork, I realized that with the added A-C height, I would have to invert my stem. This is known as "slamming."

I would like to think I did a decent job with my "slam", but then I saw this image of pro rider Emily Batty's bike:

She's so "slammed" that she pitched the bearing cover of her Cane Creek headset in the trash (no doubt retrieved by a rabid young member of the Batty for Batty Fan Club). No matter how good you think you are, there's always someone out there doing it better.

So anyways, I rode the bike, albeit locally at Lake Norman State Park and Fisher Farm. Not exactly prime testing grounds for Breck Epic, but I had errands to run to the north of Charlotte. The fjork was squished and squashed all aboot.

Luckily, being a weekday, no one was out on the trails to see me riding a bike with horrid cable routing.

I went home, took a Crying Game shower, and ate a meal worthy of a man who has no female supervision for five days.

And then I boxed up my bike and shipped it to Breckenridge, CO... COD.

Care of the Devil