Lazy Crazy Little Man

Not much talk about the DNC from me. It is affecting my day. I'm not doing a whole lotta deliveries, but when I do, it's right through the hot mess to the other end of town. Shit is being sucked. Pleasant officers and unpleasant officers. Streets closing unexpectedly for protests. Vermin Supreme got in my way yesterday. He succeeded in slowing down "The Man" and his corporate agenda.

Not much talk about the Scott Genius since it came home to me in a box. Shimano honch Matt Robertson arranged to have the front wheel upgraded to a 15mm axle and the Fox fjork lowers to match. Then my newly rebuilt for speed fjork was lost somewhere in shipping (Greensboro UPS hub), so the folks at Fox scrambled the jets once we figured that out.

Say what? I just want one big part. What's up with this?

Well, the good news is that the replacement fjork is a 2013 Fox 32 Talas 150 CTD FIT. The bad news? Some assembly required.

The Genius has a dual lockout (three way rear, two way front). The new fork came with parts to swap it over to a remote CTD. Small parts, strange parts, no manual.

So began the Mechanical Comprehension portion of an ASVAB test in the real.

First I realized that although I wanted to use the old lockout switch (since it was already mounted and attached to the rear shock), I had to swap to the new. The old one only had two front settings for lockout/full-on, so the CTD compatible switch had to be installed. Remove strange plate on rear shock, figure out the routing, cut bad end off cable, shorten housing to adapt to shorter cable, reroute housing to other side of the bars, remove old lockout, install new... all that to just start with a bike that was as functional as it was when I started.

I needz more cablez.

I finally figured out that the miniature sink trap holds the piece of cigar tube in place with two screws from a watch.

That was after removing the original parts that had a tiny ball bearing that I dropped twice and spent no less than twenty minutes looking for... a part I no longer need, but couldn't stand losing... not to mention the time spent trying to figure out how to remove an interfering metal nubbin only to discover that it just lifted out.

That was as far as I got the first night. Four beers.

Last night it was this that confounded me.

The lockout knobless knob had to be inserted while preloading the spring in the right direction while inserting the knobless knob at the right moment to engage some gnarly gnarbs.

Done. Two beers.

Matt was also kind enough to update the Genius with an XT Shadow PLUS derailleur.

Sweetness. I can't wait to try that out. One of my biggest issues with gears is all the banging, clanking, and tossing.

Yes, another squishy-shifty bike. Yes, the last one didn't work out so well. It wasn't the bike, it was me. Great bike, angry little man with issues. I'll get some play time on this bike pretty soon, once the 2012 1.25 Months of Madness is over. I'm sure I'll enjoy carelessly lofting this bike about in the mountains for awhile before I get sick of all the extra parts, knobs, and levers... before I revert to my Luddite ways once more.

But I do like to get lazy in the off-season.