Yard Sale

A couple quick updates before I get back into the the 650b experiment (AKA: The Shit Sandwich).

Enduro™ stickers

In some ways a success, in planning, a fail.  All I really wanted was to have about ten of these for myself.  I bought fifty.  Current inventory is in the negative.  More people wanted them than I anticipated.  Due to the fact that someone's cash is sitting on my workbench and their happiness is in limbo, I ordered 100 more.  Want one (some, many, all)?  Email me for deets: teamdicky at hotmail dot com

Yes, hotmail.... just like your grandparents use.

Clothing.  You need it to leave the house. The Spoke Easy will be celebrating its second year in existence with a party/alleycat on November 13th.

Anyways, back to the clothing thing.  The Spoke Easy will be THE place to get all celebratory at the 2014 NAHBS in March.  What better way to show your support than showing up in a real live Spoke Easy kit?

The party will be mega. You can be too.  You have until Oct 31 to get your order in.

Now, the Shit Sandwich update.

Yesterday morning, I woke up and finished it.  At first, I was horrified.  After spending the day being all bike messengery on it, I am slightly less horrified.
The good? It all worked out... essentially.  Some things are not that pretty.

The maximum number of spacers allowable on a custom bike of mine own?  No more than 5mm, must be color coordinated and matching in diameter with the stem... but this is the Shit Sandwich, so whatever was available to get me where I needed to be.

Clearance Clarence? We haz that.

Ewww.  You think I'd be used to this look since my first rigid single speed was a 26" wheel/29'er rigid fork combo.

I'm really used to looking at this though:

That's a 2.35 Ikon mounted up for this weekend's Wilkes 100k.  Proper.  Order brought to the world.

More clearance?

Silliness.  Even La Ruta mud couldn't clog up this rear end.  My chainstay length of 422mm that I was bragging about Tuesday did not last.  I realized that the lazy option (running the same cog I had on there with a 29" wheel thus keeping me from having to retension the chain) was wrong.  A bigger gear was in order.  An 18T put in place of the 20T.  Remove two links, put in a half-link?  No.  This is still a problem:

The 142X12 slider bottoms out on the frame.  Meh.  I do have an option.  Cannibalize the 135mm dropouts from the Dickstickel Meatplow V.6 and the Torch wheel endcaps from the Misfit diSSent Brontoawesomeous Meatplow V.5.  This option violates the third parameter of the Shit Sandwich Experiment:

*The building of the test rig should require a minimal amount of tear down/cannibalization of my other bikes for parts

It will have to be done at some point, but being that I need the Misfit in workable order this Saturday, it will have to wait.

One thing became apparent as I pushed through this mess yesterday.  I stuck the 140mm Fjox fjork on the Stickel so everything would hang up nice on the wall.

Sorry for the blurry pic.  That's how I was seeing things yesterday morning anyways.

I had thought about sticking a massive fjork on the Stickel back in late 2012.  To fulfill my big bike desires, I decided to get the Stumpjumper, hated it, and then got the Meat Carver.  Now I know, this is going to happen.  It would be happening already if not for this:

I like danger, but this is too much for me.  Yes, I wished I woulda taken this option into consideration when I built up the Stumpjumper.  Stupid.

What does all this mean?

No matter what the outcome of the Shit Sandwich Experiment, there will be some shifting going on.

Up for grabs (sale) will be a 2012 100mm Fox Terralogic, a 2013 140mm Fox Float, a Carver 420 frame, and possibly my geared set of Industry Nine Torch Trails.

The Stickel will get a 140/110 Talas and pull double duty as a Pisgah stomper and lazy Charlotte bike... as soon as I can get my hands on said fjork... and as soon as I'm done with this wheel size tinkering.

I love the off-"season."