Spacered Out

I got my Race Face Next SL crank... the last roadblock keeping me from having a complete bike.

I mounted the crank in the place where a crank fit best, but not without one final bit of consternation.  My Enduro™ bottom bracket instructions for installation were to use the instructions that came with my cranks... which made no mention of the bottom bracket whatsoever.  Initially, I just did the typical thing for a 73mm shell with an X-type BB: 1 X 2.5mm spacer on the drive side, none on the non-drive side.

This will not do.

It needed to measure 98.1mm's (+/- 1.0mm) in width whence installed.  The only thing I had to measure it with was the tiny ruler I kept from my collegiate biology dissecting kit.  Eyeballing it, the whole thing was off by some amount.  Add another spacer.  Which side?  Who knows?  I went with the non-drive side, installed the cranks... still off by something close to another spacer.

Add one more.

And done.  Just like the (not) instructions said.  BTW: Notice that clearance.

And here as well.  Perhaps a 29+ tire, such as the Maxxis Chronicle would squeeze in there if I move the sliders back?  We shall see.

Weight.  Of course I weighed it as soon as the build was complete, and I managed to do it without hooking my skull on the scale's hook.  It was over 19lbs.  Strange.  Then I remembered to remove the Awesome Strap, tube, tire lever, and two CO2s.

That's nice.  I feel confident about the parts and feel they are up to doing bad things. 

I have an affinity for bad things.

Metal bikes.  I like them.  I like this one a lot.

It was made by a person...

with a sense of humor.  Not that it's an important trait to have as a frame builder.  I've met plenty of them with loads of talent and the personality of a sheet of drywall.  A sense of humor is a nice check mark in the plus column, as dealing with me over the course of months and months of emails, texts, and phone calls takes the patience of a monk and a personality worthy of winning a Miss Congeniality sash.

I have only tested it in the driveway.  Feels like a bike.  Can't say much more than that.  The fit and geometry are pretty close to my other bikes for the most part.

This will be the second or third (or fourth) time I've built a bike right before the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek.  This is the first time I couldn't snap a few pictures of the new bike in front of the azalea bushes.  Funny thing is, I didn't know the pretty pink and white flowers were that of an azalea bush until a plumber said, "The roots from all those azalea bushes in the front yard have grown into your main line going out to the street.  That's why there was raw sewage in your bathtub."

Azalea bushes.  So pretty.

Assholes.

I'm thinking this will be the last bike for awhile for multiple reasons.  A compilation of all my brain stuffs and happy energy, assembled neatly by Sean at Vertigo Cycles.

Rigid for this weekend's race.  Maybe another weekend as is and then install the Thomson Drooper.  Ride it that way for a week, see what a drooper feels like on a rigid bike, and then make it squishy for PMBAR and the Pisgah 111k/55.5k weekend.

Then take all that silliness off for Trans-Sylvania Epic.

So glad I'm done working on bikes for awhile.