Vague Idea Racing: Not the "New Bike Day" I wanted... Part 1

But probably the one I deserved.

I got the call Friday afternoon. MJ told me that my bike showed up at the shop.

"What do you want us to do with it?"

"Huh?"

"We can build it for you, but we're short handed today, so tomorrow morning at the earliest."

Meh.

Since I was actually buying a complete bike for the first time in a long time, I kinda liked the idea of letting someone else do all the work. That said, I had told myself that I would get to the mountains as soon as possible when my new bike showed up. I had already assumed it wouldn't be until next week, so I'd made very loose plans to ride single speed mountain bikes 26 miles to the cyclo rossing race in Huntersville on Saturday, spectate, ride back to Charlotte in time for the Spoke Easy 6th anniversary party, drink beer, limp home.

But now... bike.

The weather. Predicted to be below freezing in the morning up in the mountains. Ewww. I really didn't want my first ride to be a suffer fest either.

Shit. I decide that I'll grab the bike tonight and make the most of New Bike Day on Saturday.

Bust ass home after work, toss supper down my throat, get in the car, head towards Bike Source.

Get there, politely grab my giant box, a spare chain link, a rear brake adapter... go to check out. I can't take it anymore. I need to peak inside the box. I wanna see the green paint to verify its green drabbiness. I yank at the staples and pull back the top...

"Shit."

I'd only seen complete bikes that are 85% assembled before. This is more like 15%. I see the saddle, pull it out of the way along with the Fox 36, move some packing material... see an empty hole where a drooper should be.

"Shit."

I don't wanna be all in a rush building a bike up pretty much from scratch, doing things like watching YouTube videos on Reverb drooper installation and sticking protective decals on the frame. Not all this bike building stuff tryna get my bike ready to ride the next morning. It's not worth the stress. I decide to leave it for the next day.

"Shit."

I realize that they're gonna build it all up... with the stock brakes and rotors and then I'm going to pick it up and then I'm gonna have to swap the SRAM stoppers with the Shimano stuff I have at home.

"Shit."

I run back home, grab my XT brakes, rotors, ti rotor bolts, ti brake mounting bolts (I mean, if you have them already, why not?), TruckerCo Cream, and an old, ratted out side loading cage from my pre-King Cage days. I head back to the shop to drop off my parts and have a closing time beer.

Realizing that there's no reason to not do something, I decide to at least swap rotors and set up the tires tubeless while I drink my beer. The Dude helps me get the job done, and aside from the fact that the tires were dry mounted front/rear reversed (which caused me to set one up before realizing it was wrong), it all went pretty smoothly.