All Truck, No Tire

It's here... sorta.

But why?

At some point in my life, bikes and almost everything bike-related took over most of the free space in my brain.  I want all the knowledge I can obtain about anything current in the world of cycling.  Am I ever going to have Red XPLR or GRX Di2 on a noodle bar bike?  Doubtful.  Am I ever going to actually follow a "training plan?"  You're kidding, right?  Will I buy another revolutionary geared full suspension bike, single speed it, fill my soul with regrets, and then sell it soon thereafter... again?

Mebbe.

I'm always wondering if there will be anything "new" in the world of single speeding.   When a fresh hard tail drops, I always look to see if it's single speedable in a logical manner (tensioners need not apply).  Way more often than not, the answer is no.  I feel like the only thing that was ever going to happen that might tighten my pants would be a crabon hard tail with a burrito hole... but that would probably have to come from one of the big three (or four?) manufacturers, and they seemed to have lost their interest in making one geared bike cycles.

So all hope would seem lost for that grumpy little single speeder with an eye for newer and better things... well, other than major components... which aren't many on a simple machine.  Then I saw the 32X2.4 Aspen shown at the Taipei Bike Show in March of last year, and I was very much like "OH HELL YEAH, BROTHER.

Long story short, mountains were moved much closer to Mohammad, and I am here now:

Not entirely true, but I took the photo with just a little more work ahead, so whatever.

Things timed out kinda crazy town, and the frame got here last Tuesday and on the same exact day that the rims got to Industry Nine.  A blessing and a curse.  The folks there that could nudge this forward quickly were out of the office until Jan 5th, so I wasn't going to be riding my big wheeled beast around for a little while longer.  That said, I was able to take my time building it, rather than feverishly working with coffee jittery hands at 5:00am because I couldn't sleep thinking there was a bike in the other room not being built.  

Session One, cranks and cockpit.  Serious baby steps, other than the fact that Race Face cranks always seem to need  some random spacers NOT mentioned in the manual to get them in a happy place.  Session Two, dropper post and bottle cages... which ended when I forgot that the my handy plastic CO2/plugger tool holder needed to be drilled out to fit over the seat tube water bottle studs... but not before I shot one of the 8mm nuts across the room to find it ten minutes later under the stove hanging out with about 2.5 dog's worth of hair.

Session Three.  Wake up, drill the mount, go to assemble... and I can't find my 8mm socket now.  Gawdammit.  I can't stand when my work bench becomes this:

So at some point, I needed digital calipers, reading glasses, a dental pick, a digital torque wrench, Knipex pliers, a giant zip tie, and every Allen wrench 2-8 mm at the ready.  I shoved everything to one side and then the other looking for my absent 8mm socket.  No dice... but then the 18mm Race Face crank puller bit which had been tossed aside caught my eye and...
 

I was able to snug it all up with an 8mm Allen bit on my tiny Topeak ratchet so... and obviously, I found my 8mm socket when I cleaned up after Session Three, which also included the fun task of chopping the steer tube and even more tools on the bench and mess making.

Session Four was getting a chain length figured out with a 29" wheel thrown in there, which has led me down the road of reconsidering my decision to default to a 30 tooth chain ring when I'm pretty sure adding two teeth up front and one in the rear will result in the shortest chain stay length... but with more hassle and other head scratching to do.*  I also got the brakes dry mounted with line shortening and bleeding to do at a later session because I can only reduce the length of so many things on any given day.

Session Five was the final thing I could do without wheels in hand, shortening the brake lines and bleeding.  For an anal compulsive person such as myself, knowing full well I would be witness to any failures being left too long or trimmed too short on every single bike ride, this event calls for mucho gravitas.  Of course, I failed... cut the front what I would call just a hair too short... the opposite of what can be fixed without throwing money at the problem.  It could go without saying, but once again, I flubbed a small part of the process and had mineral oil where it shouldn't be and ended up having to do a quick bleed that shouldn't have been necessary but was.

So now?

Patience and wheels and will it all be together in time for me to ride it before Winter Shart Tarck begins in two weeks?

Your guess is as good, if not better, than mine.

* I'm going to wait until I actually get air in a 32" tire and do more precise measurements to base my gear choices on instead of AI generated numbers which are just making a mess of deciphering actual roll out...

And now that's kinda not true because I wrote that all yesterday, and after doing some best guessing on numbers at work, I came home, messed about, and found that I can get the absolute shortest chain stay length with 32X19, a .5 worn chain, and a used King cog... so there's that, I guess.