Mission accomplished - Back up bike completed

Well, between kid activities and a few chores, I managed to get my back up bike finished. All I need to do now is polish it. My back up bike is an original Salsa El Mariachi prototype. This bike is unique in many ways.

The first thing folks notice when I ride this bike is the dual crown plate fork with curvy fork blades.



It also has some old school Salsa down tube decals and cantilever bosses.



I built this bike with a mix of old and a few appropriate "new" parts. I'll call out a few notable parts; M950 8 speed XTR, Avid Ulitmate brakes, Hope headset, Salsa ProMoto Carbon bar, CroMoto stem, Shaft post, & DT 340 hubs with Salsa Delgado X rims. I topped the whole build off with some NOS WTB Nanoraptors. The only part I didn't have that will change from the following photo is I have a gold Salsa Flip Lock seat collar at work. I just forgot to bring it home.



This bike has been built in so many ways. This bike has seen single, fixed, 1x9, rigid, & front suspension. It was even built as a back up bike for Arrowhead. It didn't get used because my buddy chose his Pugsly because of fresh snow.

In the end, I think it is one sweet bike. Just right for just about any trail or gravel road I'll ever ride here in the Midwest. It's so nice to have this bike up and running again.

Going to the woods

Folks, I'm checking out for the week. I'm headed up to the north woods to ride and camp for a few days. I'll be riding this, Salsa's new Big Mama. It's my all day trail bike.



I plan to have time to ride, camp, eat, have fun and of course, stop and take pictures. Hopefully, I'll still manage to get a Friday Photo up.

Have a great week. I need dirt.

You must mean this....

Got my new long legged toy mounted to V2 last Thursday evening. I couldn't wait to test it at Lebanon Hills, my neighborhood single track. This 3 day weekend also brought the T-R-E-K demo event to Lebanon Hills, so I had to be careful as I didn't want to share the trail with a bunch of other people. I also didn't want to explain this.



I did the cobweb ride this morning. The cobweb isn't a specific ride. The cobweb ride means you are the first person on any given trail on any given day. At least here in the Midwest, the first person on the trail that day cuts & clears all the cobwebs laboriously built by all those important spiders the previous night.

It is amazing that almost no one rides the trail or enjoys this amazing park at 5:00AM. I rode about 20 glorious miles of Minnesota's best singletrack. You know how many people I saw? One hiker. I also saw a few deer and an owl. The morning air and temps were incredible.

I cruised home by 8:00AM and made 2 rounds of coffee for my wife and I. Nice!