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@launchpadboi
i've now ordered the last part to make the bike finally rideable, namely the 73/113 un55. if royal snail doesn't let me down it should get installed within the next couple of days, i hope. it'll still be far from finished, but should allow me to start speccing the cockpit and feeling the brakes.
at this point i'd like to propose huge shoutouts to @Qebrus for basically building almost the whole thing. he's done it with a wide smile on his face at least 95% of the time, a living proof that adjusting shit cantis is fun. he really deserves all the free parts that @Maj is throwing at him.
one of the two big question marks with the build, the braking, has been kind of sorted for now. the faithful cr720s, when teamed up with kool stop mountain pads at their furthest spacer setting, touch the braking surface just about the amount to not have evil minds laugh at me (too much). the feel almost does justice to the simworks outer and the polished paul lever. i already had my other eye on motolites but their time won't be quite yet it seems.
the second, still unresolved mystery is the low trail fork. most riders, even seasoned ones such as henry wildeberry, start gagging when examples of these are presented. why would one want to put
a low trail fork on a retro mtb? this very deleuzian idea started brewing in my mind after a certain shiny soma jawn was listed on the classifieds. axle-to-crown close match, tange infinity, mounts for bIkEpAcKiNg racks, no canti studs and most importantly enough steerer left unlike on those million retro mtb forks on my ebay alerts. the initial plan was to have winston bake one of these out of a pacenti mtb crown and suitable lightweight blades, but my personal recession didn't unfortunately inspire this. so surrendering to the haunting lost futures with the cannondale and going speedster felt like a brainworm. can't go wrong with adding a bit of jan heine vision to ron's formula?
while the pacenti brevets and switchback hills already supported this notion, it was time for the rolls to make way for a racier selle sprint in brown suede. it compliments the bronze tone of the simworks bubblies better anyway. there was also a passing moment when i dreamt of drilling the brake bridge for centrepulls, but the ceramics-infused m2 alu might not like this idea?
i never really cared too much about matching, just bought the colourways that were available cheaply. for some reason i decided to put a bit more effort into this build and finding myself from the impossibility of the deep end already. more on this later when i get to the stem and seatpost i guess.
no proper portraits yet as the bars need lowering, but here's some teasers. the early february spawning pike clocked the scales nicely. this figure without chain and pedals and with the triple still on.