Third hand American wonders

Rock Lobster?

i know this was easy so we need the model name too

Rock Tour? I can't be bothered downloading the Secan PDF to compare.

aren’t modern rock lobsters all custom aka expensive? very nice ofc

and we have a winner! gratz mayne

(was too excited to clock the nds fail)

Nice!

Welcome to The Gunnar Club

thanks boss!

the procurement process has taken months, but as we know it's nicer to follow a thread with regular updates. isn't the zeitgeist all about short attention span and instant gratification? this is why i try to publicize things when there's hope for somewhat reasonable completion time.

besides the salsa firestarter steel fork, the braking and the wheelset are covered. well, i still need to swallow the price of son 28 and click the button on sjs. shifting and headset will be butchered from the stumpjumper. i even took the supernova dyno lights off the holiday bike and brought them home during the festive period. have various stems and bars but they may not work for this. pretty much everything else, especially the cranks are still out in the open.

like a good noob i went to bikepacking.com and figured the best of both worlds juin techs could work for me. maybe someone else said good things about them too. the anxiety of not being able to fully service the bike myself on trail is already there and the risk of a wild hydro maintenance appearing didn't feel too tempting. babby's first disc brake bike, not at all embarrassed and reluctant to start any kind of brake wars. if they stop like paul motolites it's fine. anything more is a plus.

the wheels i'm obviously more enthusiastic about. silver rims are scarce in the divide rig category. as this is the boring pdf bike without compromises or quirks, i wanted to get the internal width as close to ideal as possible for setting the lael pro model tyres (fleecer ridges) tubeless. velocity blunt ss seemed to be the only light and wide enough silver option. it might sound short-shighted to put xc rims on a touring bike, but when the rider weight is 65kg and hole count 32, it starts to make more sense. don't think i'll reach the 80kg weight limit even with a full weekender load. the polished versions are currently on their way to the uk courtesy of woods cyclery. they'll be laced to a chris king iso rear and a son 28 front. not sure about which spokes to go with yet, likely the stronger kind.

i spied from the other thread that it might be feasible to futureproof the wheels by using the thru axle version of the son and putting a TA to QR adapter for the firestarter. not quite sure would i be more likely to encounter a used straight steerer carbon fork in 12mm or 15mm? leaning to the 12mm currently as my clearance preference is more wide gravel than mtb and sjs has son's own adapter in stock.

the microshift thumbie paired to 11-speed xt rd and cassette have been faultless on the stumpjumper and i'm reluctant to change this workhorse setup. an all silver garbaruk cassette may come into question whenever available second hand to save weight.

a hollow axle and strictly silver arms was a starting point for the crankset. @Maj specifically opined against the meme cranks and recommended a shimano alternative. i just think the shimano grey isn't quite vivid enough for this kind of a neo-retro build. when researching the q factor, i found a serious contender to the meme cranks from middleburn r02. similarly to the meme cranks (a30) these can be set up with their mountain axle. according to a very responsive middleburn rep the q factor comes up as 162mm, which is actually a tad better than the a30's 163.5mm. it's just the only way to make the middleburns all silver is through a spider, which i don't find particularly beautiful. this particular spider that is, not the idea of using a spider.

eventually this got so frustrating that i even emailed engin cycles regarding their obscenely expensive port royal ti crankset. luckily i've yet to hear back. if anyone has ideas on silver cranks with a hollow axle that work with a 73mm bb, please get involved before i order the memes and ruin the build.

velocity blunt ss seemed to be the only light and wide enough silver option. it might sound short-shighted to put xc rims on a touring bike

I have been using these for years and am now over 80kg. Fairly certain Rich and Shona used them on their tandem for highland trail + silk road, again without issue. I do have a couple of friends who's managed to crack the spoke holes on the rear, but they are carrying a fair bit more weight, both on and off the bike.

if anyone has ideas on silver cranks with a hollow axle that work with a 73mm bb, please get involved before i order the memes and ruin the build.

There was a fairly silver version of XT cranks, M785 maybe? Hope do all silver, Riv do external silver cranks now too. Boone provide another boutique option. That said, Hope, WI and other boutique offerings might not fit your back country-serviceable requirements.

Ingrid Components?

Or Appleman

I will probably be burned for this, but I've been looking at getting an AliExpress Ingrid copy. It's pretty. Lemme get the link

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/16853808/

There's also Leonardi racing cranks. They do a whole range of mix and match.

Y no eewings?;)

Go get em my G.

Very very cool frame. Jealous.

thanks for the rim-insight, very reassuring.

i was looking at hope, but somehow the looks didn't entirely tickle my fancy. i guess it's the same modern design language the ingrids and the applemans posted above have. the boones however would be perfect but why oh why the twist. maybe i'd get used to it? other than the twist they're channeling a nice american muscle from the bygone days energy.

if i was to spend more than £300, they'd definitely be the port royals though. the perfect balance of old and new, utility and beauty. maybe i'll try to email them again. i'd just like to ride the bike a bit before brother in the wild, which i managed to get a waiting list ticket for.

i'm not a dentist unfortunately and this is already an extreme excursion in reckless spending for pointless materia for me. i'd also rather support an independent company. they're obviously nice though (the eewings).

not blaming you for wanting the bootleg ingrids. let me know how they hold up if you get them.

I can see what you mean about the aesthetics.
The port royals are very nice looking. Reminds me of shimano square taper mtb cranksets

Fair! FWIW I think the Middleburns look slightly better with 94bcd spider than 110, although chainring options aren't as straightforward. I have been trying to solve a similar dilemma to use a set in parts box, but also build a not too ugly bike

No need really. But yeah, tempting.

I mean axle standards also a consideration. The frame takes regular bsc?

there shouldn't be anything non-standard about the 73mm shell. per my digging both the middleburn's hollowtech style axle and the 30mm axle used by white industries and engin work without hassle. i was planning to use an appropriate chris king kit to put their bb in.

So it's normal bsc threaded. Yes, either 24mm and 30mm axle work.
Seeing the king talk, I'll retract my AliExpress proposition..;)