New Steed in the Quiver

Last year out of a general distaste for my Gary fisher Hi-Fi I sold it. The ride quality was great. It got me through 2 Leadville 100's, 2 Cheq 100's, even a Ragnarok. The problem was, it was impossible for me to keep the drive train tuned up for more than a weeks work of riding. It seemed like I just kept throwing money at it to make it function properly. I grew to loathe the bike and would pull it off the rack in the garage wondering what was going to go wrong on that particular ride. Then right before the Cheq 100 my XO derailleur decided to just break off as I was "just riding along" (for real though). I put an X9 on and it worked fine. A couple weeks later at the Cheq it refused to switch gears up front and I had had enough. Off to the MORC forums to be sold. It went pretty quickly and I got the price I was after so that was that. I was sad to see it go, as I mentioned, there are some really good memories, but c'est la vie.

Better Times

In the back of my mind I knew that I would get something again before the next MTB season so that was exciting. I started thinking more and more about what I really want in a bike. What do I like to do, what don't I like to do? I looked at all sorts of bikes online to just see what I thought looked good to the eye. The other thing that I knew was I was going to buy a bike that was ready to go. I spent a fair amount of part upgrades on the last bike, so I wanted to get all of that out of the way from the get go and save some money in the process. I wanted a bike that I could say to myself, barring any of this shit breaking, any upgrade would only be for a frivolous weight savings. I also wanted something that I could see myself riding for several years, not something that just sticks around for a couple years before I decided I need something "better."

So I figured it all out and put in an order for a 2013 model. It will ship mid-April. It's a Ti 2x10 and I'm hoping it will weigh less than 21 lbs.

(Some parts may be different on the 2013 model)

I'm hoping to do a fair amount more racing than I have the past few years, so I should get plenty on ride time on it and the SS might have to take a back seat this year.

Until then, it just putting in road/gravel base miles...