What Eric is looking at: Bike #1

You all probably remember the story I posted about a few weeks back. Bad things: fire + bike storage = melted bicycles.

We've been working here to get Eric back up and running. This is his first rig to come through. A Rawland Olaf SS. This is a pretty unique bike. Its designed around 650b wheels, a standard brought upon us mountain bikers by Kirk Pacenti. Its been around the road scene for a while now, initially with the french as touring bikes in the 50's and 60's, but more recently from Rivendell.

Anyways. This bike is unique. If these wheels look big, it because they are. That's a WTB 2.55" tire on the front. About as big as they come. And it fits this bike. Barely. By like 3mm barely. Awesome. I know it doesn't look like it from the angle of this shot, but that wheel DOES go 'round! We were also playing with bars, seeing what looked like what. Drops, yeah. Low risers, yeah. H-bars? nah. Don't really look right on this bike.

From TPP

The rest of the parts for Eric's bike have been ordered. He was originally going to set it up modestly bling...but shiney parts got the better of him, and it'll be fully kitted out with White Industries(yes, I am a dealer now. If you want some swanky WI stuff, let me know!) and Thomson. This'll be a looker when all is said and done.

From TPP

Hopefully, by the end of the week, we'll have a runner here.

I've got another one here to go on about too. Wayne is a regular customer, and general all around good guy. One of the types that you're happy to have around riding with you. Besides being an enthusiastic bike rider, he's also a fervent hunter. He wanted to combine the passions, and came up with this:

From TPP

Bow mount for the Pugsley. He's really enthusiastic about getting to his hunting spots with this bike. What was a 20-30 minute walk now takes him 5 minutes.

From TPP

From TPP

Sand, snow, thick leaves, farm fields, trail, road, mud. This bike simply floats over all of that in pursuit of game. I love the concept Waynes got here, and will be purchasing a Pugsley for the store and set it up in the window to catch the wandering eye's of local hunters looking for a better way to get out there. A quick google search shows that there just may be something to this. Hmmmm. What about fishing? Ohh. There just may be something to this.

Speaking of H-bars, Jeff Jones created these Ti wonders a few years back. Its taken a while, but they're really catching on now. They're firmly entrenched in the alt bar wars.

From C1X

Titec came out with a licensed aluminum version a couple years back to ease entry into the alt bar world. While that low entry price worked, the bar was admitedly....ugly.

Fast forward to this years interbike show, and Titec done made us all proud and introduced a 'straight' version!

Clamp diameter is 31.8, but the rest is all standard 22.2 fair for mountain bike parts. Nice to see this out there. I have one in the store now for $90, and can easily get more. Stop down and check it out, eh?

Listening to: Tom Waits; Franks Early Years Vol. 1