Build underway

Made the trip to Team Bikeman.com World HQ on Saturday to pick up a very large box. It was very large, requiring a bit of finagling in the ManVan AKA The Toy Box. I had not expected such a large box, but big wheeled bikes of the dual squishy kind require a fair amount of cardboard to cover them up.


In addition to picking up a new bike for me we also stopped at NAPA to pick up some new colors for Emma's bike. She'd been bugging me to paint her bike for awhile so we made it a date to get it done this weekend. Let me say that it took me a lot more time than I had anticipated and it didn't come out quite the way I had hopped, but it Emma was happy with it so she's off and digging her new color scheme (which reminds me an awful lot of the Cannondale road bike that is now hanging as a bare frame in JJ's basement).

With all the painting and stuff going on in the garage I didn't really dive into the build of the Big Mama until last night. I have to say builds these days aren't as much "fun" as so much of the build is done at the factory. Instead it's rechecking their work and making sure things are torques and greased, so more of a un-build then build. The exciting part is cutting all the giant zip ties and pulling off all the packing foam to reveal the bike. She sure is purrrrty.

It is strange looking at all the squishy and shifty parts on a mountain bike again. It's been a couple of years since I've spent any quality time on a mountain bike with gears and suspension, I hope I like it!

What will be interesting is to see the rotation in the fleet, what do I put the most time on? Hmmm, hard tellin' not knowin'.

A possible shakedown cruz this afternoon, we'll keep you posted.
DEA