new year

well, it's finally 2009. I'm looking forward to getting back to the shop more and out on the bike more.

I'm pretty excited to have found a new Maverick DUC 32 for my soon-to-be-built 29'er off-road tandem. I sold off my old off-road tandem last year and I've had the tubing sitting around the shop for 3 years waiting to be built into a new tandem.

I'm going lighter weight this time for sure, the last one was kind of a tank. While it took all the abuse I could throw at it, I don't think I need something that hefty anymore. So this one will be a hard tail 29'er with the above mentioned Maverick fork. I'm going to try the Avid cable discs on it this time, but I've still got the hope enduro's from the old bike for back-up if I don't think the cable brakes are as strong as I like on tandem (I suspect they'll be fine though, espcially with 203mm rotors). 36 hole King hubs with Dt rims will be lighter than my old 40 hole king-DeepV wheelset. I'm pretty convinced I don't need wheels quite that strong anymore.
I've still got my Ritchey tandem cranks that I think I'll use on the new bike, it's just hard to improve on those. I've been debating doing a belt drive for the timing chain, but that would require new cranks, so I suspect that will wait. Or if I got that route, I might go all the way, belt for timing and main drive and do a Rohloff hub. Although the roholff kind of defeats any weight savings from the belt drives...

The frame will be all fillet brazed, which is a departure from my usual lugs. But almost all the tubing is shaped, so lugs would be pretty difficult, and I'm just too lazy to make them all up for this kind of bike right now.

I've still got some stuff for sale, but I did pretty good at cleaning things out. The remaining items have been going on ebay over the last few weeks. I still need to get rid of those Reynolds wheels though if anyone is interested. Make me an offer!

In other musings, I have an extra spot belt drive set-up for a bike for me down in the shop and I'm just torn on what to put it on. I was thinking about my singlespeed 29'er, but what I really want is a 953 singlespeed with couplers and the belt drive. Just don't have the time to build it... That would make a pretty slick travel bike though, no chain to mess with during packing, really light. I might need one.

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