Spring Green

 DO NOT BUY LYNSKEY. My frame was an absolute noodle with rear end tire rub, squeaking, popping, dropped chains and general no-funnery. I spent a year bickering with several representatives at Lynskey (including the arrogant David Lynskey) only to be told that I needed to tighten my seat post clamp, lubricate my slider every 3 rides (what?!), etc. Ultimately the frame broke both in the sliders (hairline crack) and failed massively at the headtube-downtube junction. The original fix was going to be a replaced downtube but after lots of argument they finally sent a replacement frame. I sold the replacement frame without assembling it on Craigslist. I received an email soon after posting the frame for sale telling me that they were shocked that I was selling it without riding it and if they had known I was just going to sell it they wouldn't have offered a replacement frame. These guys are the friendliest people you'll ever meet when you're buying a new frame but it turns bad fast when things aren't going well. For those of you around bikes awhile this sounds a lot like the BS surrounding Litespeed under Lynskey's watch prior to the brand being sold off. Do youself a favor and give your hard earned money to people that actually ride and know how to design and support bikes. As always, you may have a wonderful experience unlike me but why take the chance?

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First things first: Happy Easter!

Spring brings green, new beginnings and most importantly the warm weather I'm built for. I got a ride in yesterday and enjoyed much drier trails than we've had for the past few months. Unfortunately, the pollen is really bad this year. It kicked off a fun little asthma attack that I occasionally suffer from when I'm working hard. Here's a shot of the pollen on our front walk:






I'm in the process of building up some SWEET new 29er wheels for the Lynskey. They'll be green king hubs (SS of course) laced to Stan's 355 rims. Dave of Dave's Speeddream Wheels is doing all kinds of spoke voodoo that I didn't completely understand even though I've been geeking on bikes for nearly 30 years now. This winter has been tough on me with flats so I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to being free of tubes and pinch flats. I went with green for a few reasons - you don't see too many green bikes and when I was having beers with Martha Stewart she pointed out that it ties in with the Lynskey shamrock theme. As a side note, don't play drinking games with Martha. She developed quite a tolerance drinking homemade prison vodka.

While I'm waiting on Dave to build up the wheels I probably went a little overboard:



I also have a slick new cog that I picked up from RD at Shawnee recently. Its an ISAR Ti/Al two piece cog with the aluminum coated in green ceramic and a clear coat over the Ti gear ring. In case you weren't aware, its really bad karma to cover up Ti goodness with colors. Seriously bad. Don't do it.



Here's the 18t stainless King cog I'm replacing:



With some 19t sexy:



My frame bags from Epic Designs also came in late last week. They fit perfectly and Eric's workmanship is second to none. I'll document some trips in the next couple of weeks and let you know how the whole system works out.