Rebirth of my True North 29er

Going back to a post from 14 April 2008, I wrote about my True North mountain bike, a steel 29er that Hugh put together for me, and the beginning of my custom bicycle experience. The bike took me through my first couple race seasons and certainly helped me to advance my riding. The rigid fork brought the same kind of fun to mountain biking that one gets riding a cyclocross bike on mtb trails, but there was still the forgiving cushion of a fat tire below. It certainly helped me hone my skills from nonexistent to capable, but for 2010 I thought I might try a suspension fork - it will supposedly make me faster. So I picked up a Fox F29, with the G2 offset spec'ed for Gary Fisher to regain some of the quick handling that will be lost with the resulting slacker angle on the bike since it was built around a non-suspension corrected fork.

Now I'm getting ahead of myself... sometime in summer '09 I was riding at the Hydrocut and feeling like I was unusually off with the amount of toe-overlap issues I was having on switchback climbs. Then on the ride home I noticed a strange tightness in the headset. Upon inspection when I got home, I noticed I'd bent the steertube of my steel fork. How, I don't know, but I guess it was one too many hard whoops taken without unweighting the front enough. Off I went to visit Hugh, and sure enough he said he could fix it. I borrowed a fork in the meantime, keeping me on the bike to finish my race season - excellent!

Toward the end of the '09 season, I noticed what might be a crack developing at one of the chainstay/BB welds. This too proved to be true, so with these two issues plus the increasingly worn paintjob, it was time for some work.

The folks at True North had the frame stripped, Hugh then repaired the fork and chainstay, and while he was at it I had him add provision for a front derailleur pulley like you might find on a cross bike. Then it was time for new paint. The result, this:

As you can see in the second and third photo, I'm running a double crank (Middleburn Duo RS-8) with a Dura-Ace 7800 front derailleur. The 2x9 gearing suits my needs perfectly, and the combination of this crank and derailleur is super light. The shifts with the D-A derailleur seem way quicker than when I had an XT on there, too.

I'm going to save the detailed parts listing for a later date. The bike is currently built with the rigid fork and studded tires for winter riding. Once I get the suspension fork setup and summer tires on, I'll make another post complete with weight weenie spreadsheet. To tide the WWs over for now, as pictured it's pretty much right on 25 lbs. Swap out for race wheels and it's 21.8, or 23.3 with the suspension fork.

I am super excited to ride this bike again. The Frostbike is just over a week away, which should be a great way to bring the race legs back to life briefly :)