introducing the mc

Cruddy pictures, but here it is.  The matt chester custom flared dropbar mixed surface fixed gear adventure bike.  Or the mcti.  All 22 pounds of her.  Been riding this a lot - commutes and morning rides around 25-30 miles in length.  Freakin' awesome.  By far my most fun, comfortable bike.  Well worth the wait.

Here are some highlights.

On-One Midges, definitely the bars for this bike.  I tried the Woodchippers, didn't like.  Still need to add some padding to the drops to make a little more comfy, but I think I have them dialed in pretty close to the position they need to be in.  The brake lever is the Cane Creek SCR-5C lever on the right and an Ergo Stoker on the left.  They are set up low on the bars for the right to be at a comfortable reach to brake, and the left for symmetry.  They also aid as another hand position on out of the saddle climbing.

 Steering duties are spun on a Chris King NoThreadSet, black with mango.  The purplish colored spacers are supposed to be black, but when they came in, I snagged them up.

Butt is taken care of by a Henge Comp saddle from Specialized.  Nice and supportive, keeps the nethers happy, especially because I don't wear cycling chamois.  Tool roll coming off in a few days when my new fixit carrying pouch comes in.

Custom built Hunter Cycles fork for the holding of the front wheel and brake.  Fork is built to be the same as a Salsa Cycles Casserole fork.  This allows me in an emergency use one of the Salsa forks, I have one in the road brake style and in the cantilever brake style.  Brake is a Paul Component Racer Medium.  It stops very well.

Front triangle with frame pump and water bottle cages.  The cages will probably be switched out when the new tool pouch comes.

Spinning the pedals and the chain, Sugino RD2 crank, 170mm with a 39t Surly ring and a BBG bashguard.  Chain is a Wipperman 8 speed model.  Always run 3/32" chains on my fixies, the last a good amount of time, are relatively cheap, and the masterlinks are easy to come by.

       
Rear track end with fender mount.  Phil Wood Track hubs laced 3 cross to DT Swiss RR465 rims.  Heavy, but durable, that is what I was looking for.
                                                                      

That's a fast overview of the bike.  More to come, maybe tomorrow or the next day with some more details and a longer ride report,

mc pic

Picture of the mc as of right now.  Have about 100 miles on it at the moment, rides nice.  Still trying to dial in the front of the bike, but I think I'm pretty close.  It does need a new saddle, have one on order, I'll update the whole package when it is on the bike.

More to come......

mc update

 So, I finally am getting my matt chester frame!  Super excited.  Here are some posts of the parts that are going on the bike:

Posts 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9

And a little bit of backround:

pt 1   2

Pictures of the frame can be found on matt's website - his will probably be nicer than mine will be, and all artistic in black & white. 

Pics of the frame when it gets here and of the build!

more mc parts

So, the other day, I showed pictures of my new crank, and mentioned that I had gotten some other parts.  Here they are.

Really freakin' exciting, a box of  cotton bar tape. I've always liked how it felt under my hands, going to try to pad them a little more, and probably shellac them Rivendell style.  I like the way white bar tape looks next to a titanium frame, kind of like on a Moots.

 Tools got a new Burrito Wrap.  A nice minty green color.

 
An orange Salsa Lip Lock seatpost collar.  Matches the top bearing cover of my Chris King headset.  

And lastly for this post, I have finally decided on the frame pump for the bike.  As you can see from this picture

there is a pump peg on the head tube.  I decided to go with a Topeak Road Master Blaster frame pump.  Durable, good looking, and best of all, it works.

That's it for right now, next installment of this thread will put into play a second handlebar, and a pair of backup forks.  And maybe some knobbies..... 

new parts for the mc

While I've been waiting for the matt chester to come, I've re-thought a few of the parts for the frame.  Biggest being the crank.  Originally, I was going to run this crank from Bontrager (Sram/TruVativ).  But I've decided to go a little more old school -

a Sugino RD2 road crank, obviously in black, 170mm in length.  Why?  Because I constantly was re-thinking my choice in an outboard bearing bottom bracket and crank system.  Don't get me wrong, outboard bearings are nice, they are easy to install, last a decently long time, and are stiff.  But a square taper bottom bracket lasts longer, been around forever, and here is the big thing - they come in more sizes so I can fine tune the chain line.  The mc is a roadish style bike, and the companies that make the cranks only have one spindle length.  If I made a mountain bike style bike (like the FixieMonsterCross), then a Shimano style outboard bearing would have worked because you can adjust some frame spacers to get perfect chainline (I still need to replace the crank on that bike).  Once I figure out the correct bottom bracket spindle length, I can get one of these - Phil Wood Stainless Steel bottom brackets, and I can then fine tune it even more.

The BBG bashguard and Surly 39t chainring haven't changed, but I did switch to an 18 and 19 tooth Surly fixed cogs instead of the Phil's I had been planning on using.

Other new parts?  I'll have some pictures up later this week, but in case you haven't been following my twitter feed, here is a cool picture:

Yep, that's my frame, hopefully getting here in a day or two - more pictures to come....