It was a marathon build weekend for my new cyclocross bike.  Friday I went in after work and mitered the front triangle and welded it.  Saturday I completed the back half, did all the finish machining, pulled all the parts off my Strong, and put them on the new frame. 

I spent all of Sunday riding the new bike, and boy is it nice.  I used a light tubeset so it’s pretty lively (nice word for flexy).  I find that a rigid bike with some flex is considerably more fun to ride on trails.  I can load the frame up into corners like a full suspension bike and it will spring out of the apex . It floats and contours to the terrain rather than bouncing off everything.  Plus the build is nice and light!  The bike begs to be thrown around and jumped even more on the descents.

I feel kind of bad about stripping the Strong down to a frame.  However, I’m not sending it out to pasture. just a brief time-out until I can buy some new parts.  It served duty as a race bike, dirt road tourer, and a road bike.  It was cool to take it apart in the same place the frame was built.  It is the 40th bike made in 2007.

A few teaser shots from the build on Friday and Saturday.

I did a special finish on this one.  I removed all of the heat effected coloring and clearcoated it to control the rusting.  I also think the ruff brushed finish looks pretty cool.