Quote:
Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951
If I ever lose shifting on a ride again, I will emphatically state "Don't make me get all Henri Desgrange on yo' arse!!! " "You won't like me when I'm Henri Desgrange!"
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LMAO
Inspired by Henri, I'm leaving the gravelmonster a single-speed for now (although I'm not tough enough for fixed gear gravel work!). I salvaged a 17T cog off of an old cassette and replaced the 18T - made a world of difference actually. Got the drops installed and a new carbon saddle and seatpost. Set it up as close to my road bikes as possible and it is exactly what I hoped this bike would be.
This is a gravelmonster on a budget. Looked for 2 months for a donor frame of some sort to build this without luck. Definitely needed at least 2.25 tires for the roads here - 40-50mm 700C gravel tires would be useless in the soft areas - so that narrowed it down to a MTB frame. Decided to give BikesDirect a look and found the Gravity single-speed 29er here for
$329 and it was on my doorstep in 3 days
Frame and component-wise, it is identical or better than the name brand entry-level stuff that are +3X the cost. 6061 aluminum frame is stout with beautiful welds, tapered headtube and heavy duty gusseted rear dropouts (probably comes out of the same Chinese factory as Trek and Specialized). Powdercoated in matte titanium. Non-brifter brake levers were tough to find. Needed long-throw levers for the mechanical discs. Got the Tektro 520s that are made for the Tektro discs. Would have cost far more to convert a used bike.
