The Rig (or what is taking me to Dallas)

THE RIG

Some have wondered why anyone in their right mind who is riding on relatively flat roads would choose to ride a mountain bike instead of a road/racing bike.

Several reasons.

1. Road bikes and their thin tires acquire holes, which means flats. I loathe flat tires.
2. Road bikes do not have disc brakes, which I now swear by for stopping in poor weather conditions.
3. Road bikes typically have drop-bars, like the Tour De France bikes (those are top of the line road bikes), which I am not comfortable riding with.
4. They do not make knobby enough tires for road bikes.

So, what I have done is taken the best of both worlds and combined them. What I have now is called Frankenbike.

• Replaced suspension forks with Surly 1x1 rigid forks. This ensures that energy from leg to pedal to road is maximized.
• Installed 2.0" knobby tires with a center bead to maximize road contact and minimize vibration (which is nil). Between the tire and the tube is a layer of puncture-resistant tape, made by Slime.
• She is a 2003 Giant Rainier which came with the best mechanical disc brakes available at the time (and still pretty cool), made by Avid. Discs are good for stopping in rain and mud.
• Swapped out the stock 170 mm cranks and 42-32-22 chainrings for beefier 48-38-28 (measuerd in teeth), 175 mm cranks. More gears. Faster. Funner :-)
• Replaced the standard mountain bar, which has a dip in the middle, rising at the ends, with an integrated straight bar/bar end setup. I then wrapped the bar twice with foam tape as long rides tend to make hands tired.
• To the new handlebar, an aero bar was added. These are the bars that protrude forward, providing an extra position for the hands or to maximize aerodynamic...ness in speed situations. Like triatheletes use.
• Finish it off with reflective tape (by Identi-Tape) every three inches around the rims, and this beast can go anywhere.

Sure, she weighs in at 30+ pounds compared to a decent road bike at 16-18 pounds, but the stability and go-anywheredness are preferred to the speed of a road bike.

And that's all she wrote.