Another S.I.R.9

Lots of patience has paid off for the lucky owner of this bike. Niner is on fire right now, and they sold right through their last production run unbeleivably quickly. Now with frames in stock again, we hope to keeo sending these out the door with more regularity.
Typical turn around time for one of these would be about a week now, built up with the same attention to detail that all our bikes receive.
It seems that the weather has changed too, I even saw the sun for about 2 minutes today. A couple of dry days, and we should be in the woods again. The most unfortunate thing about all the rain, is that the black flies have all woken up, and they are hungry.

What could possibly save us? Why this. Proven to keep all the flying unfriendlies at bay, with all natural ingredients. Because it is all natural, you have to reapply it often, but you wont be all oily and slick with nasty chemicals.
It's available here

What to do in VT when it snows in May

Seriously. 6" above 2200ft. Absolutely ridiculous. The mountains were socked in as you might imagine, maybe I'll be able to get some better shots in the morning.
Well, fortunately I have a custom build to keep me busy. The Godzilla Green Niner S.I.R.9 that I prepped yesterday is almost complete. I built up the wheels this afternoon, a very "blingy" set of King Disc singlespeed hubs laced to Delgados with matching nips.









I was able to put most of the bike together before it was time to go home. This is what some would call the "George Build". Basically the nicest components available. The usual Thomson bits, Reba fork, Easton carbon bars, Race Face cranks etc.

Tomorrow we will make sure that the bike is adjusted to it's new owner. It looks killer. The gold hubs with the Godzilla paint is a great combo, and very Vermonty.
And all of this was done under the watchful eye of the new shop mascot. Who is he? Well, you'll just have to wait...

Anatomy of a perfect build

One of the things we do best here, is build bikes to order. There is something exciting about a new bike, but there is something even more exciting about building one up from scratch. Consider the frame as an empty canvas, waiting to be painted into a work of art. If the canvas isn't properly prepared, the painting will not be that good.
Same with bikes. We consider every custom build a work of art. We take the same approach to every frame whether we're building it for you, or you're doing it yourself. Preparation is everything. What if you were to build the bike at home, not having the thousands of dollars worth of professional bike shop tools? What if you had a problem installing the bottom bracket? Maybe it won't thread in correctly, or not at all?
We take a lot of pride in making sure that everything is as easy as it can be for the home bike builder. The BB threads are tapped, head tubes are checked for correct tolerance, seat tubes are checked to make sure you can actually insert a seatpost without scratching it all up.
We do this for you, so you spend less time dealing with aggravating and inconvenient hiccups, and less time assembling your bike. You are on the trail much more quickly. And we do it at no charge. To every frame that comes through our front door. We also prepare all steel frames with a rust inhibitor. Nothing could be more heartbreaking than to have your investment rust out from the inside out. So we take care of that for you as well.
Sure, one of the great things about mail order is getting your stuff quickly and cheaply, but rarely, if at all, do these other "shops" take the time to prepare your frame for you. Although it may take a little more time to buy a bike or frame from us, you are certainly getting your money's worth.
Tomorrow, these frames will be parting ways. The Voodoo will be going to it's new home in PA. The Niner will stay with us awhile, as we build it up to the specifications of it's owner. We're waiting for some hubs that should arrive tomorrow, and we will document the construction process as we go.
As you can see, they have both been prepped, and they are now ready to build.



Tune in tomorrow...

Soggy

It's been raining here for a week straight.
I guess you could call it payback for all the great early spring weather we had, but for some, especially in southern New England, it is really bad news.
15+" of rain fell, causing rivers to not just burst their banks, but to completely inundate the surrounding area with more water than they've seen in 70 years.

New look

Check out our new website! We will be updating some of the features over the next few days, but a majority of the work is done. I like this new look, and we will be able to have a lot more content that gets updated regularly
We will also have some shots of the Voodoo Dambala once we can get the internet to cooperate.
Thanks for visiting!

Voodoo Dambala

Here is a look at the Voodoo Dambala. Meaning "spirit of the snake" this frame was designed to wiggle through the tightest trees and over rocks just like a real snake. It features a really sharp green paint job, that is really hard to photograph.
This 19" frame weighs just 5lbs.
This bike has some cool features too, such as the inventive drop out plates. These allow you to run 20mm of fore/aft axle positioning, all while keeping the relationship of the rear axle and disc brake mount in line.
Meaning, you can run a singlespeed w/disc and keep your chain nice and tight without all the malarky that you get to deal with if you ever get a rear flat with a horizontal dropout and discs. Pretty sweet.
Sure, an EBB would do the same, but that adds cost, and the coolest feature about this bike, is it's price tag.
The welds are clean and consistent, color is deep and shiny, and the head tube badge is nice too.

It begins

This is beer. It is the beginning of the 5.P.A. which should be some of the hoppiest and bitter beers around. A friend of mine is making this special batch of homebrew to commemorate the opening of Five Hills. It should be ready to drink by the time we head up to East Burke for our annual camping and riding melee.
It has 5 types of hops, and a ton of malt. It will be strong, and just what the doctor ordered after riding a 29er all day.

Ride On

Iffy weather squashed plans for a shop ride yesterday. We had torrential downpours punctuated with brilliant sunshine all afternoon, right up until it ot dark. Then it just got cold.
Today is a whole different story. Brilliant blue sky, but still cold, and with a biting wind.
We went for it anyway. Today's route took us down 6 Flags, one of our favorite local rides. There were a lot of trees down. Yesterday our crew took care of it, and had to establish a few re-routes to give the trail it's old flow. Mission accomplished.
DA makes this extremely difficult and scary chute look easy on his SIR 9. It's about a 12 foot drop from top to bottom, with plenty of opportunity for disaster. This shot was taken about halfway down.

Racks Installed!

We went from the hokey 2x4 band-aid racks that looked terrible, to these professional looking steel ones. I'm amazed at the difference.
Now we're really pro.
The counter tops are still a disaster though.
Oh well.

Our 29er-ness

We're still waiting for the remainder of our 29ers from Fisher, but we do have the Cobia, X-Caliber and Rig on the floor. Also a shiny example of a Niner One 9, built and ready for folks to test ride or drool on.
We also have several Dos Niner frames in stock, ready to build up or ship, and a whole heap of Delgado rims too. One of the many services we offer is custom wheel building. We're working on having a Wheelbuilder section on our site, where you can choose from the many options we offer to get the perfect set of wheels. We have over 10 years of experience building hoops.














And these. A very impressive set of wheels from Industry 9. Worth every penny.
We have lots of exciting projects in the works here, a couple custom builds, new Fishers, and shiny new display racks. Yes that's right, we get to reconfigure the store AGAIN.
But it will look killer.