The Theoretical Bicycle pt.1

My dropbar-converted Stumpjumper rig is a Helluvatrooper.

I really love this bike. It’s fun to ride. It rides over and through anything and everything. It requires relatively little maintenance. It very very rarely flats. It would be hard to ask for a better DailyDriver.

But it is a little too small (check out that saddle height!) and I look not unlike a 90’s time trialist when I hammer, let alone sink to the drops. It’s also equipped with cantilever brakes and it rains here a lot. Also hilly. That makes for a dicey c-combo and my stopping distance is Considerable when it’s wet out (and steep out).

A few months back I caught sight of a kickstarter campaign and I took a gamble. I threw in a largish chunk of change and held my breath. The darn thing got funded though and now I’m poorer but I’m allegedly taking delivery of a brand new and untested exotic frame this coming January. This has me excited. I’ve been poring over parts lists and options and compatibility charts and installation guides and then balking at prices and through it all have come up with a Plan. This Theoretical Bicycle may one day become real but for now it’s little more than a google doc and a big number surrounded by red (parentheses) in my checking account. Recently though, it’s made its first strides out of the imagination and into the corporeal.

 I saw this photo on the internets of the first-off-the-line frames, still unpainted in Taiwan and made of a different alloy than mine is expected to be. Still, that’s something.

And then I took delivery of some of the first shiny elements.
They hint at the Plan.
And are certainly pretty to look at. But this project has a long way to go before the bicycle becomes Real. Lucky for me the Stumpjumper is a Helluvatrooper, ready for the winter studded tires, and happy to take me through the dark days of winter.

Stay tuned as this project takes on a bicycle-shaped shape.