The Rig

Three years ago I bought this Gary Fisher rig 29er singlespeed at Ubikes. This year I replaced the frame with a Spot, but the life of the Rig was far from over, in fact, it was only starting. I've been scheming for sometime about building an ultimate commuting machine and the Rig frame turned into the perfect foundation. Over the past few months I've been collecting everything I needed and its now done and rolling.

First off I bought a Shimano 7 speed internal hub and built the rear end around this. Once I special ordered verticle dropout-specific anti-rotation washers for the hub, the Fisher's eccentric bottom bracket made it super easy to tension the chain and after much trial and error I got everything dialed and shifting. Up front I kept the same wheel and fork that the bike came with, but I installed the super funky Mary SS moustache bars and a ludicrously tall stem to keep things comfy and upright. Braking is taken care of with a single rear v-brake hooked up to a gigantic old school Campy lever that's perfect for gloved use.

No good all weather townie is complete without fenders, so I went for a seatpost mounted, clip-on rear beast of a fender called 'The Defender.' No wet butt with this baby. For the front wheel I installed a fender which mounts to a star nut you pound into the bottom of the steerer tube. This solution keeps it out of the way for the suspension fork while still turning with the wheel.

Lighting is taken care of via an assortment of 'hipster cysts' or Knog lights. I've got 5 white LEDs looking forward and two flashing red ones for the rear. Pedals are super grippy BMX style flats for ultimate grip in snow and ice. In my humble opinion there's just about nothing better than WTB tires so I'm running a 2.55 Weirwolf LT in the front and a 2.1 Motoraptor in the rear, mounted backwards for traction. I am however tempted by Nokian's line of studded winter tires...

Looks like the MINI is going to see less use on snow days, which is fine by me. Save it for the Moab trips.