While combing through my desktop I found some older pics of my bikes from a couple seasons ago and thought it would be fun to look at them with respect to how different my setups are now.
Here’s my YBB as it sat in October of 2010 immediately after the Vermont 50. Drivetrain was X0 twisters, XTR crank and an e.thirteen/Hive crankset with Wick Werks chainrings. I’d just gotten the X0 brakes to replace my Juicy Ultimates, and although I’ve burned through three sets of X0 brakes since then they were still much better than the Juicys. The bike ran great that day and although I suffered mightily I finished reasonably well. Remarkably people tell me I had a great race for that event more than any other, and it’s not that I’ve even had my best days out there but I think it’s just because that event has so much visibility in the local endurance scene.
Of course that setup was great, but X0 ten speed had just come out and I had a case of the gotsta-haves. With some other tweaks including the oh-so-hot white Ergon GX1s and a Crank Brothers Iodine 11 bar (because the aforementioned Ergons would not stay put on the FSA bar shown above) and a black saddle that I swapped from the used parts bin to complete the look.
That project was finished in the late fall, so it only had 2-3 rides on it before the season was over, but it only lasted about a month into 2011 before I found a crack in the frame. The RSL arrived in May so once that happened this sat covered in mud and neglected while I ripped around on that, so when I finally cleaned off the 6 week old mud I found the crack. I was able to get that frame warrantied with no trouble but struggled to figure out how I wanted to go forward with more than one mountain bike. I had become a fan of 29ers and Moots was in the process of redesigning their MX YBB to the configuration it has now and the Divide wasn’t ready for prime time yet so basically the YBB’s space in the stable was unoccupied until the Divide arrived last August.
This shot of my custom compact is almost like a high school class picture- accurate for the time (fall 2010), but still somewhat cringe-worthy. I rode this exact setup all over Provence with Wayward in March of 2011 then slowly made changes with a Moots carbon fork, Ritchey WCS carbon wheels and a Quarq instead of the Power Tap. The Power Tap worked great, but the Quarq works better even if the Cateye 50 head unit thinks it’s an iPhone and needs to be recharged every other fucking ride.
Look for Part 2 featuring an in-depth look at the current iterations of my Moots fleet.