Jabberwockies!

The newest batch of Jabberwockies are beginning to arrive. Aside from the hot new colors, there are no major changes to this single speed specific steel hardtail. The colors are None More Black (think Spinal Tap), Snuffalupagas Orange, and Bone White.


The Jabberwocky is made from Vassago's proprietary butted 4130 tubeset. It is a comfortable ride, lightweight and completely capable of devouring any trail you point it down. Vassago's Wet Cat geometry puts you "in" the bike, lowering your center of gravity, allowing you to climb technical sections of single track the way a wet cat climbs grandma's curtains.

Vassago's price will not, however, put you in the poor house. The Jabberwocky frame is $439, add the rigid O.D.I.S. (Oh Damn It's Smooth) fork is available painted to match for just $100 more.
These beasts don't stick around long. If you were thinking of trying to snap one of these up, now is the time to pre-order. We will be shipping all of our pre-orders later this week.

In other news...
Wheelset delivery is a bit delayed due to stock at the moment. DT is out of spokes, and Stan's is out of the Arch rim, although I'm told the spokes should be arriving any day now. Arch rims are somewhere between the factory and Stan's HQ. I have plenty of rims on back order, so when they arrive the wheel building will resume it's furious pace...

Niner Jet 9s are going to be here soon! They have left the factory, and are on a boat headed for California. If you haven't already ordered one of these, you may not get one til the next production. I still have a few sizes and colors left available from my pre-order.

We are continuing to settle into our new digs. The showroom is open Monday thru Friday 9-6, and Saturday 10-4. If you are up in the area, come on by! We have lots of 29er goodness to check out, including Fisher's amazing arsenal of 29er hard tail and full suspension bikes.

Think Spring!

Slick, this one's for you...

After what seems like forever, here is your bike!
It's a 20" Vassago Jabberwocky, with a Rock Solid White Brothers carbon fork. The color is a very apropos Short Bus Yellow, mixed up with anodized red black and silver.
I had a little fun with the color scheme, and it came out perfect. very autumnal in fact.


















The massive wheels are the Bike 29 Blue Collar Special, Surly Jim Brown hubs laced to WTB rims with DT Competition spokes and red alloy nips.

Because it's a single speed, I'm sure it will give you some miles that you will definitely hate, but I really hope that you enjoy this bike, and it ultimately gives you many happy miles.

Happy birthday you old fart!
Consider this your spanking. :)

Irish Eyes are Smiling

Here we have yet another Bandersnatch, built to the hilt in all the right places. This bike belongs to one of our own, "E-Dog". It's his very first 29er.






I am proud to say that the Dog gave up a big flat screen TV for this bike. Good choice!







The Bandersnatch is the best bikes out there for the money. Nothing rides like one, maybe with the exception of a geared Jabberwocky.


Speaking of....
Something wicked this way comes....

Synopsis of Color

One of my most recent projects has been a Vassago Bandesnatch partial build. While it left the building today, it will always stick in my mind as one of the most vibrant builds I have done.

We didn't break the bank, rather, we spent money where it needed to be spent, and left the rest for future upgrades far down the road. We came out with a pretty nice bike with one of the coolest color schemes I've seen in a long time.

While avoiding high dollar drivetrain and brake components, we did manage to embellish a little. One of the beautiful things about the Royale Wheelset, is that you can either blow it up, or go totally stealth. We went big, and carried the theme over the entire bike.






And you know what? It works. My philosophy of bike building is, if you are going to be spending a chunk of your hard earned cash, have fun with it. Sure, all black looks as cool as Darth Vader's suit, but color is good too. Do things you wouldn't normally do. It's not like you are getting 3 brand new multi-grillion dollar bikes every summer.
Mix it up.
Live a little.
Do what makes you happy. We are here to help and expedite, not judge.

Have fun with it. It's a bike. It's made for fun. It's your bike.

Project Bandersnatch

The Bike
I was lucky enough to get three solid rides in this weekend, and still make good on my promises to complete my appointed chores.

My weapon of choice was the Vassago Bandersnatch. I originally built the bike up and got the initial ride in a few weeks ago, but I needed to make some component changes before feeling really comfortable on it.

The major change came with the wheelset. I had originally taken a disc only Bike 29 Foundation Wheelset from my Karate Monkey to build the bike. These are WTB Speed Disc rims laced to Shimano XT hubs. While this is a great wheelset, it is pretty basic.The XT hubs do not even come close to cutting it when you require instantaneous drivetrain engagement. I found myself in need of power more than a few times and having my legs move wildly until the Shimano pawl system caught up to drive the wheel. For my personal off road riding style, they simply do not work in our technical terrain. I replaced them with a mango and silver Bike 29 Royale Wheelset. Some may call this excessive, but once you ride on a set, you'll have a hard time riding anything else.

I changed the saddle after I found that my old white leather/red velour SDG was bent. I was pretty sad about that, it was my very first bit of free industry swag. It was replaced with a WTB Devo saddle. My aluminum bottle cage was replaced with a Bontrager Race X Lite carbon one. There is your excess.

After all was said and done, the bike went from 27.75 lbs to 26.6. Pretty respectable for a trail bike. Gearing is 1x9, a 32 front with an 11-32 rear. Tires are the IRD Fire XC Pro, run tubeless on Stan's Arch rims.


The Ride
I got a brief shakedown ride in on our Thursday night group ride. I had managed to overlook a couple of things during the build that really frustrated me. I had forgotten to tighten the plastic cable guide under the bottom bracket, which slipped, allowing the tire to rub against the derailleur cable. That just about drove me nuts trying to figure out what was making that weird grinding metal sound every time I put the power down.
When I finally found the problem, it was an easy fix, and the sound did not come back.

Now that the bike was in tip top mechanical shape, I was able to get down to some serious business. Even on my descent out of our local trails I found that I was riding tight and twisty sections that normally gave me trouble at speed. Not so with the Bandersnatch. This is one of the many great symptoms of Wet Cat Geometry. It was not my foul state of mind that powered me through the turns, it was by design.

Wet Cat
Anyone who has seen a cat on the tweak knows just how maneuverable they can be. The Bandersnatch is no exception. The basic gist of Wet Cat is an extended wheelbase, slack head and seat tube, low and forward BB. This all coalesces to put you "in" the bike rather than on top of it. It also has a very unique look, and even when standing still, you get the impression that there is something going on.

Cornering prowess is unexpected. The longer wheelbase keeps everything stable at speed, and mid-course correction is worry free.

The lower center of gravity minimizes the feeling of rolling off the back on steep climbs. This allowed me clean some pretty ridiculous stuff. My typical test etiquette is to pick the stupidest line possible without going overboard to see what the bike is capable of. The Bandersnatch always answered the call with a "Oh yeah? OK. What's next?"

I did have a couple of pedal stike issues, but these were mostly due to my poor timing. Because the BB is a little lower, I paid extra special attention to my pedal location when going over teh rough stuff.

Overall, I'm really impressed with the bike. For the entry level price tag of the frame of $359, there is nothing entry level about the performance. Custom powder coated finishes are available too, making this frame one of the hottest things going.

It's a keeper for sure.

The Frumious Bandersnatch

It was a project I was putting off for a while, mostly due to the lack of hours in any given day, but it is almost done. I say almost because there will be upgrades along the way. The Bandersnatch will be my new test piggie for all sorts of cool bits and pieces.

I had to decommission the Karate Monkey to build this beast, but I'm sure that the Monkey will rise again (it always does). I had a terrible time getting it together, most of the parts on the KM had been there all it's life, and did not come quietly. I had to reduce the travel on my Reba from 100mm to 80, and so it was also a good time to give a little love to the fork. It needed it.

The headtube on the Vassago is considerably longer than any of the bikes I've had the Reba on before, but fortunately, there was enough room for a Thomson stem, and nothing else. Amazingly, the cockpit proportions are almost identical to my other bikes, so it should be an easy time learning the ins and outs of the new bike. I'm looking forward to experiencing "Wet Cat" geometry first hand. I will be getting the Bandersnatch dirty on the trail this weekend weather permitting.

This weekend is the opening weekend for Catamount, where I delivered the first two of the demo 29ers that will live there this summer. I'll have some more details on that in a future post. In a nutshell, anyone who wants to try a 29er in the woods, will have access to a full size run of Gary Fisher 29ers.

Happenings

While most of the bike industry is focused on the new and exciting 29er products that will be shown in Monterey, CA at the Sea Otter Classic, we'll be dealing with a winter that just won't quit.

I did actually predict a back loaded winter this fall, but I never expected it to be like this. Last weekend was amazing for snowboarding, not so good for biking. We have TWO Nor'easter storms on deck, with the possibility of a third next weekend. What does that mean?

More snow.

So now I will be kicking myself for opting not to go to Sea Otter this year, and digging out my other riding gear.

In the shop, I have a couple of really cool things going on.

I will be working with Vassago Cycles, and sponsoring their Endurance racing team. This time around, I'll be supplying 2 sets of Bike Royale wheels for Jeremy and Chris. I spoke with both of these guys, and I'm really pleased to be able to help them out.
Check out Jeremy's website here.

The big silver RIP should be completed by the weekend, just in time for about 30" of snow. It's coming together nicely, we're just waiting for the last few straggling parts to come in.

There is a medium blue RIP in the pipeline too, a new Karate Monkey, but most importantly, I'll be able to divulge some privileged product information in the next day or two.
Stay tuned!

Bandersnatch

Named after Lewis Carrol's mythical monster that travels the land at great speed, gobbling everything up it sees, this bike promises to do just that.
With a modest build, this machine weighs in at a respectable 26.5lbs. Not too shabby for steel.

The weather is turning. We still have a lot of snow on the ground, but it is melting fast.
We will probably have at least one more decent snow storm before all is said and done, but I'm OK with that.
I've had a pretty decent winter on the snowboard, and I will be sad to see winter go in that regard. I am really fired up for biking though. If only there was some way to keep all the snow at the mountain, and have everything else be nice and dry for mountain biking....

New Stuff

Not only are there lots of new 29er specific products showing up, there are lots of new 29er only companies popping up. It seems that there might be a market for this after all.

While we are still shy a few extra fork choices, we do have some more frame choices.
One of these new companies I'm referring to, is Vassago Cycles. They are a 29er only company, with two frame offerings, a horizontal dropout bike called the Jabberwocky, and a geared only version called the Bandersnatch.

Both frames are made from 4130 CroMo, and are priced to be competitive against the ubiquitous Surly Karate Monkey.
Vassago has a unique take on frame geometry they call "Wet Cat Geometry". Essentially, they put your weight "in" the bike, vs. being "on top" of it, giving you better handling characteristics on those long uphill grinders.
I was instantly hooked when I first saw the site. My first Bandersnatch arrived today. I'm impressed. The paint is a cool grey color, almost a primer grey, only way better. It is also clearcoated, which was throwing some shine when I was trying to get shots of it. Once I have the camera settings dialed, and all of the lights adjusted, I'll provide more shots of the details that make this bike stand out above the rest.


Also on deck, is the new Niner M.C.R.9. Standing for Magic Carpet Ride, anyone that has spent time on Niner's S.I.R.9 knows, that this is the best description of how this Reynolds 853 frame rides.
Smooth.


The looks are familiar, it is the same tubeset as the SIR, only with a conventional bottom bracket. There is also a new cast Breezer style dropout, which helps to reduce unnecessary weight.
And the new color, A & W Root Beer...
Brown is the new black, and this particular shade is one of the nicest around.

Tomorrow, Stash Off pictures!