basecoat, so you end up with a thin layer of pigment sandwiched between the base coat and the final powder clear coat, creating a refined, seamless, professional look. The color is rich and almost surreal looking. With frame in hand, the next step was to turn it into a complete bike. Building up a singlespeed piece by piece doesn’t require a lot of parts but doing it myself did require more time getting everything just right. Most stuff you could probably do yourself, but for me cutting the steer tube and setting up hydraulic brake lines were jobs I would rather let my local bike shop do. An important aspect of this bike was having function come before fashion, albeit the fashion was going to be hard to beat. My first ride was a culmination of five months of anticipation, anxiety and elation. I’m happy to say that it rides as good as it looks. On one of my first rides in Fruita, Colo., this spring, just winding up the motor on Rustler’s Loop, I could feel what my sandbagger-riding partner has been saying for so long about singlespeeds. It felt so tight. The ride was smooth and silent and responsive. With one up from a 2/1 gear ratio—32-tooth ring in front and a 17-tooth cog—I never felt as if I were “spinning out.” We linked up Mary’s Loop with Horsethief and back onto Mary’s and, if you know the spot I’m talking about, there’s a section that climbs out of a drainage and up a moderate climb. Then just before the apex, there is a pretty good technical move that takes power, momentum and timing at just the right spot to clean. Just so you know, I normally clean this (right, Stu?) but I didn’t get it just right and my first thought was to head back down and hit it again, potentially rubbing my chainstays between two big rocks and slamming the bottom bracket on the sandstone ledge to pull it off. Did I tell you how damn nice that paint job was? I just couldn’t risk defacing this piece of work for a few bragging rights—not just yet. The good, the bad, the ugly? There is no ugly on this one and I can’t think of anything bad I would say about my experience. Although it did teach me patience, realizing that the process is part of the payoff, which made everything about this bike much more satisfying. And it’s a big part of the reason this bike is staying inside my house, not in that cold garage. –S. Mabry
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