New Bike!! Santa Cruz Highball

On Sunday, I took delivery of a bran-spankin-new Santa Cruz Highball.  I opted for the aluminum frame over the carbon for two reasons.  First reason is price.  It was going to be nearly an extra grand for the carbon.  Second reason is dropouts.  The aluminum frame has swappable dropouts that allow you to run it geared or singlespeed.  The singlespeed swinger dropout kit is about fifty bucks.

Sunday afternoon I swapped out some stock parts for some parts snagged off other bikes that I prefer.  The parts I removed were a 70m Easton EA70 6 degree stem, WTB saddle, and Lizard Skins grips.  They were replaced with a 90mm Thomson X4 -10 degree stem, Fizik Tundra carbon saddle, and Oury Grips.  The other things I did was remove the red and white decals from the WTB i19 rims
add some orange aluminum bottle cage bolts to hold the King Titanium Cages, and toss on a set of Crank Brothers Eggbeater pedals.  I was hoping to have a mango Chris King headset installed, but they are on backorder so I'll swap it in as soon as it arrives.  Other parts I'm waiting on are a custom orange seatpost clamp from Purely Custom, some miscellaneous titanium bolts, and a stem (mentioned below).

On Monday morning I had a fit session with Chris Burnham, who has an office inside of Peninsula Bike Works.  We spent most of the time with my road bike, with the main focus on my cleats.  On the Highball, there were a couple tweaks with saddle height and position.  At his recommendation, I have a Thomson X2 100mm -17 degree stem on order to get some more drop and a little more reach.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take the Highball on dirt, but did get a quick eight mile ride on the bike path to get a feel for the bike.  The main thing that I found strange is the massive width of the Easton EC70 bars.  They're listed at 685mm, but measure out closer to 710mm.  The bars on my other mountain bikes are closer to 600mm wide.  I'll be chopping them to a more reasonable width when I swap out the stem.  This weekend I'll be able to take it out to Fort Ord for a proper break-in.