Review: North Shore Billet Parts

The maching and finish on the North Shore Billet adapters is beautiful.  I bought two 160mm blue adapters (front and rear) and the color is very close to Salsa blue, as compared to my skewers and seatpost collar.  The threads are perfectly machined, so all the bolts threaded easily and securely.  I have no way to verify the stiffness, but the machined faces will be a more solid connection to the frame and brake than the adapters that came with the brakes.  The only problem I had was with the front adapter, as it is a bit wider than the one that came with my brakes, so I had to file about one millimeter from both of the holes on my brake to get a proper clearance from the rotor.  The fork is a 26" Fox 32 F100, the wheels are Easton XC One SS, and the brakes are an inexpensive Tektro cable model.  One other thing to note is these adapters are shorter than my stock ones.  On the front brake, I had to cut a tab off of the brake pad to clear the bottom of the adapter.  Not a big deal, but worth noting.

 

As for the NSB cable guide, it is a great little piece, but it isn't perfect.  The machining and color are just as wonderful as the brake adapters, but the bolt that secures the guide to the fork uses a tiny hex with a soft head.  I was barely able to get the guide secure because the head started to strip.  With a better bolt this would easily be a stellar product.  It is a stout little piece of aluminum, and probably weighs about the same as the two zip ties that I was using to secure the brake cable.  If I can find one, I will replace the supplied M3x8 bolt with a titanium one.  Bolt issues aside, I would still highly recommend this cable guide.

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.