Fort Ord Is My Back Yard

After moving to the Toro Park neighborhood about a month ago, I have been spending a lot more time in Fort Ord and have basically forgotten about my road bike.  It's awesome to hit dirt within about ten seconds of leaving my front door.  Yes, it's that close.  Below are a four photos from recent rides.

My new back yard - Fort Ord.

Motobecane Fantom Cross Uno SSCX looking over the new 'hood.

Redline Monocog Flight AL SSMTB looking over the new 'hood.

Santa Cruz Highball AL on one of the many trails in Fort Ord.

Mount Skidmore Bottle Cage Adapter

I've really been enjoying the Motobecane Fantom Cross Uno singlespeed cyclocross bike, but was not happy with the bottle cage placement.  I have a Backcountry Research Mutherload strap to hold a tube, mini tool, and patch kit, but had to mount it under the down tube near the bottom bracket.  Sure, I could have put it higher on the seat tube, but I was going for a lower center of gravity.  After scouring the interwebs, I came upon Mount Skidmore in Australia and their bottle cage adapter.

 The adapter came in a nice little bag that can probably be used as a dry bag for an iPhone.  I have a Samsung Android phone that's just a little too big for this bag.  I did however find it useful to hold replacement parts for my gardening shears.  Perfect.

 

As you can see in the above photos, the adapter allowed me to push the cage up to give enough room to place the Mutherload on the seat tube at the bottom bracket shell.  Other benefits are that the bottle is now a little easier to grab and I have the option of mounting a second bottle in a reasonable location.  Well, there aren't bottle cage bosses on the seat tube, so I have that little issue to deal with.

This is a really well made handy product that is well worth the price.  Also, shipping to California from Australia was pretty speedy.  I hope they come up with other nifty products.

Motobecane Fantom Cross Uno SSCX First Ride

On Saturday, I took the Motobecane Fantom Cross Uno out for the first time.  I decided to do a (mostly) road ride with it just to get familiar and make sure everything was well set up.  I first headed over to Peninsula Bike Works to drop off some tires for Micah, then hit the bike path toward Marina.  After passing through Sand City and on to the Fort Ord Dunes path, I took a side detour toward the old military bunkers.  They are all blocked by large cubes of concrete, but make a great place for photos due to all of the colorful tagging.  I took a few photos in front of them, then headed back to the main trail over a sandy dirt area that wasn't really a path.

I have to admit that I went a little more custom with this bike than I had originally planned.  The only stock parts left are the frame, fork, wheels, and tubes.  I changed out everything else.  That said, I'm really happy with the bike.  It was the best first ride I have ever had on a new bike, and I don't plan on changing how it is set up.  I spent a lot of time measuring between my road and cross bikes and it paid off.  At some point I will probably change the seatpost to a Thomson Elite to match the stem, and when I need new bar tape I might add some carbon bars with a compact drop.  Different tires will also be in order depending on how I plan on using it.  At the top of my list right now are the Clement X’Plor MSO tires in 40mm with 120tpi casing.  They look like a great all around tire and will fit the bike.  For a while I have been stuck on the Bruce Gordon Rock n' Road tires, but I think that if they do fit there won't be much clearance.  The Rock n' Roads are also about 60 grams per tire heavier.  It's not a big deal for overall weight, but enough to feel in rotational weight.  For pure SSCX riding I'll have to look around, but I am happy with the IRD CrossFire 32mm tires on my geared CX bike.

The bike handles very well and is more stable than I expected.  Other reviews I have read mentioned twitchy handling, but I didn't get that.  Also, toe overlap was not an issue for me.  The main drawback to the bike is the weight, but I didn't feel it to be an issue while riding it.  With all the nice parts I have on there, it still weighs 21 pounds.  The fork alone weighs about 930 grams uncut.  The full specs of the current build are listed below.

SSCX Bike Arrival - Motobecane Fantom Cross Uno

For a couple years I have been eyeballing the Motobecane Fantom Cross Uno from Bikes Direct.  I like the idea of singlespeed cyclocross and this is (supposed to be) a cheap way to try it.  Last week I finally hit the purchase button and today it arrived at work.  I quickly pulled it from the box and began removing the packing and protection.  The box itself was pretty beat, but the bike is well wrapped and protected.  Or so I thought.  I pulled off the foam on the seat tube to find a small dent seven inches up from the bottom bracket shell.  It's very odd since there were no parts near that spot.  The closest was the front wheel, but that couldn't have caused it.  My best guess is that it happened while being prepped and boxed and was just missed.  I had already been emailing with Matt from BD, so I shot him an email with a photo of the dent.  He immediately responded and asked if I would accept a $50 refund.  Absolutely.  That's awesome customer service, and the refund was given within 30 minutes of me sending the photo.  Rad.

This dent is worth $50

After getting all the protective material off of the bike, I quickly threw it together to get a weight.  From searching online, I was expecting it to be around 24 pounds, but was pleasantly surprised when my Feedback Sports scale read 22.31 pounds.  I have already ordered some new parts and have some old parts that I will install in place of stock items, so the bike will be vastly different from stock.  The details of those parts will come soon.  Based on looks alone, I'm already happy with the bike.

The bike will look much different when I'm finished swapping parts

Some details of the bike that I could not find online:

• 30.0 seat post collar
• 52cm frame has a 95mm head tube
• Stem length is 130mm!
• Handlebar width is 45cm C-C at the hoods
• The crank length is 175mm
• The measurements for ST and TT match the geometry listed online
• The bike ships with the fixed cog installed and the freewheel in the parts box
• Included for the brakes are both Y cable straddles and aluminum triangle cable straddles