Monday morning at the shop a box arrived from Quality Bicycle Parts (the largest distributor of bicycle parts in the states.) On the side of the box the logo of Salsa was found. Quickly I ripped open the lovely box to pull out a well packaged Salsa Casseroll in bike, wheel and fork form.
The packaging and build of the bike was rather impressive. The fork, while uncut, already had the crown race for the headset installed, the headset cups were pressed neatly (and aligned) into the frame with grease in the cups waiting for the bearings that were housed nicely in a baggy in the parts box.
Fork was installed, measured with extra spacers “in case”, removed from the bike and cut. Next came installing the star nut, installed the fork on the bike and then placed the beautiful Salsa stem in “mustard” color that matched the frame.
The rest of the build was mindless. Front wheel, front brake cable trimmed down and then bars wrapped. I measured out my seat height, fore/aft and off the bike went onto the roof rack to make its voyage home. At home I installed my rear rack, clip-less pedals and made sure I didn’t over look something. The next morning would be its initial voyage.
Oh wait – mother nature decided to dump the aftermath of a hurricane named Fay on us. No long road ride. Instead I had a day of rest and relaxing which was much needed. I seem, for a few weeks now, to not allow myself to sit down and chill with out thinking of what I should be doing. Bikes to fix, articles to write, websites to fix and well finally my brain couldn’t stop. What is next, why am I sitting down, there is too much to be doing!!! Finally early afternoon I went out on the bike to meet a friend for coffee, and though the bike felt great, it wasn’t what I was looking for. After arriving home from coffee I went to swapping out some parts. Mainly the handlebars.
The handlebars that came on it are great. Salsa bars that matched everything wonderful. As much as I like drop bars, for a commuter, I really don’t want to be sitting out on the hoods all day long. Long term I want to get a set of Nitto or Velo Orange swept back “amsterdam looking” bars. For now I put on a carbon riser bar I had laying in my parts bin. The next thing was brakes, the Casseroll has normal road calipers on them that take a different pull than a standard mountain lever. So I couldn’t run just standard v-brake levers. I hunted around for my cyclocross top levers I had. Only finding one and needing to stop with two brakes (I am running single speed) I went looking for another thing to pull the cable. Finally I decided on a rear SRAM X-9 shifter. I set it up so that one click “slows” down by barely pushing on the brake surface, the second click “locks up.” In general I won’t be using the rear shifter/brake as the front really is what I use to control my speed but it is nice to have there in those “oh shit” circumstances or if I’m really out riding with a good amount of weight on the rack.
After I installed all this I took it for a test spin with Fiona running along into the cemetery. I was content with my set up. The front end responded as it should, the tires I am still getting used to and may get replaced with something I know better, but I like how it rode. It was ready for its ride later that night to the gym and school. That ride is a post in itself. I’ll leave you with some photos from yesterday. More glamorous shots will come. Charlotte is in a section of rain rain and rain so its rather gloomy outside.