Another commuter: Niner EMD 9

Remember that oh so lovely semi custom Black Mountain Cycles Monstercross frame I acquired?

That's okay, I barely remember it either and I paid for the damn thing.

It was a good bike and I hope whoever ended up with it is enjoying it. Yeah, I sold it...because of the dropouts:

The super cool, do it all dropouts turned out to be a colossal pain in the ass with the disc brake, derailler, and horizontal dropouts conspiring to frequently create what my friend Daniel's father calls a "goatscrew". There is probably someone out there who loves a setup like this but it is not me. Vertical dropouts for gears from here on out.

Oh, and suprise surprise semi custom niche bikes are incredibly hard to sell. Either way, it is out, and this thing is in:

I waited to say much about this bike to make sure I actually like it. Fortunately, I really like it, much like I did my old Air 9.

It has the same parts as the old BMC. Some of it is exciting but most is quite standard and boring. Here are the basics:

Niner EMD9 frame
$10 Surly fork with protruding goiter like canti mounts intact.
Industry Nine wheels with Stans rims
Fat, touring tires
LX 9 speed drivetrain (I even left the 22 ring on)
BB7s

Basically, a pile of parts that will work for a long time and I won't have to think about much. It needs some barends but I have been too lazy to put them on.

It has really close geometry to my On One and it rides nice. Sure is slow though...I rode with Boris this weekend and even had to ask him to slow down some. That hurt.

I was going to say more about the Niner, but damn, it's my bike I ride to work. One thing worth mentioning is how well Niner preps their frames at the factory. Everything is faced and all threads are ready to go. That is huge, especially if you are going to be building one in the middle of the dining room. I lied, two things are worth mentioning. Don't mess around with trying to put a hybrid crankset with a 48 ring on this. It "clears" but really does not work well at all. I gave up and used a standard 44 crank.

The posts here will get even more exciting as the week goes on. I need to write a review of some ProGold stuff now that I have had a chance to test it out proper. Whoooo, chain lube. Might be some talk about our beagle also.