Monstercross Reborn

So, back at the end of last year I cobbled together a monster-cross bike from my old Soul Cycles Dillinger 29er frameset, some dirt-drop bars and a bunch of parts that I had in the bin. I rode it around some and though novel, it was deemed good for nothing. Make that, good at nothing.

Late this summer I once again dug the frame out and built it back up, this time with a could small modifications and improvements like longer pull brake levers which gave a much nicer feel to the discs. I found myself gravitating to the bike and rode it a number of times. That was, until cross season started. It has since been sitting, collecting dust, much like so many of my bikes unfortunately.

We've been so stoked with the Zanconato SSCX Series that we've been twisting everyone's arms to get a SSCX bike and jump in on the fun. One of my friends, David, has trouble with normal race schedules because his kids have soccer in the AM. The SSCX events tend to be last in the day which would be a much better fit. All he needed was a bike. Unfortunately, without spending a bunch of dough, a good bike is hard to find and even harder to make, at least if you don't want it to explode and kill everyone in the vicinity.

It occurred to me that, given we are the same size, I could easily convert the geared Dillinger 29er to SS as it has an EBB and is designed as a SS MTB in the first place and let David use that. With the rigid fork and dirt-drop bars the bike may look a bit odd but handles fine. I had a very nice and light set of Crossmax 29er wheels lying around that my friend John didn't want. These came together to make a respectably light weigh yet super beefy SSCX of doom. The best part is that I think I can get David in on the SSCX fun now.