Starting to get close to my ideal ride!

Okay so I've made some subtle improvements but think they're clean enough to warrant updating this, any thoughts on aesthetics or suggestions on setup appreciated! So, parts-list is in earlier posts, the new stuff/changes are:

Plush Free Agent seat on Animal post (best seat ever ridden on!)
Front tire changed from duo 2.2 to duo 2.35 (with gum sidewall which i really like)
Rear tire changed from powerblock 1.75 to 1.95"
Metal pegs to right and nothing on the left
Chain replaced (had kmc410, got another 410 cuz they didn't have 510's there and this was a 'heavy duty' 410 it was visibly thicker than my 410 so figured must be better..)
Wanted to ride my ody lincoln stem but was too tall, so riding it upside-down right now...unsure if i should go back to the front-load Eastern stem (it's in the 1st pic of this thread), i just dislike that they use thinner bolts :/
(this has caused about a pound of weight gain, despite ditching the two plastic pegs... almost a quarter pound of that is the seat (!), but everything was a heavier part the stem the tires the chain etc everything's beefier and weight is now back to ~factory ~24lbs)

Thing is tight as hell everything's tuned perfect, rides like a dream
[edit: on the subrosa villicus grips, the wavy gripping is peeling away in an annoying fashion, enough so that whehn im sitting on my bike i pick at it to speed it up. I DO think I'll like what's underneath, a flat, patternless rubber tube. There's gotta be grips out there like that already, that are just rubber w/o any attempt at pattern or anything, any model reco's plz?? *double-edit* I was picking at the grips and got the urge to remove the flanges, think they look kinda dumb now w/o flanges lol [edit: flange-less has grown on me, prefer it now :D ]

I love the presumptuousness of the title I gave this thread a year ago, lol I've come to the realization a bike, like a garden, is constant work-in-progress, it's never 'done' it can only be done for a brief period and then it evolves again.. So it's been the better part of a year since updating this, some new stuff:

- Wheelset of Odyssey Path's in 2.1", front@~50psi / rear@~55psi
- grinding guards: modified a Primo DSG so I could ride it *outside* of the dropouts, eliminating the axle-slipping problems, as well as swapping-out my ghetto DIY front guard for a proper GSport GLAND guard
- New rear wheel built a couple weeks ago, used a Cinema777 rim around an Odyssey (want to say vandero but that's not right) LHD hub, with a hollow axle. One of the driver's bearings is almost shot, so going to try replacing that soon (unsure how to safely remove a bearing from a driver!), and the pawls' retention clip sucks but I have another one en-route right now :D
- Swapped-up the KMC line to a 610hz (in oil-slick finish)
- Swapped cranks to Redline Flight cranks, the coolest non-48-spline setup I've ever used!
- Swapped pedals to Monster; at a ~1/3lbs saving from standard PC pedals, and the lower profile which just feels better while riding, I'm totally sold on them and don't see myself changing for a while!

Some things I want to change-up real soon:
- I want a guard sprocket that can fit with the guard facing inward, so trying to figure what will fit (my 28t is tight enough already, I want a 27t guard sprocket but afraid it may not fit, will see)
- new pegs: I have generic 4" steel pegs on my right-side right now, I want a 4" full-plastic Black-Ops up front and a 4.25" gsport pleg2 in the back.
- Rawed frame. My frame's got enough dings in it that it doesn't look clean anymore, I'd thought about re-spraying it but am leaning towards just removing the paint and clear-coating it, I wish I could reliably induce the 'brushed metal' effect by sanding but yet to do that, I use sandpaper as well as a 'mouse' (handheld sander), so I can get things smooth and polished but not 'brushed' and I have no idea how to do so...tips appreciated! Otherwise I'd just strip the paint, spray some satin clear-coat, and call it a day lol! Any opinions on whether you think my bike would look better if I made it rawed, instead of the current matte/satin black, would be appreciated! I know my rawed cranks look like I suck at rawing, that's because I didn't have proper clear-coat when doing that so I just brushed-on some poly, it held for months but recently started rusting (I should mention that a part of me kind of digs under-protected raw frames, I've seen a few pros who it looks like they just removed their paint with aircraft stripper and then left it to the elements! I think the most unprotected I could tolerate would be a thin clearcoat, want to have *some* degree of protection!

sick dude

Thanks man! How do you think it'd look if I rawed the frame (frame only, left everything else as-is)? Am so on the fence about whether to raw it or not, guess I could beat it up a bit more then worry about that, for now I really just want to find a 27t guard sprocket that'll fit my (united su2 supreme) frame when I face the guard toward my BB, am afraid to just buy something and it doesn't fit..

Oh and am really wanting to get a set of 2.4's on there (probably the duo HSL's, they're the only 2.4's with a reasonable weight IMO), am gonna list my set of Paths see if I can get $ towards the HSL's :D

I really like in the black color, it looks good with the purple chain and sprocket

^ seems like the bike is progressively looking better each time, keep at it

It's looking a lot better! I would, if possible, change the cranks to black. Just my personal opinion. Itherwise, it looks freaking sweet!

T-MAN05 wrote:

It's looking a lot better! I would, if possible, change the cranks to black. Just my personal opinion. Itherwise, it looks ...more

T-MAN05 wrote:

It's looking a lot better! I would, if possible, change the cranks to black. Just my personal opinion. Itherwise, it looks freaking sweet!

...more

Thanks! And I like black but the paint always wears through! drives me nuts, I don't think I'll be leaving raw cranks anytime soon! I just rawed and installed a new set of bars (verde) so now my bars match my cranks (well, they're starting to, they'll need to oxidize a bit more first!)

adfkje wrote:

Thanks! And I like black but the paint always wears through! drives me nuts, I don't think I'll be leaving raw cranks anytime ...more

adfkje wrote:

Thanks! And I like black but the paint always wears through! drives me nuts, I don't think I'll be leaving raw cranks anytime soon! I just rawed and installed a new set of bars (verde) so now my bars match my cranks (well, they're starting to, they'll need to oxidize a bit more first!)

...more

Nice!!! Can't wait to see it!

T-MAN05 wrote:

Nice!!! Can't wait to see it!

T-MAN05 wrote:

Nice!!! Can't wait to see it!

...more

Ok, I know this isn't much but I have nobody to show my stuff to lol so this is my outlet!!

So my ody lincoln stem started pinching again, last time i used a belt sander to remove a mm or two from the stem's body, and it was fine for a while but I've stretched the hinges again and it's started pinching once again, so until I sand it (or swap its wedge guts to my raw lincoln body that's hidden around here somewhere) I've now swapped stems....so new upgrades here:

- Fit top-load stem (matte black, should really refinish it to gloss black I think - thoughts? With the new bars, am actually trying to justify splurging and getting the oil-slick Salt topload, just $40 so yeah I'm thinking that'd look sick with chrome bars! Especially with the purple sprocket and oil slick chain :D )

- Chrome vultus bars (was lucky enough to find someone who had these in great condition, but wanted them in black, so we swapped vultus bars now I have the colorway I really wanted!) Any thoughts on grips for these? I've been eyeing purple(hoders or ODI longneck XL's), clear(hoders) and glow-in-the-dark (cultxvans) Any opinions on grip color would be appreciated!

- Back to a plastic peg up front, it's just that while I can do double pegs easy enough with metal, I cannot smith for my life, and I almost lost my nuts the other day to my handlebar end when failing on a smith, so yeah am going to be riding plastic up front a bit while learning to smith - sucks because I can get my back-end over stuff real well, I don't know why I have so much trouble with smiths... anyways the pleg on there now is beyond the end of its life, am going to have to get a new set soon

- Stickers!! I sent pre-stamped, self-addressed envelopes to Odyssey, Cult, Colony, and Empire - got dope stickers from all of them, as well as Empire going the extra mile (more like 5miles) to help me with an obscure, small part I needed - Huge props to Empire, I'll be doing my next orders through them now just on principle!!