The BeerJammer Lives

The beast is finally built. Start with the Chromag Samurai frame I won in the 2004 GearJammer, mix in a bunch of parts from my Ellesworth Joker which was stolen in 2002 and recovered in 2005, sprinkle with bits and pieces from my 1997 Gary Fisher Joshua, and voila - BeerJammer.

There are many stories woven into the parts list on this Franken-Bike. First of all the frame, built in Squamish by Mike Truelove. I was endlessly needled by the local Squam-Folk about doing something with this frame. It moved with me to Bend, still in the pupae stage of being just a frame. Then last year, when I finally recovered my Joker from the cop-shop in Victoria, B.C. - a long process which culminated in some gracious souls taking care of packing it onto the bus to Squamish - and me showing up with some 6-packs of Oregon beer to reclaim it - I decided that many of the non-deceased parts of the Joker would migrate onto the Chromag frame. Alas, my first move in this direction was met with confusion and dismay, as fitting a standard rear hub onto the frame proved impossible : the spacing was only 120mm, well off the industry standard of 135. Conversations with the builder determined that 135 was indeed the original spec, and I can only theorize that in the journey to Bend in the moving truck, the frame got squished down to an unusable width. Yanking and tweaking it this way and that yielded another 5mm gain in width, still a far cry from what was required. The frame once again crept into a dark corner of neglect, and dust and spiderwebs were its only companions.

About a month ago, I mentioned the problem to Pat, a wrench at the Hutch's shop, and he said he'd worked on a few similar problems before, and could take a look-see. Not expecting much, I dropped it off, and a few days later received a call that it was done. Supposedly it took a few guys standing on various parts of the frame and pulling it, and we were back in business. They didn't even charge me - I really should drop off a 6-pack there :) Then boxed up the parts I'd pulled off the old Joker and Joshua, and took it down to Web Cyclery for the build up.

Other notable parts :

Shimano D321 downhill disk wheel : front wheel from the Joker. On the Freeride Tour trip I was on in 2001, we were doing some North Van trail in the rain - I think it was Lower Ladies or Oil Can or something - and I lost it bigtime down this rock chute - taco'd my RhinoLite. Bought the Shimano a few hours later. This is also why I've always had big patches of black duct-tape on my blue Goretex jacket : shredded it in the slide.

Raceface yellow cranks : from the Joshua. There was no problem really with my original cranks, but these were so shiny and yellow and went with the bike perfectly - I had to have them.

Front Hayes Mag orange brake : went to front disks on the Joshua. Got it from Tantalus - I think it was original equipment on a Rocky Mountain - special orange spec. For some reason it was on the Joker when it got stolen - glad it came back.

Slapped on the Geax Barro Marathon tires I won at the Outback Challenge a few weeks ago - front is a 2.3 - nice and meaty. The rear 2.1 looks about half the size. Dirtrag chainstay protector from same race.

Silver Chris King headset from Joker.

Rockshox Psylo fork from Joshua. Cracked my original Manitou fork on the BarberChair trail in Crumpet woods : that steep rock chute followed by a quick right hand turn. Didn't make turn, hit tree.