The Return to Gears

The bike shop called tonight and said that my Fisher was finally fixed and ready so I went down after dinner and picked it up. The new frame is a Ziggurat instead of a Tassajara. I have never heard of this model and it doesn't show up on the '08 Fisher website. The only sign of it that I see on the website is from the 2006 lineup of bikes. I am not sure if this bike just isn't posted online yet or if it is only going to be sold outside of the US or something. The listing from '06 listed the bike as a race hardtail,which means that it is at the top of their hardtail lineup and a significant step up from the Tass. It looks like the bike retailed at $3300 a couple of years ago compared to $720 for Gennie last year, but most of that price difference is due to the nicer components on the Zig. The frame is made from ZR9000 which is a material that Trek has developed for their bikes. It is aluminum with a little bit of zirconium mixed in to allegedly add strength and reduce weight. Although it may be a little lighter than Gennie it still feels heavy compared to Mikey. Another cool feature of this bike is that it was made in the USA unlike the rest of my bikes. After getting the bike home I started to put on the last few parts that I took off to build up the Surly. The pedals were quick to put on but I tried to use the old disc brakes off of the Raleigh until I can get some new ones. The brakes are made by Tektro which is pretty much the crappy generic brake manufacturer. I never realized how nice the Avid brakes were to setup until I tried to put these on. The rotors were warped to the point that the wheel would hardly spin and the pads cannot be adjusted without tools. These things suck and I wasted most of my night trying to get them to work. They are ok for the time being but they have got to go before too long. After getting the brakes on and close to working I decided to take the bike for a spin around the parking lot to test it out. It has the exact same geometry that Gennie did so no surprises there but I can definately notice the difference in quality from this bike and the SS. Besides the sorry excuse for brakes that the bike currently has, the bike just didn't feel as solid as Mikey. The grips slide around, the cranks flex, the bottom bracket isn't very smooth, and it has a really squishy feel to it now compared to the rigid fork. None of these things mean that it is a bad bike and I have had these same problems in the past they just weren't that noticeable until I started riding a nicer bike. The bottom bracket will need some time to break in since it is brand new so that problem is only temporary. Hopefully I can find some time to put down the Surly one day and take this thing out to the trails so I can give it a real review.

Although it has taken an absurdly long time for this new frame I am really excited about the upgrade. Unfortunately, Cycling Spoken Here left me with a bad taste in my mouth again. I was hoping they would cut me a deal since it took them the entire summer to swap out the frame. I was also thinking that since the bottom bracket was working fine when I took it in that they would replace the broken one at no charge. This obviously wasn't my fault so I shouldn't be held responsible right? Not really. I was still charged for the labor to switch the parts to the new frame which is no big deal because the wait wasn't completely their fault. They also charged me for a new bottom bracket and labor to install it. I really wished they would have let me know that I was going to be buying this part before they ordered it because I probably would have used this as an opportunity to upgrade to one that will last a year before breaking. I am not sure what happened to the bottom bracket but somehow about half of the threads on one side were completely stripped off. I have no idea how this happened but somebody has to pay to fix it, and apparently that somebody is me. In the end I had to pay $110 for them to fix the defective bike that they sold me. And to top things off, the mechanic told me that they still had my old frame except for a little piece that they had to send back to Trek. I thought that I may be able to get it back and use as a decoration but before I could ask I was told that one of their employees had taken it out back earlier that evening and beaten it into the ground with a rock. What a quality shop.

On the brightside, I did get to see a newly assembled BMC Pro Machine that was probably one of the nicest bikes I have ever seen. I would guess that it was easily $10000. They also had some other BMC frames on the floor that were really sexy. If I could find one of these frames slightly used for a good price it would be my next bike, but thats not going to happen. They also had a nice looking Trek Madone 5.0 on the floor in my size. It had a full Ultegra drivetrain and has been marked down to $2000, which is a really good deal. If I had gotten a little better service from the shop I would have taken it for a test ride tonight. As it is, I don't think I will ever let a CSH mechanic touch one of my bikes again and I am really hesitant to buy anything from them ever again. If it wasn't for the discounted Madone and them being the only BMC dealer in the area I would go ahead and say that I will never shop their again, but I want to reserve the right to buy one of these. Anyway, here are some pictures of the new ride.

The new bike.

Ziggurat?

The fist and last name in mountain biking.

Made In God's Country.

Good old Genesis Geometry.

From the front.

The headbadge.

No need to address that huge design flaw. It will probably work itself out.

The broken bottom bracket. The picture isn't that great but the silver strip to the right shouldn't be there.