The New UK-14’er

I’ve had the UK-14’er for a little over a year now. The bike has been great, and I’ve ridden it in Maryland, Virginia, Utah, Colorado, and South Australia. It was in Missouri for a couple days as well, but only saw a parking lot. I really don’t have any complaints. Aside from the parts I broke or wore-out, the bike has been a lot of fun and very reliable.

The UK-14’er at One Year

Anyway, here is a list of what I broke, wore out, or just decided to replace in the past year:

Replaced due to wear

• 3x chains: One Wippermann 908 and two Shimano HG93
• Middle chainring: The original Shimano XT ring was replaced with an LX ring
• Cassette: The well worn SRAM PG990 (taken off of the M2) was replaced with an XT cassette
• Freehub: The Mavic freehub was serviced and replaced per Mavic’s recommendations
• 6x tires: 4x Panaracer FireXC, 2x Hutchinson Toro XC, plus many tubes
• Brake pads: 2x rear, 3x front with a mixture of Avid and Kool Stop ceramic pads (Kool Stops are better)

Replaced due to damage

• Handlebar: Kent Eriksen bar replaced the Titec titanium bar that got ripped in Moab
• Rear derailleur: Shimano XT Shadow replaced the older (c. 2002) XT derailleur taken from the M2
• Derailleur hanger: The derailleur snagged a shrub and tweaked the original. I now have a couple spares.
• Computer: A Knog NERD replaced a Sigma BC1600 that was damaged in a crash

Replaced due to the rebuild after arriving in Australia

• Brake and shifter cables were all replaced as well as the brake housing

Replaced for no good reason

• The Chris King stem cap was replaced with one from the Poison Spider bike shop in Moab
• The Minoura blue anodized bottle cages were taken off for a while and replaced with King stainless cages due to the bottle tearing up the Minoura cages. Later I found some blue anodized Specialized cages, but they turned out to be crap. The Specialized cages wouldn’t hold a bottle and were quickly mangled by use and crashes. The Minoura cages are back on for now.

I got the Eriksen out to Eagle Park a couple times this weekend. The first day I rode a short distance with some local riders who showed me the tracks and gave me some tips. The rest of the day was spent making minor adjustments and getting the Eriksen (and myself) back into decent riding condition. Now that the brakes, derailleurs, bottom bracket and headset are happy I should be able to ride without carrying a full toolbox around with me.

The second day was a much longer ride and the low clouds made for some great photos. Overall, Eagle seems to have a broad range of trail types. There are easy fire road tracks, mild to technical xc tracks, a ‘skills park’ and even some downhill tracks. The terrain is varied enough that this will be a good park for regular rides and shouldn’t get boring.

The Forester is a great car for transporting bikes around. The trunk is large enough for all of the gear, the roof is long enough that rear-hatch to bike tire clearance isn’t an issue, and the roof line is low enough that getting the bike on and off is easy.

The three bikes we brought with us are now reassembled and ready to ride. All three bikes made it through the three-month transit intact. We’ll start first with the Eriksen.

One of the customs requirements is that the bikes had to be clean and free of dirt. This really isn’t an easy as it might sound. Rather than face potential fines and delays for importing a less than spotless bike, I completely tore down the Eriksen and cleaned each component. The tear down took about three days.

This is what I had once all of the bubble wrap and tape was removed. The reassembly was fun, and took only a few hours. Notable changes include the tires, which are new Hutchinson Toro 2.15″, and a new cyclo-computer.  Other wear items such as cables, housing and the chain were also replaced.

The computer I was using in DC suffered an impact with a stream bank on my last ride. The crash left the computer embedded in the mud with a mounting tab cracked off. This is unfortunate as I really like this computer, a Sigma 1600. The Sigma is still in use, but not on the Eriksen (more on that later).

The Eriksen now has a Knog NERD that I got from Bernie Jones Cycles in nearby Warradale. I chose the Knog because of the rubbery mounting and apparent resistance to crash damage. Furthermore, I mounted the Knog on the stem to keep it away from stream bank damage.  One note: the included magnet from Knog does not work with Mavic alloy spokes.  The Sigma magnet (which does work with Mavic alloy spokes) works fine with the Knog sender.

I’ll let you know if I break it.

Moving on the Gunnar. The Gunnar wasn’t as muddy as the Eriksen, so I didn’t do a full tear down. It went back together in less than an hour. The only muddy parts on the Gunnar were the knobby tires. Here is a tip: to quickly remove dirt from knobbies remove the tires from the rim, place in the washing machine, add detergent, and wash in hot water. This was done with kevlar-bead tires, and the results were pretty good. I wouldn’t recommend doing this with steel-bead tires as corrosion and mangling of the bead are quite likely.

The Sigma computer will now be used full-time on the Gunnar. Due to the now missing mounting tab, the computer is semi-permanently zip tied to the bars. This should work well for road use, but I’m not sure how long it would last off road. The Gunnar is the only bike I’ve ridden so far. Two rides up the coast so far (see the first photo), more to come this weekend.