Trials and tribulations of a home mechanic

I'm always working on my bikes. By choice mostly, by necessity others. Lately it's been messing around between hardtail and dually, rear wheel rebuilding, hubs, moving disc brakes, overhauling forks...

I overhauled my Black 80 SPV fork on the hardtail, and put it back on and had that well known SPV top out klunk. My modus operandi is that if I can do it wrong I will, and then will not give up until I've found out what is wrong and fix it or totally destroy it in the process.

Took the whole thing apart again to find the SPV damper was not screwed together properly. I redid it and put it back together and it seems to be working decently now. Hardtail is set up as a 9 speed right now. Mullet with V brakes in the rear and disc in the front.

This was the first disc tab that BREW had ever put on about 12 years ago. It wasn't done completey correct as it is way to far inboard. My first foray into discs was with the early Hayes and even after we modified the disc brake adaptor, I did not enjoy them and on that bike had only used Vs in the back. With the new bike I never had the need/desire to revist this issue but lately while on the kick to revitalize the hardtail I took a good look at the disc tab again. First I had to file the inside to get the actual disc to clear but it was still too far inboard at the top. Brought it to the Bike Barn the resident framebuilder on staff cut into it with the facing tool.

He stopped partway because it was so far inboard that he it was going to start cutting into seatstay and not the tab. It's getting closer, but I think I'll grind off some of the inside of the disc adapter. Now need to build up another rear wheel. But the rear V is working pretty well actually, so not in too much of a hurry.

Dually is slightly better, but this is fun. Plus it's good body punishing training when you can't ride off road a lot.

Weight weenie plans on the HT
-Laser Disc lite rear wheel with stans Olympic rim
-Some light weight front hub with stans Olympic
-tubeless with rim strip if the Stans valve doesn't work (which it hasn't for me in the past)
-Thomson masterpiece post
-WTB Laser V Ti saddle
-XTR pedals
-Ceramic bearings for the Real Ti Square taper BB

May or may not go back to 3 on the front. Need a XO grip shifter and Front Der too.