Drop that Karate Monkey!

I was pretty darn satisfied with my drop bar Rockhopper, which of course meant it was time to pull it apart and use the parts elsewhere. I've had a hankering for a drop bar mountain bike lately. I thought the KM would stretch me out too far, but the Tape Measure of Truth told me it could actually be a bit shorter than the Rockhopper, with the right stem. So time to get to it:

I'm in a fit of downsizing, so I'm also planning for my KM to take over my fixed gear duties. I don't ride fixed much these days, so this should be good enough:

Fat slicks on a spare wheelset make for a pretty easy changeover. I put two rings up front, so I can quickly move from my 32x20 mountain gear to a usable 36x15 road gear... but I had to put the "big" ring on the outside to get my chainline to work:

Works fine so far, but I need a stretch of decent weather without kid's soccer to give it a real go.

The drop bar on my Monkey means my Rockhopper goes back to an upright townie setup, because that's what you do with old steel mountain bike frames:

In my downsizing fit, I thought this RH could replace my Trek 650b, but this Trek just rides too nicely to get rid of. It's like a new interpretation of the Bridgestone CB Zip:

With the KM as a fixed gear, I've posted my other old Trek up for sale. I'm actually working my way towards posting the Jones for sale as well, but I'm not quite there yet. I'm starting to fall out of love with 29+, I guess. It's just a bit too much mass for the quick turns I like to do on our local trails.

This downsizing trend will probably end soon, however: I have a few titanium frames in my ebay watch list right now.