Let's Make A Deal!

Last night I paid a visit to Munson to buy some more parts for my franken-cross bike. While there, I had Munson inspect the frame and headset. All was well until he noticed that the races (ball bearings) protrude a couple millimeters above the top tube. That's not good. Upon further examination, we discovered that there were not only small gouges along the opening, but the tube itself wasn't quite round.

Munson did his best to un-mitmon the thing. With a lot finagling of parts interspersed with sighs and other munson-esque exasperations, he finally concluded that the frame's headtube was simply messed up.

Then, like Monty Hall, Munson laid out the options for me: Keep it as-is, apply lots of force to get the headset in place and deal with potentially shoddy results. Or to take what's behind curtains 1, 2 or 3.


First, let's recap. I procured this never-been-ridden Scattante XRL cyclocross frame & carbon fork from Mike Miles for $50. As many of you know, Scattante is the in-house Performance Bike brand. The XRL is a cheap, basic frame; perfect for said Cross Noob. It lists at $499 retail, but is on-sale at $249. The frame has probably been on sale since they began stamping these things in China, but shhhh! let's keep that a secret among us. Anyway, Mike's savvy purchasing skills negotiated the price down even lower, to $100. I'm quite certain Performance didn't lose money on the sale, so they were happy. Miles was happy. I was happy. You see? Everybody's happy!

But after Munson's assessment, I was no longer happy. Then Miles was no longer happy when I called him about possibly sending it back to Performance.

Miles originally offered to give me the frame months ago. He had long since abandoned the project bike and didn't want the burden of lugging it around. Even more, giving it away relieved him of the liability that one day some cross noob would come back to him and say, "about that $50 frame you sold me..."

But I have this to say about riding on other people's stuff for free. I just can't do it. I imagine it's like wearing someone else's clothes. After months of usage, you'd return to the owner and say, 'are you gonna want this shirt back, 'cause in case you're wondering, it now has yellow pit stains that no amount of lye and a wire brush can take out.'

And so it's the same with bicycles. You can use it, abuse it, stain it, even throw it in the dumpster Fredcube-style when you've exhausted it. The point is that you don't have to question its ownership anymore.

That's why I'll either offer to pay for the bicycle/parts in cash or provide a quasi-bartering service as payment, such as pointing out that bike mechanics are like rats jumping from a sinking ship when Shim wheels his filthy bike in for maintenance. But in fairness to Shim, at least his 'ride isn't as jacked as Limpach's Madone when it's rolled in for an overhaul.

Back to last night. Appearing nonplussed, Munson stood patiently waiting for my answer. Oh yeah! Let's Make a Deal! Well, Monty, err Munson, I'll take what's behind curtain #1.

Curtain 1: reveals TrekStore Chris drinking a beer while filing down the Scattante's headtube's burrs after hours. Meanwhile, TrekStore Lucas is also drinking a beer while whacking the downtube's exterior with a mallet to get that really nice ISO-9000 compliant fit.

Curtain 2: reveals a donkey wearing a sash with the crocheted words, "IT IS WHAT IT IS"

Curtain 3: reveals an expenses NOT paid FedEx round trip to Performance Bike for more than the frame's worth in value.

While curtain #2 was tempting, I'm happy with #1.

What kind of beer would you like for your services Chris & Lucas?