Goodbyeeeee

Just about to say goodbye to an old friend, I got my inbred in 2004, as I was building it up the wheel on my commuter imploded, the only other wheel I had was disc only and the commuter didn't have discs so the inbred started out rigid, flat bars, slick tyres, full mudguards, a proper road runner.....and it was ace, low CoG and sorted geometry meant carving round corners and through traffic was superb. After that i fixed it up for xc duties, a nod to lightness with a posh front wheel, road cassette, light tyres, bars, seatpost and saddle but a frame made of scaffold tubes and a coil fork (80mm fox) was never gonna be featherweight, I even tried it rigid and burks canondale FS was still lighter. But it was good, did a lot of local miles, extended commutes, an occasional 3 towers, it was dependable even tho the trails were normally tame. Parts were swapped around, the inbred normally getting the old stuff as I upgraded my full sussers.

In 2007 I decided to give singlespeeding a go and so this became my SSer, a decent stretched position for thrutching up hills and again got me out and about riding when the weather wasn't good enough for a "proper" ride. I put gears back on for hit the north and it was great, I rode everything the first couple of laps then as it got insanely slippy I had a few crashes but I got through it.

and yes that barrier is in the process of falling over and twatting my ankle.


After that it was back to SS duties, taken out in the rain and mud when I didn't wanna ruin my "good" bikes.

I did SSUK in 2009 where it was superb, not as nice as some of the bling niche stuff on display but it got me round quick enough and was faff free. SSEC 2010 was more of the same, solid dependable, puckeringly sketchy down the silly steep stuff but just right for climbs and swoopy singletrack.
It did lots more commuting

and plenty of dark winter nightrides but now it's quite battered and very bruised, lots of dents and scrapes and while it's still going OK I feel it's time to retire it, the blinglespeed's almost ready and I need to make room for it so it's off to the shed for the inbred....for a time. I want to set it up rigid SS for child portage duties but no room in the house and no ground anchor in the shed so it's moth balled for now. Hope to see it again soon, still the nicest looking frame I've had I reckon, skinny tubes in that pearlescent white, the chunky on-one and stylised inbred graphics, they might be common as muck but for the first few years I had it (before I started meeting strangers off the internet) I was the only person I knew who had one and I loved it. I've owned my heckler for longer and done more exciting things on it but the inbred due to it's versatility has done lots, lots more rides and miles.


I'm a sentimental old eejit.