My second custom build from Dream Cycle, five years after my Salsa Vaya build. In the couple years prior I bounced between 700c (the Vaya, a Surly Ogre) and 26″ (Surly LHT) and finally landed on the goldilocks 650B wheel size, which, in retrospect, is pretty obviously the optimal size for my stature. I wish I realized about three bikes ago.
This was a bit of a higher end build than my Salsa Vaya spec, essentially my dream build at the time – a Campy Athena groupset, Compass Babyshoe tires, White Industries hubs, and so on. Sadly I wasn’t enlightened enough to go dynamo at the time, but that upgrade came later.
This bike brought me a lot of places, above is at Persephone brewing on a credit card style tour to visit my mom. It was a good bike, I liked it a lot but never quite felt fully satisfied with it either. All these parts were transferred to a Sam Hillborne frameset and that’s when the magic happened for me.
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