As you have seen from previous posts, Crook was my Cinelli Mash fixie build, which had an expressed purpose: it was my ride for Aids Lifecycle. When I bought and built it, my vision was just to build the fixie I could do the MOST on… the longest days, the best climbs, the most agility, etc. So, it was done up with road drops, ridden for a few months before the ride (about 400 miles) and then on ALC 9 from SF to LA (another 570 miles)…

But something changed, along that preparation period before ALC. I found my initial rejection of the green limited edition version of this frame turning from dislike to interest. I couldn’t shake it. And then I had the idea: ride the gray ghost to LA, then have a metamorphosis to the green. So I took a risk on the green frame, site unseen, and ordered it before I left.

My initial plan was to come home, strip the bike, assemble the new one, then ride up to the city and meet Lung later that week with the surprise build. I had kept my plan a secret. The frame was shipped to my office while we were on the ride. All was well.

Until I got it home the day after we returned. The frame itself was gorgeous. The color is indescribable, and no pics do it justice. But the fork had carbon damage at the crown, painted over by the factory. Unacceptable! So I had to wait several weeks to get this resolved through my guys at City Grounds (zack is awesome, I say) and an understaffed Cinelli US crew. Ultimately, I got the replacement fork, and discovered the crown race was missing. We got that sorted, and I received the race in the mail last Friday, just in time to finish the build before Lung would arrive that Sunday for a birthday ride. The build was done from the back forward, but the front end was waiting on that race.

The ride is a dream, and you can see the Bio of the bike here.

Below are my process pics from the conversion, which involved using the original Crook bottom end, and a new top end.

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Unfortunately, the photos of the frame unboxing and the back end assembly were largely lost to a bad SD card. However, imagine me pulling a brilliant frame from the box and squeeing. The green is this iridescent color… not quite flaked, but shimmery. And more importantly, it’s a warm green, not a cold green. It’s paired with a creamy opaque white, a look I’ve always loved, going back to my one-time plans to white-paint-dip a stained-wood raw coffee table top for a project years ago. I love that look.

First, the original Crook was stripped to the bones, for sale to a fellow who was heading to San Diego fixed in a pursuit of folly similar to our fixed-gear Aids Lifecycle endeavors. How’s THAT for synchronicity! Last shot of Crook 1.0′s frame.

While waiting for the fork situation to be resolved, I dragged everything up to the deck for the extrusion shot (using the damaged fork, because hey.) and then decided to do the back end build work up there, while simultaneously BBQing and hanging out with wee Z. Here’s proof.

Here’s a close-up of that damage to the fork. Not a MASSIVE deal, but the concern I had was two-fold: one, the top surface of the crown is unpainted, so it’s visible in the gap between the frame and fork. This would be more obvious as a result. And two, it’s not like it was a sealed defect. That’s the EDGE of the paint. It’ll fray.

That was never fully resolved at the time of this writing. My boys at City Grounds took up the effort in dealing with Cinelli on that front, as weeks had gone by without any fruitful response from the manufacturer. It will be an argument over manufacturing damage vs shop damage. I believe manufacturing. In the meantime, as these weeks went by, my Crook parts hanging on the bikeBasement pegboards like those trophy skulls int he Predator ship, Lung was fast at acquiring and gleefully riding his new Cinelli cockpit. I was dying. I prayed he wouldn’t have a similar issue, like opening the box and finding his bars twisted into the shape of a rhombus or something. They weren’t. Gorgeous bars!

So as I mentioned, the bottom end was remaining from Crook 1.0. These were all new parts before ALC, right, so this transformation was to swap out frames, and the top end changes were largely cosmetic, except for the bars. So I kept my wheels, tyres, cranks, pedals, cog, brake… well, new chain, but other than that, same same. For the new stuff, the idea was to have chrome up top, black down below. I could have done all black, but the few green builds I see on the supernet go all black in the components or in one case all silver. So, in keeping with the ‘dipped’ theme of the white on the frame, the top end was dipped silver. Conceptually. Here wee Z is carefully scrutinizing some small gifts for manufacturing errors. That’s a shim set for the Nitto bars (unfortunately a necessity), a star nut and a special awesome Thomson solver stem cap. I used Nitto RB-021 compact bulls on this build, since the road drop necessity of ALC was over. I sourced a sweet silver cross lever directly from Paul Comp, too. Awesome. Same stem and seatpost, both Thomson, just now in silver. I used a shorty stem this time, feeling like going compact would get me into the bulls’ drop position easier. This is still pending final approval, as on the road it may be too close to me in this configuration, putting too much pressure on my arms. The saddle is one of my Brooks, already broken in, and the wrap is elkhide.

Here’s one Lung will like. Once I finally got my crown, I built my own crown race setter. And by built, I mean I had the hardware stoe cut me a big section of 1 1/2" black PVC. Tappity tap tap!
Look at that, saved $100 right there!

To me, the scariest step is cutting the steerer. On Crook 1.0, I left about 5mm extra, ringed with a final spacer above the stem, anticipating needing some height adjustment on ALC as I went. Didn’t end up needing it. Plus, this time, the bars are compact, so the taller the stem, the closer they are. Anyway, measure TWICE cut once, here at chez Wrongrobot.

Setting the star nut is actually kind of fun. Whamma bamma.

Here the bike is ready for wrapping. The Paul lever is installed on the thicker portion of the bars, as far over as possible to minimize cable housing scrape on the sharp curve of the X2 front end. This would be the slowest step, wrapping the bike up (literally) taking me from Friday night after getting back from Lung’s birthday party, through Saturday and into the next evening.

The elkhide is really interesting. It’s stretchier than calf hide, and is more porous, shows more defects. It’s really rad though. I had started with a lighter color that purported to match the Brooks honey color saddle, but was too tan, so i sent that back and got the darker brown, which matched perfectly. I used something close to a baseball glove stitch. I had no experience with this. You use one thick waxed cord with two stubby needles, and work from the stem outward. I’d get three good stitches and then a fail, distracted by my baby hurtling herself off of something or Anne Hathaway on film or whatever. But it wasn’t arduous. Just required time to get right. Go slowly, etc. In practice, on the road the wrap slips a bit as it’s stretchy and you apply so much force with your hands, so it pulled away a bit from the edges where they started, but still good. Will take some miles to settle in. Easily the most gorgeous bar covering I’ve ever had.

And with that, Crook Type 3 was born. We rode Paradise Loop under windy conditions, and it was a dream. I have some adjustments to make, reducing the inchgear down to the more universal 72 from 75, and some messing around with seat and stem position, but overall, love it. LOVE iot.

So that’s the story of how Crook became Crook Type 3 in a post-ALC transformation!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Team Lope Bike Bio: Crook Type 3
2. Bike Build Process Log: Crook – Front End Work
3. Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Strippery!

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