stooge is the new crust.
crust is the new surly.
surly is the new state.
state is the new bikesdirect.
welcome to the future, things are awful.
30 Likes
Maybe… except I have never seen a cracked Stooge and they don’t have toe overlap 
2 Likes
so get a state is what i’m hearing
7 Likes
I’m going to post a bike every time I take it out of storage to ride a handful of times before and during an event. This was my second dropbar hardtail I put together in 2017, which received a fork upgrade in 2024 but otherwise remains mostly the same. Including today, I’ve ridden this bike 4 times in the past 10 months and will be riding it at Fool’s Gold 54 this weekend, with is a MTB race that has a lot of technical singletrack and long fast gravel descents.
I should have brought it home weeks ago to ride and acclimate but the event requires flat bars if the rain route is used and I couldn’t commit to an event that I might not be able to ride until the weather looked good, which was this week. I think I can set my expectations appropriately.
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Goated fenders
1 Like
but how does it ride?
oh i have no idea. i dont ride bikes.
24 Likes
pedals are the best bit atmo
4 Likes
I don’t know how I feel about the look of this fork on this bike.
I like how the fork looks on its own, and the fact that it’s generally “period correct” being an early Kestrel EMS. Better than the Time Stiletto I had on previously. I like how it kinda has the look of a normal fork while being carbon.
Looks aside, it feels great. No toe overlap is nice, and it’s so smooth. It also raises the front end a touch and the rake makes things very … relaxed, which I like and don’t like at the same time. It’s nowhere near as “nimble” as before, but it just cruises now. I can feel the slight rise in the front end, and I’d by lying if I said I didn’t like it. Maybe I need to raise my stem a couple mm.
I really need to get my “real” front wheel built up though. Kinda getting tired of looking at the sp0k.
The only reason I even have this crabon fork on there is because the original one got bent inward, so I stopped riding it. LBS says they can straighten it out, but I also wanted to try out a carbon fork so I went down that rabbit hole. Lots of “dithering” I guess is what we’re saying these days.
Also, new headset day!
This HS7-RE has been on the shelf for like 3 years probably. I don’t know why I procrastinated, but let me tell ya - a headset removal tool and press are worth it. The cheap ones off Amazon are totally fine.
The crown race is actually the race from my previous, older Record headset, which is not 100% like for like, which is why you see it peeking out at the bottom. The raceway profile is identical between the old and new Record headsets, but the overall crown race ring is a little thicker, so it increases stack height, but not enough to make a difference. On top of that, I’ll of course only ever have that crown race on this carbon fork, so the steerer is cut appropriately for this stack height. It’s like 1 or 2mm different though so even if I matched the stock steerer length it probably would have been fine. I just didn’t want to be swapping over crown races which is why I didn’t put the new one on this fork.
One of these days I’ll get the original fork sorted out or source a replacement, get the wheel laced, put drops back on and have this thing set up as god intended, and maybe eventually I’ll get a road bike with gears like I’ve been saying I’m gonna do for like 10 years, and put the Kestrel fork on that.
13 Likes
I think it’d look pretty rad with a front wheel that matches the rear, rather than the Spok
3 Likes
yep, I have the hoop and hub ready to go .. just need to do it.
It’s been 3 years since I sourced the hub!
it’s definitely too much black up front for my taste. like the trispoke is fun, I always wanted one and like how it looks (with the stock fork), but it was never meant to be on the bike this long continuously. just a novelty wheel for the tarck vibes.
Do you have time to talk about our ursus and savior Merry Sales?
1 Like
They’ve been pivoting away from retro-grouch stuff for a while. This fork has been OOS for a couple years I think.
that’s a fine fork for sure, but if it’s gonna be steel, it’s gotta be Italiano .. ehhh!
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Feel like the fork needs a little splash of celeste as well to balance things.
It says they have 170 and 200 mm in chrome?
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Exactly. Re: fixing my stock fork, one shop said “oh yeah no problem we can unbend it” but another one was like “mmmmmm i dont know … it wont really be the same, you should probably replace it” just mixed messages all over, even on the internets.
I also gotta get this damn Flite off there and go back to my Rolls. My butt hates it!