Just in time for the elections

I'm flying my new Independent flag proudly. It celebrates my just finished lime Ti Crown Jewel with a new Campy 11 speed Super Record gruppo.

I've been finished for a few days now, but I had a pesky chain issue to deal with. Franky, I'm too cheap to spend $300 on a new 11-speed chain tool, so I made do with a 10-speed universal connector from SRAM. It's 5.9mm wide, whereas the new Campy chain is only 5.5mm wide. Problems? Nah, it seems to work fine. No skipped gears, no loud noises. Overall, I'm pretty happy - and the part was only $3.99 at the local Performance. I gotta say, I thought the frame was a bit flash at first, but the lime color is growing on me. My sherbert bike, as Kate likes to call it. To play up the flash, I had gold Nokon cables installed on the bike briefly, but the overall look was pretty scary. The black ones look much better.




This bike formerly belonged to Matt Bracken, the recent president of Independent Fabrication who is now with Pedros. Anyway, it's a 2004 model. He probably got a new frame or 2 every year when he was at IF.

... which got me to thinking about all the IF bikes I've owned over the years. Hmmm... Here they are in no particular order:

2005 Ti Crown Jewel in Team Colors. Built with Campagnolo Record gruppo. This has been my main ride for the past 3 years.


2006 Ti Crown Jewel in Omaha Orange. Built with a Shimano Dura Ace gruppo.


2005 Ti Planet Cross Single Speed. 3/4 White with Lime Green Flames and bare Ti panels. With a Reynolds carbon cross fork. I built this one up in the spirit of the old Ibis Scorcher. It had White Bros. Eno hubs and crankset, Paul brakes, Chris King wheels that came from Stacey Peters old cross bike, and a Jeff Jones titanium H-Bar and cork grips to top it all off.


2005 Ti Planet Cross. I originally purchased this frame to build into a commuter, because it had fender and rack eyelets. But the top tube was way too short.


2005 Ti Deluxe. I wish I still had this one. A really clean, bare ti hardtail. Disk brakes only. And a decal head tube decal instead of the sterling silver head badge.


I also had a couple of steel Crown Jewels and Deluxes dating back to 1997, but I can't seem to find those pics. That's too bad, since the steel frames all had really nice paint jobs.