getting squishy

Christmas came early this year, well not really but it kinda felt like it after Melinda and I left the bike shop with some new goods. I've been pushing Melinda for a couple of weeks now to pick out a set of hydraulic brakes and after some indecisiveness I took her down to the local shop and showed her the catalog. It didn't take long for her to make her decision once she saw red & black. A new set of Avid Elixer CR's, I was impressed and jealous. She went from BB5's to the new Elixers with no stopping in between. I flipped a few more pages and found what I was looking for, some squish for the KM.
A few months ago I swapped the Reba fork off the Mamasita and put it on the Monkey just to see how it felt. Never having ridden the Monkey wish the squish I wasn't sure how it would feel being a singlespeed. I'd heard you were better off staying fully rigid but I was seeing so many people out on the trail running their 29er SS's with a squishy fork and they seemed to like it just fine.
After I bought the Mamasita and got used to bombing down trails at a much faster speed than I could on the KM, the wheels started turning. I only left the Reba on the KM for one ride realizing that I was just teasing myself because I really couldn't afford to buy another fork at the time.
Well things changed and it just so happened that I ran into a little extra $$ and the search began for the best deal I could find. It just so happened that the best deal was found at my local bike shop.
Last Thurs night the transformation began with Melinda's new brakes.




I'm not sure if Melinda really understands how nice a set of brakes she just got or if she really doesn't care as long as it matches nicely. I can't blame her, they do look really sweet.





No more trailside brake repairs anytime soon in my future, at least not on her bike.
Next up was the Karate Monkey, I tossed around the idea of putting the new Reba on the Mamasita since it has some red pinstripping in it and the old one is all black and silver. After some careful consideration and weighing out the pros & cons Melinda said Dale Earnhardt Sr. would not be upset if I added a little red to the all black and silver color scheme. In fact I think I remember seeing some red highlights on his car.

The only issue I was having now was the weight factor, the KM used to be the lightest bike in the fat tire stable but with the addition of the new Reba that title is now held by the Mamasita. I did remove the beefy Panaracer 2.3 up front in favor of a skinnier Maxxis tire that would have made Alan smile last year.