Nickie and I had come to the conclusion awhile back that an Xtracycle was a "when" type purchase, not an "if".
I had developed quite a distaste for some cheap panniers I'd purchased last fall. They had a propensity to hop off my rack on the bumpy winter road accumulation, or any bump for that matter.
Consequently I began looking into a nicer set with retention qualities. When analyzing the price of a good set of voluminous panniers like ortlieb's my wife pointed out that this was well on the way to an xtracycle kit which was on our eventual hit list.
Well one thing led to another and in the end we managed to thoroughly justify a Surly Big dummy and put money down on one earlier this week. Lucky us we happened to get our hands on one of the last ones available in the country.
It will be showing up this coming week and we'll be working towards setting it up for serious kid-toting, mountain going fun. Honestly at this age range for the kiddos, our chariot trailer still has many benefits for portage around town, but the Big Dummy makes trips into the mountains and up 4x4 roads much more doable.
My build out will incorporate:
Nuvinci CVP
Shimano disc dynamo hub
Alex DM24 rims
Schwalbe Marathon XR's (likely the 2.25" variety)
Winzip's Santana comissioned tandem disc brake for the rear
Avid BB7 for the front
My beloved Brooks Champion flyer saddle
Nitto Albatross bars
Chris King Headset
Phil Wood Bottom Bracket
Bobike Maxi + for carrying the younger kiddo, and a built-in seat on the snapdeck for the older kiddo
It should be in Tuesday of this coming week and once I've prepped the frame and started building I'll try to post some pics and progress up here.
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Nice to see another CO family going car-free. We left CO about 2 years ago for Minnesota and the funny thing is Longmont is particular. Feel free to email me, as I would like to know where abouts you reside in Longmont. We are working on going to one car and from there no cars. I am picking up a set of long and wide loaders today to help in the process.
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