Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Wait Conscious


I've always wanted an FBM Night Train. I was very close to buying one when they first came out, early in the decade, but circumstances dictated otherwise and it never happened. Sean Newton worked some magic and I am now the proud owner of a seven pound baby Night Train. I wanted to make the build special and I'm happy with how it came out. The Night Train has 3/8 dropouts so that presented a bit of a problem. A little hustling on my part and some bartering with Matt at Profile and I have a 13T, super-dialed cassette hub. If you saw the grinding pic a week or so ago, I was just cleaning the dropouts up a bit. Other key components are a 39T FBM race sprocket that Crandall gave me a few years ago. I shit you not, he was naked in a hotel room bed with a bunch of dudes around, casually talking, when he gave it to me. The bars are early FBM Apehangers in chrome, also a gift from Crandall on an awesome trip a couple years ago. The stem is an S&M Redneck that I did some handywork on and the forks are some insanely heavy Odyssey forks I've had for a long time. This bike is really heavy by today's standards. Even with the light wheels, this thing is an easy 30+. I rode Birdland with it today, for the first time since getting sick (and my subsequent muscle issues) and despite being a little sluggish when I tried to whip it around, it rode great. Low BB, semi-long rear end and mellower angles than a modern ride, but still very much a legit bike. I'll ride it more. The monster Cheng Shin on the front was great in the moist dirt of fall.
I want to say thank you to Sean for getting this bike for me. I have serious FBM pride and this bike makes me proud. I heart my bicycle.

3 comments:

Sean Newton photo said...

That thing is beyond awesome.

LOTUS said...

Very nice, I think I would feel very safe on that thing. Too many videos going around lately of people exploding frames... Scary. Frames are becoming too much like skateboard decks nowadays.

Anonymous said...

My buddy bones still rides one of these things that I gave gim when he snapped his PBR in like 2003. Its still going strong other than the ovalized headtube.

I loved these frames and I remember them being so clean looking compared to other frames of the time.