Bam Ba Lam!!!!!

For those of us who have the luxury to live and race CX in Colorado, we are familiar with Primus Mootry bikes and the legend of how Joe DePaemelaere once built two frames for Katie “10 bikes” Compton over a weekend. Over the years, Joe D. has been building a reputation as one of the finest one-man-with-a-torch-and-mad-skilz custom frame builders in the country. Joe builds bikes for all cycling disciplines, but his real specialty is CX frames.

At the end of last season, I decided that the Kona needed to be fired. I know, I know, a good carpenter never blames his tools.... but let’s face it, the Kona and I were always heading in different directions. It may still be kept on as a pit bike.... but that is it.

The Process -

So, right before Xmas last year, I dropped Joe and email telling him that I was interested in a PM frame. Joe immediately came back with a series of questions surrounding topics like riding style, injuries (I decided that for a cyclist, a separated shoulder does not really count as an injury since nearly half of us have one), frame materials, and others.

I had the distinct advantage of already doing a road frame design with one of Colorado’s fit gurus and could send those numbers to Joe for him to start with.

Shortly a return email with an initial frame design came my way. Along with it came a whole bevy of details on Primus Mootry CX frame philosophy. He covered topics from bottom bracket heights, to stem lengths for different size frames, to lateral stiffness of different materials, to whether a carbon rear is really worth it or not (hint: in CX you don’t choose a carbon rear thinking you need a more comfortable ride). We even got into the weight difference between an Aluminum and Steel and the fact that while it was relatively small (1.5lbs) it would make about a 8-10% difference when the bike was shouldered and ran with. The more I asked questions, the more Joe answered. Trust me, I asked a shit-load of questions. At one point we were down to what saddle I would be using and how the frame size would be effected.

I finally pulled the trigger and told Joe to build it. The wait time for a PM frame is currently running around 6-7 months. 6 months later, an email comes asking for paint decisions. I again started with the questions..... What can I get? Joes’s reply = Anything you want. I decided that in today’s world of bikes have some many decals that they look like a European hockey team, less is better. I told him to paint it black and just put a hot pink PM headbadge on it.

The Build -

I built it up with combination of SRAM, Easton and TRP components. The bike just naturally set up to be 1cm shorter in saddle tip to handlebar distance and 1cm higher in ground to handlebar height compared to my road bike. Damn! Dead nuts on what Joe said it would be!

How did we do?

Today was the first day of CX drills and Rich and I rolled down to the GP Betz course to start to knock off the off-season rust. But, before we started any dismount/re-mount drills, I had to throw the new bike through some tests to see if it was going to be all I had hoped. Test #1.... a steep uphill (20% grade) sprint. My thought being to put the frame under maximum torque to see how much it flexes. I once rode a GT mountain bike that I could torque enough to get it to shift three gears. However, not this Primus Mootry. Instead of frame flex, this bike simply climbed like a striped-ass ape.

So far, so good.... now for test #2.... how will it corner? For those of you who have followed this blog, you know my history with cornering the Kona and why it ended up getting fired. With that in mind, I took off across the grass field, built up some speed, unclipped the left foot (just in case, right?) and slammed it hard to the left. Holy Crap!!! Now that is how a bike should handle!

The 2009 CX season is rapidly approaching. I got the weight down to Clydesdale lite (Tom and I put a Clydesdale class in our races so all you little skinny bastards can kiss our butts, we are racin' Clydesdale!!!), I got the Lars Boom Experience Mullet started, and I got a new bike to race! Bring it on!

So, without further ado, I present....... Betty.