Reader’s Ride(s) – Todd’s Story About a Custom Carbon Beargrease

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Todd sent in this story about a custom Salsa Carbon Beargrease build that he suggested to one of his physical therapy clients. Here it is in his own words!

I work as a physical therapist, including part time at a bike shop, http://www.westhillshop.com/. One of my clients injured his knee and as part of the rehab he wanted to start riding the trails near his home and work. He has a very nice collection of road bikes and has preferred road biking. We wanted to build up a bike for him that would be light, simple and surefooted, so a fat-bike was the logical choice. Along the way we decided on a custom paint job inspired by one of his companies: http://www.symbotic.com/

The bike was built by David Robb, manager at West Hill Shop. I had the vision of a carbon fat-bike with light wheels, Di2 and a dropper post. David made it happen, especially with the cable routing. Although the Salsa Carbon Beargrease is not technically a Di2 compatible frame, he was able to run fairly clean, mostly internal Di2 cable routing by using a steerer tube mounted battery, along with Shimano’s PRO Tharsis XC Di2 friendly stem and running a single e-tube from system display which also acts as a junction box, directly to the rear derailleur. A single 28t narrow-wide ring further simplified the setup. As pictured it’s 23.5 pounds.

The paint was done by Hot Tubes: http://www.hottubes.com/

Build Highlights:

• Salsa Beargrease Carbon frame, custom painted by Hot Tubes
• HED Big Deal rims with I9 hubs
• Shimano XTR 9000 group
• RaceFace Next SL cranks
• Thomson Dropper