Now, Christian has a lot of bikes and bike stuff, and that is an understatement. This time, Christian brought his latest addition, a Canfield Brothers, the One, mountain bike. An interesting 7-8 inch travel frame that climbs like an XC bike, but can handle the big stuff when your on the way down. Christians bike is well set up, with an X-Fusion front fork and an Elka rear shock along with a nice spec of Shimano and SRAM components as well as a killer set of Canfield wheels.
The question you might have is, why is the bike in the shop. What's going on. Well, unfortunately, when the bike is built up, the fork will hit the down tube. Christian gave us an Acros Blocklock headset that is, in theory, designed to keep the fork from hitting the frame. However, Edgar found this to be different. The fork would still hit the frame. Edgar, like many Sr. mechanics I know, pulled out his Re-Engineering Hat, put it on and went to work. As simple as this sounds, Edgar added a few bearings and made it work. This is where it gets a little more fun.
The insecure side of me came out and decided to call Canfield Brothers direct. I ended up getting Chris Canfield, the owner of the company and explained the situation, and asked him about our solution. I would say Chris approved, saying that this is a normal issue with the frame, but that normally people would stuff extra bumbers in the headset if available, but Edgar's solution sounded pretty spot on. The interesting part of this conversation was, that Chris happened to be in town and so I told him that I thought Christian would get a kick out of meeting him and possibly be able to get a ride in or two. I proceeded to hook him up with Christians contact info (something I never do, but felt that I could make an exception) and left it at that.
A little later in the day, Christian calls and asks if I am available for dinner. Really. One phone call, a problem fixed, and I get dinner. No, Chris was coming down with some friends and, Christian, our friend Napoleon, and myself were going out to eat. I suggested the Tied House in Mountain View and off we went.
Dinner was awesome and so was the beer, but the real kick, was to talk to a couple of pro hill downhill riders (Did I mention Chris brought some friends) and just take in the knowledge of someone who has ridden, liked, disliked, and loved mountain biking so much, that he had a clear picture of how a mountain bike should not only ride, but handle. Discussing the in's and out's of suspension and suspension frame designs, keying in on the riding features of frames that I had had also ridden in the past and why his bike rocks. Of course, I will need to ride the bike for myself to be sure.
It was a fun night, and everyone did have a good time. Chris could not have been more pleasant as well as his two friends, Kristin and Mollie. I will have to rank this as a real cool moment in time, for so much to happen because of a bike and one phone call. Bikes bring people from all over, together, either for a ride, to swap stories, or just to hang out and drink beer. Support your local bike shop. You never know who you might run into.
