Thursday 04.10.2008

The absolute last touch to make the bike mountain- ready was to add a head tube badge. I selected a sparkly rhinestone princess crown, and there it is:

On closer inspection of the final product, Kyle cringed at all the bright sparkles in his garage...







Remember this was the original look:






Definitely the girliest MTB I've ever seen. Pinky is officially crowned & ready to ride!

Monday 04.07.2008

Finished bike!


Goes on it's first ride...

Monday 04.07.2008

Final build day!

Kyle bought the last two parts, a new back wheel and seat post, and we were ready to finish the bike.

The toothy metal cassette (9 gears!) was removed from the old wheel using a tool called a "chain whip" (shown below), and then the new wheel with smart-looking flattened spokes went on.


Then in order to put swap on a better derailleur, the chain had to be broken with a miniature tool called a "chain-breaker".



Last but not least, I wrapped on the velcro chainstay guard, which as it's name implies, protects the frame from the chain.


And the stinky pinky was ready to exit the garage!

Sunday 04.06.2008

After all the cables were put in place (held by more zip ties), it was time to tag the frame with stickers. The letter stickers were delicate & tricky to place, but they stood out very well against the pink frame!

The bike got it's original name: KONA Stinky Dee-Lux, and of course it's new name...

Sunday 04.06.2008

Ready to build...





It was time to steal all the parts off Kyle's downhill bike. The plastic zip ties were cut using a mini clippers, also called "dikes".






Toyota "Penetrating Lube" helped un-stick things.






Before actually using the stolen downhill goods, we had to make a few minor adjustments...

Shortening the fork (for a short rider!) using a pile of dremmel bits (because they wear out very quickly!)

Italian fork!







Smaller 250lb spring (for a lighter little person!)






Then I got the pedals on using a "pedal wrench":


And the Norco was left with only a chain:

Monday 03.31.2008

Over the past few weeks, my new bike had acquired lots of different names. I decided to put them all together: the stinky pinky baby llama.

The stinky pinky came back from its powder coating, completely covered in a thick glossy layer of hot pink paint... a color I'd previously thought was only fit for toenail polish. It was a surprisingly bright and surprisingly awesome looking.

The plan was to take all the parts off Kyle's downhill bike to build up the pinky. There's the Norco (it's brown) on the right side of this picture, before all it's parts were robbed...


The part in my left hand is called a swing arm. It had two little plastic bushings that melted away during powder coating, so they had to be re-created out of a metal rod!


Here's the pink frame, all ready to be built:

Thursday 3.27.2008

Early in the morning, Kyle dropped off the bike frame for its pink powder coating.