19.6 LBS!!!

The Niner carbon fork is on and my bike is now sub 20 lbs (yes, that is with pedals and bottle cages and my new mountain pump bracket)!!!  As it turns out, the squishy fork I took off was cut too short and, according to Tyler, not safe to run on my bike!!!  Now I am fully committed to a fully rigid Cohutta.  Thank you Lord for keeping me safe up till now with that old fork!!  I had been battling a persistent creaking from the head tube area and now I know why.  It is a long story as to why the steer tube was cut too short and I will take my share of the blame but not all of it.   After all, I did not do the cutting!!  Tyler also found that my chain ring bolts were sheering off and replaced them with steel bolts instead of aluminum for strength.  This sheering should not happen again.  I can just imagine being at mile 60 of Cohutta and having my chain ring come flying off!!  Wow!  DNF all over again.  While they had it there in the shop everything was checked out and is good to go.  I feel much better!!  Now if I can get the motor running good for this bike, there is a chance I can finish this race!!

This fuzzy picture is of one of the chain ring bolts that is almost snapped off!

The finished product, race ready

I am running a few extra spacers because I have another stem I may swap  on that is a little wider profile than this one.    Once I decide on the stem I will trim it down a bit.