Colin, like many of us, uses his ‘cross bike for racing only a fraction of the total time he spends riding it. When he grew tired of riding and racing production bikes that never quite fit him or his preferred style of shredding, he decided to go custom and began looking into Stinner Frameworks.

Since moving to Montana from Austin, TX, he’s been spending a lot of time exploring the many mountain roads neighboring Bozeman. He wanted a ‘cross bike with a slightly altered geometry that would still be able to hold its own at races, yet be fun and zippy on fireroads or singletrack. While a standard ‘cross bike might fit the bill, Colin’s been riding for so long that he’d developed a few particularities. First, he wanted to race the bike as a singlespeed but didn’t want to go with a slider dropout. He also wanted thru-axles. The simple fix for this is an eccentric bottom bracket which would give him the right chain tension, easily. Then once the race season was over, he could put a 1x group on the bike and take off into the woods. He raced it for a season as a singlespeed and then upgraded to a new group.

The problem is, while switching a group over from an older bike, his rear brake line was too short and no one in town, nor the neighboring towns, nor the damn mail order companies had the damn part in stock. Keep in mind, this switch-out was happening the day before he was leaving Montana for a bikepacking trip down the Pacific Coast. Way to wait ’til the last minute dude! So now, he has a brake line that even as a photographer, was painful to photograph, much less ride behind or next to. I kept thinking the damn thing was going to rip off the caliper and spray me with hydro fluid, yet it’s still in place.

While it’s not an ideal photo, or an ideal brake line setup, the bike made it down the coast to Los Angeles just fine, where we’ve been riding local dirt. Yesterday, I shot some photos of it in the early morning light. Don’t worry, the part is en route to Colin shortly, after a lengthy delay from the Holidays…

Looking past the brake lining, we see Industry Nine hubs laced to an eBay Chinese carbon rim, with a Hope cassette expander, TRP’s thru-axle disc ‘cross fork, SRAM X9 derailleur, ENVE parts throughout, WTB Nano 40mm tires and that sweet, sweet Stinner steel. My favorite detail? The paint! I absolutely love what Stinner is doing in-house and it almost distracts even me from the brake line.

Almost…