So I had been meaning to shoot Colin’s Salsa Marrakesh 650b conversion for a while and when Brandon arrived in Tucson off bike tour on his 650b converted Trek 990, I knew it was time. To boot, both bikes were decked out in all black with sprinklings of delightful gold bike nerdy bits.  We went for a sunset shred around the Fantasy Island trails in the southeast of Tucson and touring bikes don’t hold either of these fellas back on the trails!

Colin’s Salsa Marrakesh

Colin built this Marrakesh up from a frame and with the frame accents already gold, he kept with the theme.  He kept his ear to the ground for a set of 90s CNC’d brake levers to pass through BICAS so he could properly deck out his bike with some Altek levers. Dura-Ace 7400 downtube shifters are made to play with a 42t cassette and a vintage 9-speed XTR derailleur via a Wolftooth Roadlink.  Gold hub shiners keep things clean and pentagram reflectors keep him safe. The frame now clears 27.5×2.4 tires, though smaller wheels do drop the BB height a little this hasn’t stopped Colin from clocking plenty of miles on the AZT with this rig.

Brandon’s Trek 990

This bike started out as a rim brake mtb that was converted to disc by Prairie Crow Bikeworks who also built the custom fork.  This rig is dripping in gold from the Thompson stem faceplate all way down the chain-link pins. White Industries, Paul, Thompson, and Velocity round out this heavily MUSA build. 8 beers into an evening, Brandon was peer pressured by his buddy to hammer in the White Industries headset, apparently, it went right in no problem. Brandon rode this bike to Tucson from Texas before spending a few weeks checking out the scene.

Both of these bikes get ridden and ridden hard.  These are not show bikes despite all the bling and fancy parts, they are just two beautiful bikes ridden by wonderful humans who love to delve into the details of building a bike up just the way they want.