Beautiful Bicycle: My MKE Orange One in Cross Mode
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Beautiful Bicycle: My MKE Orange One in Cross Mode

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I’ll admit it. I’ve been a bad owner to this bike. For the past three months, it’s sat in my quiver with no handlebars and flat tires. When I got my Woodville, I kinda stopped riding the Orange One around as much as I should have but now with cross season rearing its ugly head, I scrambled to convert this ambiguous road bike into a dirt machine. Since there isn’t a whole lot of mud at the Dirt Derby here in town, I figured why not? Granted, this build isn’t up to par yet…

Check out more below!

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The first thing I upgraded was the cockpit.

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A new Thomson stem and some Salsa Cow Bells did the trick.

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The current tires are more for frozen soil and asphalt, so I’m swapping those out today before the race.

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Sweathogs!

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My smelly and trusty Turbo is back in action.

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Ah yes, the long reach calipers. There’s a reason for those. When I first got the Orange One, I opted out of the optional cantilever mounts, thinking this would be more of an around the town bike. Now, I really wish I had them! I’ll see how this week’s race goes and chances are, I’ll be sending this frame back to Milwaukee to get them added. There’s more than enough clearance for knobbies and since the UCI banned tires over 32c, I’ll be fine.

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This bike is a lot of fun. I was out all afternoon hitting curb jibs and bump-jumping tree roots. After adding the 175mm FSA Gossamer cranks, it’s a much better ride.

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Remember, it’s made in the USA!

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And you can build it however you want. There are tons of options. Check out a few more at my Flickr!