While John was in NorCal, working with Whit from Meriwether Cycles on the Ponderosa project and Shop Visit article, he managed to document Jay from Nevada City-based You Bet! Bicycle Sales and Service‘s custom steel 140 mm hardtail 29er. We reached out to Jay to see if he’d be willing to pen the story of how this bike came about and he delivered one great write-up. Let’s check it out, along with some stunning photos below…

I’ve always wanted a Meriwether ever since I saw the pink fat bike that Whit made for Nick Carmen. I loved the aesthetic, the name, and Whit’s attention to detail. In particular, I started to get the bug after seeing another bike Whit made for Abe Taylor, whom I befriended upon moving up to Nevada City. Nick Carmen recommended meeting Abe and riding with him since he was the local expert on flumes, trails, and all of the weird little side cuts that I was eager to learn.

Abe and I met up on a Sunday afternoon to link together some trails, and I couldn’t help but drool over the Meriwether hardtail he was riding. I kept asking him question after question about the design behind it, why he had a portage handle, what Whit was like to work with, etc. Abe is a big reason for the design of the bike I ended up going with. The legend continued to grow in my head.

Right after starting You Bet! Bicycle Sales & Service, We built a custom Meriwether adventure bike that our friend Matt Lingo designed with Whit. This was the first custom build we rolled out of the shop, and it resonated with me again. The bike was so perfect, so clean, so subtle but detailed. Matt (just like everyone else) had nothing but great things to say about Whit and his process.

Shortly after this, another customer looked at custom adventure bikes and considered buying a Moots or Lynskey. We told him that he should be thinking local and go talk to Whit, who was a 45-minute drive away. The conversation progressed, and again, we built up the second Meriwether adventure bike out of the shop a few months later. Whit decided to drop this one off in person, and I finally got to meet the man myself. Soft-spoken, gentle, and all the bike nerd you could ever want out of a frame builder!

I was excited to get an invitation to ride some of our local, high-country technical trails with Whit. We spent the day riding granite slabs and soaking in the sun, and after seeing Whit ripping my legs off on hardtail, I decided that I wanted….no NEEDED…a bike from him. I wanted the bike to look unique and was thinking of something like a modern klunker that could be used for regular trail riding and or single-track bikepacking. Whit dubbed the bike the “Klunkpacker,” and we decided a twin top tube with a bent “kicker” tube would complete the look.

The bike was meant to look retro but has some more modern trail bike geometry numbers like a 66º head tube angle and short-ish chainstay length of 415cm. We added some bolts to the head tube for a cabinet-style handle to support a front bag instead of using foam spacers. Mounts were also added all over the bike for water and gear storage. Triple bosses were added at an angle on the seatstays, which was a great idea from my colleague Abe (mentioned above), who has owned and revised several Meriwethers.

Triple bosses on the downtube inside the main triangle and externally for storage. Supports were added to the double top tube so we could add eyelets for an internally mounted frame bag made locally by Kurt at Beowulf Sewing (another bike touring legend you may have never heard of). Whit also added a little bit of a gusset mount at the top of the seatstay/seat tube junction for a custom rack that he built similar to a Salsa Minimalist rack.

The idea was to have as many MUSA parts on the bike as possible and to complete the klunker look, I chose Forager’s steel Oyster bars which have a slight rise and a crossbar with clear coated brazing. These mount to a 7/8” Paul Boxcar stem, which rides on a Petaluma, CA-made White Industries headset. Whit even made his first “Stem Stash” prototype for me out of titanium….what a nice surprise for New Bike Day!

The bike was painted by Oliver at Dark Matter Finishing and although the bike is steel, the bead blasted metal was clear coated to almost give a titanium finish. However, if you look closely, you can still see the color of the brazing coming through. Cane Creek eeWing titanium cranks were the obvious choice that matched the look of the frame. A 30t Wolf Tooth ring works great with a mechanical Shimano XTR drivetrain to also keep the silvery/gray look alive.

The wheels were built up using White Industry polished XMR+ hubs, Phil Wood Spokes, and WTB carbon CZR rims. The last little MUSA touches are the Engin seatpost clamp, Paul dropper lever, King Cages, and the Dynaplug Covert bar end plugs.

I believe this was Whit’s second twin top tube bike build, ever. I wanted to be a part of the process and I met Whit at his shop one afternoon to troubleshoot the tube bending required for the top tube/seat tube. It took a few hours of putting our heads together, but we got the tubes bent and cut, and I watched as he carefully tacked the frame together for further welding.

I felt so lucky to be in his shop, watching him work effortlessly and calmly to build me a bike that, on paper, I thought was going to be something special. We hung out for another hour, ate our burritos, hugged, and I was on the road to anxiously wait for a few more weeks for the finished product.

The first ride on a handbuilt bike is always fun, exciting, and nerve-wracking all at the same time. Did you make the right decision on your reach number? Were the tubes used too thick or thin? Is the head tube slack enough or even TOO slack? When you accounted for the dropper to be slammed in the frame, did it actually work out that way?

Of course, a few tweaks needed to be made with the fit here and there, but I was really quite amazed at how balanced the bike felt from the get-go. Stiff while climbing due to the extra kicker tube and twin top tubes. Stable and nimble on the descents from the short chainstay and slack head tube angle. And, extremely pleased with how Oliver painted the bike and Kurt at Beowulf Sewing matched the frame bag perfectly to the paint.

With some of the component choices and extra tubes and barnacles added to the frame, the bike does weigh more than your average XC racing hardtail. However, anytime I take the Klunkpacker out on a long ride I always feel alive while riding it and fresh towards the end of a ride.

While riding with John and Whit for this photoshoot, I commented to Whit,

“I’m not sure what kind of black magic you worked on this bike, but it rides like it weighs half as much as it does”. Whit responded with, “Well, you were right there, so you saw how I did it!”

We had a laugh, and I again felt very fortunate to be able to ride this amazing bike with the man who built it, an amazing photographer and storyteller whom I can call a friend, and do it all on some beautiful trails 45 minutes away from where the bike began its life.