Bike Build

Since my bike came to me in a number of boxes it was time to get the thing built. Now, I'm no slouch when it comes to working with my hands but it's less than a month away from my race and I don't have any time to learn the hard way. I also don't want to damage one of my new components due to my own ignorance... too expensive to replace and, with all the trouble Paul over at Ellsworth bikes went through battling back-orders just to get me parts in the first place, I figure I should enlist a pro to do the build. So I did. The guys over at Belgen Cycles (a.k.a Village Bicycle of Richmond) took great care of me. They worry about the stuff that matters and you don't need to worry about their prices.

In fact, I had scheduled the build for earlier in the week but due to my fork and brakes still being in transit, I called Gene and said I needed to cancel. He replied with a "don't worry about it, I'll keep you on the list.". A few days later my parts arrived and he fit me in the next day. How can you argue with that?
- Drew

Ellsworth Bikes

In a lot of ways, a bike is like a pair of shoes. The name, the price, the hype: they all color your expectations before you even try them on. Once you find one that fits, it's hard to let it go.

I've been riding the same bike longer than most wives will let their husbands hold on to their favorite pair of sneakers. So, when the guys over at Ellsworth bikes offered my adventure racing team a deal, I realized I had an offer too sweet to pass up. Not that it was an easy decision. There are not a lot of bike shops close to where we live in Vermont, let alone ones that have an Ellsworth built up.

I was working hard to compare bikes within my price range to the Ellsworth. The problem is that finding a built up Ellsworth to ride was not easy. Most of the time, I would find only the frame in a display (most likely to facilitate wiping the drool off) or they only had the beefier Moment or Epiphany built up on a large frame. Like trying on a pair of shoes too large, a bike too big on a different frame doesn't cut it. So, I demoed what I could, often a higher end Trek, Gary Fisher, Kona, or the like. The problem is trying to find comparisons online between these bikes and an Ellsworth. Let me save you some time: no one compares these bikes. Why? Its like comparing a Corvette with a Mazda Miata. The most common comparisons are made to Turner, Ibis, Santa Cruz, etc. so if you're looking to buy an Ellsworth skip to the chase and demo these bikes if you want to compare.
- Drew