New bike day is always a great day. But even better than new bike day, is custom new bike day. After painstakingly choosing each component, its specs, the colors, the sizes, when it all comes together just the way you wanted there’s really nothing better.
Kai worked with Minneapolis & St. Paul 3T dealer Now Bikes and Fitness to put together this Max build for the Lutsen 99er MTB race. An event that’s put on by the same organizers as the infamous Leadville 100 and it’s one of the premier endurance MTB events in the country. Kai’s idea was to use his RaceMax in Max mode to take on the rooty, rocky and lumpy course out in Minnesota’s Sawtooth mountains.
Was Kai under biked at times? Probably. But the course takes on fire roads and tarmac as well so on those sections he could take advantage of the aero benefits provided by the RaceMax.
The Build
Starting with the RaceMax frame, the custom paint on the RTP version was done over at Dirt Designs over in Bloomington, MN. Brad and the team over there helped realize Kai’s vision of a transfixing vortex gold with very stylish mulberry accents.
Attached to the mulberry accents is one of our favorite drivetrains, The Campagnolo Ekar groupset (check out available Exporo Ekar bikes here). It has great range to get over steep hills, but with its 9 tooth cog on the high end, it gives you a great advantage on the road.
No bike is complete without wheels and here the bike was dressed with Enve’s G27 650b rims, laced to i9 hubs with Berd spokes. Complimenting all that was a set of beefy but fast-rolling Schwalbe G-One 57mm wide tires.
Top all that off with the custom painted aero stem from Enve and you’ve got one sweet rig!
Kai worked with Now Bikes and Fitness to get this bike put together. If you’re in Minnesota please do drop in and say hi.