New RIP9 in the house

After a few well documented ups and downs I finally got my new frame on Thursday. I was thinking about it a lot while in Canada - I asked the bike shop to call me as soon as the frame came in, just so I would know it made it - I was willing to pay the $0.89/minute for a call up there to get the update.

They never called, so as soon as I got on US soil (Chicago) on Wednesday I called the bike shop. They came back to the phone after putting me on hold and said "yep, it came in yesterday", score another miss for the bike shop. I told them I didn't want them to build it, which came as a big surprise to them, they told me on the phone they would start building tomorrow. This despite the fact that they didn't have the wheel conversion kit, the derailleur or the headset to do the job.

The bad thing about traveling is that while I'm away and concentrating on the meetings I'm in, no one else is doing my regular job. I looked at my schedule for Thursday and its booked completely solid from 9:00 straight to 5:30 - meaning I'd have to go get the bike after work. That's not that big of a deal, but it would mean I probably wouldn't get to start building until Friday. Luckily one of my calls got canceled and I had a free hour, just enough time to get down there and get back. As long as I didn't run into any problems with the bike shop I would be fine.

I got the bike without too much drama - they charged me $100 to do various things like stripping down my old bike (I could have done that, but that $25 was probably money well spent). I'm a bit upset they figured out a way to charge me for a warranty replacement bike, whatever.

I had the option of getting a black or a green frame, since my last bike was black, I went for the green - really happy with it. I strapped the frame in the back seat like it was a baby on its way home from the hospital

Ready to start: 

Guard installed: 

The build went ok, starting with putting in the headset and fork:

Then the cranks:

Almost done:

And complete:

I'll put up another post with my comments on the ride.

The build problems:

• Despite having a comp day off on Friday I ended up working 4 or 5 hours, which was frustrating. 
• I had some issues getting the brakes to center - I can't explain why the brakes wouldn't hold the calipers in place while I was tightening, but after futzing with it for a half hour got it done. 
• Converting the Hope hub from 135 to 142 - the Hope hub is about the simplest hub out there, five bearings, an axle and two end caps, how hard could it be. The conversion went flawlessly and was done in a matter of 30 minutes, but the wheel wouldn't freewheel. I took it apart and put it back together probably 5 times. I was about to bring it to a bike shop out of sheer frustration when I found a spacer that had popped out when I took the axle out - ugh, I wish I saw that piece. 
• Front derailleur - I ordered the wrong one, doh! I didn't realize there were two types of direct mount derailleurs, I got the one that has a slot and a bolt, when I needed the one that mounts on two posts. I probably should have researched this further, but even after I went back and looked at the RIP9 stats on the Niner page it wasn't very specific (as far as I can tell).  I ordered the right one, but I'll be riding it without it for now - think of it as manual shifting.