New Bike, Old Trails Differently

After riding a bike that was not the right size for a long time, I was lucky enough to be able to put together a new bike- on a slight budget, but made it work. I'm a believer in picking the bike that suits the rides you do most, and so since 1) I live in an apartment and wanted an easy-maintenance bike and 2) My morning rides are 20-30km and only max 200m climbing, I set my sights on a single speed frame.

Luckily, I was able to get a Salsa Stormchaser frame for a steal, and so I built up this simple machine to take me back out on some trails I know well, but in a very different style. On weekends I'm able to get out and tackle much longer rides with a lot more climbing, so I took it out and really enjoyed the challenge. I can tell this is gonna be fun, and make me fitter/less of a fatty.

Some build details-

Wheels are Mavic Allroad 700c

Running 38T up front and 17T at the back- so far, this has been the sweet spot.

Levers are TRP RRL SRs- super comfortable. I'd originally wanted to use some Juintech R1s I had lying about, but in the end I decided not to faff about with finding the right adapters to get them onto the flatmount frame and I stuck on some TRP Spyres- so far, so good! Compressionless housing has been key.

Tyres are Tufo Swamperos in 44mm, soon I'll switch over to Thunderos in 48mm, as the Thunderos I used to run in 40mm on the old bike were superb. Swamperos have impressed too.

In the future, if I feel like doing any events I'll stick in an electronic shifting set up, since the frame can run both SS and geared. Something like the Wheeltop MTB RD + shifter, maybe with 650Bs on too.