Birth and Death of a trusty steed...the final installment

My first truly nice bike, a 1993 Klein Rascal, was purchased the last week of November, 1996 from a shop called Colley Ave Bike Shop, in the Ghent section of Norfolk. It started off life as a geared, pimped out XTR rig, with the first flight of gun metal grey XTR components. Being that it predated V'brakes it lacked the necessary cable stop on the top tube to provide support for the brake/cable noodle. I initially tried running v front, canti back, but quickly decided that just wasn't going to work. Fortunately for me, the upstairs tennant of the bike shop, was a mad genious by the name of Gordon. He was able to braze on, and repaint my top tube so that I could run V's front and rear. The pictures just don't do his work justice. For anyone familiar with the buttery smooth welds of pre Trek Klein's, Gordon's work was so good if I didn't tell you it was after market you woudn't be able to discern the difference between the factory weld and what Gordon did. Since he had to repaint my top tube, I decided to add a personal touch in remembrance of my first mountain bike dog, Buck, so I had Gordon put that name of the top tube.

I ran it as a geared bike from 96-03 and that bike sustained more abuse than any alumimun hardtail ever should. It did EVERYTHING from downhill at Snowshoe, Whitetail, Sherando, and overseas, to XC, urban assault, DJ'ing, and even some pretty serious commuter/road bike duties. In the spring of 01 I purchased a full susser so the Buck was relagated to back up duties and a well deserved rest. It didn't sit for too long though as I was blessed with it having BURLY horizontal dropouts so it was quite easy to switch it over to SS duties. I managed to get one season out of it and even did the innaugural SS race at the TWMBC (Tidewater MtnBk Challenge) in 03.

In the summer of 04 I was riding with some friends at Harwood Mills back in the expert section. At the start of the ride I had heard some odd clicking/creakng noises, and had attempted to tighten everything that was loose thinking that that might have been the source of my problem. Well, unbeknownst to me, the down tube/head tube junction had suffered a stress crack, and THAT was the source of the noise. During the course of the ride this became devastatingly obvious. I was at the crest of this short up hill/down hill whoop-de-doo section when I heard this strange noise. I had just enough time to mention to my friend behind me, "did you hear that?", and then I committed to the down pump of the whoop-de-doo. Well that sound that I heard was my down tube/head tube separating, and at that point the only thing suspending my 220lb frame was a hopelessly overloaded tob tube about to be sheared right out of existence. In a blink of an eye, the bike simply evaporated underneathe me, and my momentum carried me through the frame and into the upward part of the wall on the whoop-de-doo. Needless to say, my leg/groin area pummeled the frame leaving a bruise that was ~ 13" long, and lasted about 3 months. Had I not been wearing the lycra, the shorts surely would have bloused out, caught the jagged edge of the sheared tube, and impaled my leg...not something I care to think about.
The attached picture is the end result of said failure.