A custom titanium bike from Carl Strong of Strong Frames in Bozeman, Montana.  This is my second bike from Carl and he does a fantastic job.  If you're going to go custom, this is the person to go to.  Great workmanship, easy to deal with, and super reliable (which can be a hard thing to find in the custom world).  This bike replaced a first-year Salsa Mukluk.  There is absolutely no comparison between the two!

It's predominantly an XTR M9000 build but notably has Onyx hubs which doesn't have a freehub but is uses a sprag clutch and is absolutely silent.  Rims are HED carbon rims and the seat post is a throwback to the old days as is the saddle.

Of note is the finish work all of which was generated by yours truly.  I provided the patterns to Ollie Cleveland of Dark Matter Finishing.  He is a good guy to work with too and his workmanship is superb.  The designs were all generated by a program that I've been working on for some years now and created the patterns which were given to Ollie to put into reality  Ollie was able to use his skills and make the patterns come out perfect.  It really was amazing how well he made things work, especially how the designs wrap around the tubes and rims.  The tubes on the frame were polished and the patterns were used to create stencils which were applied to the frame.  The tubes were then garnet blasted to create the matte tone that contrasts with the polished tone.

The top tube uses a crystal growth program that created the needle-like patterns that wrap around the tube seamlessly.  The same design was applied to the rims which also wrap around seamlessly.  The front rim took the pattern and it was skewed by 40 degrees and the rear rim has a similar pattern that is distorted by gravitational fields.  This too wraps around but took a little extra work to wrap with the gravity fields.

The seatstays have a crystal growth pattern with a galaxy-like pattern while the fork, seat tube, chainstays, stem, and bars have snowflake patterns.  The snowflakes start out regular at the bottom of the fork and as they go higher, start to twist around.  Finally, the "Team Moosepoop" logo is done with a font that I designed and have used for many years but what is new on this is the sine wave pattern embedded into the letters.

The last six pictures are from Carl’s shop. From bare tubes to completion. Of note in these is the tubes that are attached to the bike in the frame stand (which is a notable piece of equipment by itself). These fill the tubes with argon. This is a gas that is inert and won’t interact with the frame as it’s welded and cools. Argon is flooding the outside of the weld and the argon from the hoses is protecting the welds on the tube’s interior.

One thing I remember about my first ride on this was was how silent it was.  No clicking from a freehub is something that is especially noticeable in the snow.  But what stuck out the most about the ride is how unremarkable it was.  The ride was so natural that I didn't even notice the bike.  After about five minutes, it was no longer my new bike...it was just my bike.  That's how good of a job Carl Strong did.