Monstercross!

Sorry about the crap lighting on the picture. I suck with the camera.

This is Paul's new fat-tire cyclocross (ie, "monstercross" or "drop bar 29er") bike. I rarely do these, because most folks are put off by the toe overlap issue (if you want drop bars, and you're not HUGE, running 29er tires generally results in a load of toe overlap). In this case, though, Paul just wants to do some dirt road exploring and maybe some light loaded offroad touring.

IMO, drop bars are great for that kind of stuff, and absolutely terrible for riding singletrack. I remember doing the old Sandia Crest series back in the late 90s and being really intimidated by Hawke Morgan, because he was riding drop bars on his mountain bike and looked all old-school and crazy (he was also on one of his brother Alex's ahead-of-their time but incredibly fragile custom carbon frames). Then after I dropped the living crap out of him on the first descent, I wasn't so impressed anymore.

But I digress.

There's a matching fork (not pictured).

I'll also note that I have fallen deeply in love with the new(ish) Paragon low-mount disc dropouts. So clean, so easy to build with, so nice looking, really not that expensive, and only 20g or so heavier for the whole shebang. Great stuff.

Now if Mark would only make a version with an integrated steel derailleur hanger, and post mounts, I'd be in heaven!