Life's a Garden...Dig It!: Project Sleipnir

I've really gotten into biking lately. Love it. I commute when possible. I ride on the weekends by myself. I ride on the weekends with friends. I ride with my dog on trails. I ride by myself on trails. I ride during my lunch breaks with coworkers. I ride when it's wet. I ride when it's cold. I ride when it's ridic hot. I ride up all the hills. I ride into the wind. I ride into town for errands. I ride in the mud on purpose. When I'm not riding I'm probably thinking about riding. Or I'm talking about riding with people on the internet. I've ridden my bikes thousands of miles a year for at least the past couple of years, and that's a number I hope only goes up.

Bottom line
I love riding bikes. Always have.

The only real downside of riding is a problem I have with everything else in life (chairs, clothes, cars, shoes, etc.). Because I'm so tall I don't really fit well on anything you can just run out and buy at a store. I can get close mind you. But no matter which way you look at it, there's a difference between rolling up all your sleeves because they don't go all the way down to your wrists and having a shirt that just cuffs at your wrists instead of your forearms because it was tailored to you. And that's what I'm looking for in a bike. Sure I can ride just about any bike out there and I'll have fun, but there's always been a yearning for something that fits me right and from that yearning Project Sleipnir was born.

What is Project Sleipnir? Sleipnir is the Norse God Odin's horse. Sleipnir rode to Hel and back and kept his rider safe the entire trip. Sleipnir was huge. Sleipnir was the best of all the horses.

Huge, the best of all the others, and can take me safely to Hel and back. Sleipnir is what I am looking for in my future steed.

About mid-2011 the dream of building a bike that just fit took me and wouldn't let go. I wanted to make something that was uniquely mine and also a bit of a work of art and science. I certainly didn't want to just go grab something off the shelf and say, "This'll do." I wanted to be involved with the process from the ground up. This project comes to its completion in a week or two; therefore, I wanted to document a bit of the overall process that's consumed me for the past few months.

I'm going to break this story into the following chunks: