I finally own a mountain bike. Yayness for that! To start with, I know nuts about bike, not to mention about the bike parts, but over the past few months, with the help of a friend, Chu, I learned quite a fair bit in the hope to assemble a personal mountain bike at a reasonable cost.

I wanted a reasonable “good” bike, lightweight if possible. But I do not have a high budget for it. After some deliberation, I decided to put in some investment on the bike frame and the wheel set, and will probably upgrade the rest of the parts later. Well, I guess the other bike parts work well for now and likely for a good time, frankly, I am no expert in mountain biking, I probably cannot differentiate the performance of the parts, except that I could feel the weight of the bike 😀

Voodoo “Bokor One” frame

Chu helped me to identify some bike frames, and eventually, browsing online, I settled for a Voodoo “Bokor One” frame. When I saw the bike frame right before my eye, my jaw dropped. It has a mysterious feel, just as it described as “Voodoo Black Magic Aluminum”. I like the color, black!

Next was the wheel set. Highly recommended by Chu for me to get the American Classic MTB 26. I am just a follower, nevertheless, the 2011 series is really pretty, and it matches well with the black magic Bokor (matching colors are every part of a women’s life). To avoid over spending, I took over Chu’s old bike fork – heavy, but I am strong 🙂 (he had upgraded to a Rock Shox SID fork. 

Chic looking wheel – American Classic MTB 26

The bike is assembled at Gee Hin Chan (GHC), one of the oldest bike shops in Singapore (according to another friend, Yu Seung, the shop is in the hands of the 3rd generation. Impressive!). My bike currently weighs about 12kg, I would consider it as light compared to the bike I used to borrow from Siti. Moreover, I carry 15kg load on my shoulder to trek/climb, so 12kg sound relatively acceptable to me. Haha, well, I know it is not the same, but what’s the difference other than one number is bigger than the other? No big deal for me, at least not for now at my entry level.

So, with the intention not to spend too much on a mountain bike, the rest of the bike parts are on an economical scale, meaning, nothing too elaborate but good enough to get me paddling.

It has been raining since last evening. As I am typing now, the rain has been non-stop for the last 30hours. Despite the rain, I went on my maiden ride with my Bokor! It is really nice to see my new bike getting dirty in the rain rather than being a nice display piece at home.

Getting dirty =)

AM MTB 26 2010 (left) and 2011 series. Which do you prefer? 🙂