Wild card custom mtb build

Believe it or not, this bike started as a parts bin bike!

I had a too good to refuse type deal on a Santa Cruz Chameleon frame, so started collecting parts while I waited for it to arrive. My other mountain bike is an OLD Vassago Jabberwocky singlespeed, which I knew wouldn’t last forever so I wanted another in the mix. A few weeks went by and things ended up not working out with the Chameleon frame, leaving me with a pile of parts and no frame. Oops.

During this time I had worked with Jay Sandefur of Wild Card Bicycles in Opelika, AL on a singlespeed hardtail for one of my bike fit customers. The bike came in and was built up, so I made sure to take it for a ride after I checked the fit measurements. Well, hello… it rode nice enough I emailed Jay to put me on the list for a frame. Jay’s frames are custom as custom gets so I sent Jay some must haves and trusted him on the geometry. 

My goal for this bike was a bike well suited for big, climby, technical rides. This means something enjoyable to climb AND descend with. Given our twisty singletrack around here, I also wanted something fun for weaving through the trees. I ended up going kind of wild on the parts, but I also have the intention of this being a bike I keep a LONG time! Everything, and I mean everything, was carefully picked. 

I ended up building most of the bike with Jay at his shop in Opelika, which was honestly a dream come true for a long time bike geek like myself. The bike is as fun as it looks! I will leave you with a parts list and some more photos to check out below…

▪️Wild Card custom frame. Dedacciai double butted steel tubing with Paragon Machine Works sliding dropouts for geared or SS use. Two bottle mounts and full internal routing for rear brake and dropper post. Straight 44 millimeter head tube and 73 millimeter T47 bottom bracket shell. Paragon combo titanium slider hardware and Paragon bolt on thru axles. The paint color is called Lipstick.

▪️Fox F34 130 mm 29er fork 

▪️Cane Creek 110 headset and Hellbender 70 bottom bracket 

▪️SRAM XX1 175mm crank with Quarq power meter. Pedals are plain old Shimano 540s. 

▪️Singlespeed setup with 34 tooth Wolftooth ring and 21 tooth Boone Technologies titanium cog

▪️KMC X11 chain stripped and waxed with Silca hot melt. 

▪️Bontrager Kovee RSL wheels with Maxxis Rekon and Rekon Race 29 x 2.4 tires. Orange Seal Endurance formula and Reserve Fillmore tubeless valves. Both tires are Maxxis WideTrail designation to jive well with wide rims. 

▪️XT 2 piston brakes with 180 mm centerlock XT rotors and metal pads

▪️Fox Transfer dropper post with WTB Volt saddle with ti rails and Wolf Tooth post clamp 

▪️Paul Comp Boxcar stem with Santa Cruz flat bar cut to 730 mm and ESI grips. Bars and stem are 31.8 mm clamp diameter

▪️Weight is 23-24 pounds and the ride and handling are really great! It’s fun on downhill but still capable on steep climbs and switchbacks without feeling like a boat. 

To better describe it…think of an Epic Evo or Blur TR in hardtail form. 

It’s fine: A collection of short stories about rick karrasch.

September 19, 2022.

What a weird day. My dad Rick Karrasch passed pretty suddenly this morning out in Oregon. He felt weird, so my sis and stepmom took him to the hospital.

He made some jokes about the imaging machine with hospital staff and not long after, his heart stopped. He went out like many aspire to, quick and without suffering.

Dad was never an advocate of perfect health and by this point, I think he has had some deal with neighborhood cats to borrow lives, as he has been well past his personal nine for YEARS!

I wear my feelings on my sleeve as many know, so I’m obviously pretty damn sad. Just the way it is. Never had a poker face and never will.

Anyway.

I left work early, ate one piece of cold pizza and rode a few hours. Straight to bonk city. Didn’t bring enough water either. I did get a good picture of a 2nd Gen Dodge Caravan. He wasn’t one to overly plan things and I think would have appreciated all of it. Seemed right. Felt good.

I’ll throw in one of my favorite Rick stories as he loved telling stories haha.

He passed his Ford Ranger to me when I turned 16. It was a 93 Extra cab with a 5 speed MT and the 4.0 V6.

Like most 16 year old kids I was an absolute moron so took it deep into Talladega National Forest the first chance I got. I wrecked it and wrecked it good. Caved in the whole side of the bed. I had to walk hours to get someone to rescue me and the truck.

I played it cool when I got home and parked it with the wrecked side facing the fence where Dad couldn’t see it. Genius.

I parked it like that for 2 years then sold it. He never said anything so finally in college I asked him about it.

“Oh yeah, I saw it the day you brought it back, but figured it was your problem to figure out..”

————-

Top of Dunavant Mountain. 1989.

This is on Highway 25, that runs from Leeds to Vandiver. We grew up on the Vandiver side and it is one of my favorite roads of all time.

I was 4 years old and neither my Dad or I had any perception of his Nissan being a “paw paw truck” at the time.

Probably cause back then, most trucks were paw paw trucks!

This truck was my Dad’s and had all the requisite attributes of the genre:

Mostly stock

Camper shell

Extra cab

V6 with the 5 speed manual

I remember the jump seats in back well and so does my sister. They directly faced each other, and during drives to Missouri to visit family, the tension started high and got worse.

Dad obviously wanted me and Evangeline to stay close during these trips. We are still close to this day, and I’m proud to say haven’t kicked each other in years.

I suppose I always had an awareness of paw paw trucks, so my uncanny ability to find them was probably set in place as a youngster and I owe some thanks to Dad.

“People like hearing stories about other people.”

-Dan John

I found this poster in our office early this week. From the date on it, I think it is from Dad’s first year in Purdue’s marching band.

He was a trumpet player, and obviously a good one. Band stuff was him and Evangeline’s thing when we were kids. I always played sports, so it was just kinda understood we had our own things. (Evangeline says she was also a majorette which is a sport but I didn’t see it at the World Games so whatever)

She played clarinet, and he always helped her practice. He took me to my games and bike races. Simple enough.

Dad had a Masters in Political Science from Purdue. He ended up a car mechanic after college and was pretty good at it.

I know he sometimes seemed sour about not doing something more directly involved with his college education, but I was more interested in how he spent that time there and wasn’t into college basketball…

—————

Dad had relatively simple tastes in food, and never missed an opportunity to grab a treat for me and Evangeline.

In general, we ate healthy and had a giant garden shared with neighbors when we were little.

But yeah, I would say Dad exposed us to plenty of foods Mom might have missed 😂. Chili cheese dogs, Mountain Dew, and a large variety of candy.

I still remember the standoffs between him and Evangeline when he plopped down a SPAM sandwich in front of her!

I never quite nailed down Dad’s own food preferences however. My mother was and is a fantastic cook, and she also had a tough time impressing dad with meals.

I knew Dad liked room temperature, maybe warm, Folgers instant coffee. I also liked coffee, so decided once to make him my favorite coffee. I don’t remember what it was, but I made sure to grind it fresh and run it through the Aeropress.

He took one sip, set it down, and turned back to The Weather Channel. I was furious! He told me something like “oh it’s ok I guess” and that was that. Lesson learned.

I told my Mom about it and she had her own version from when they first got married.

He said he liked meatloaf, so she set out to make a great one. Like I said above, she was an awesome cook. He wasn’t impressed with the first few attempts…

“I don’t know, it just isn’t as good as my Mom’s” 😂

After a couple more tries, she was OVER IT.

She went to the store, got the cheapest ground chuck she could find, some French’s meatloaf mix, and ketchup.

Dad took one bite, his face lit up, and he said ,”Oh Linda, you finally got it right!!”

Dad was an absolute character and well remembered, which is all any of us can hope for when we are gone!

——————

Some vehicles don’t belong on dirt roads, and this was one of them.

This is The Queen Mary, Dad’s first Chevy Caprice station wagon. One of two, or maybe threes he had. I am not sure.

He really liked station wagons. So much in fact, that he got his first wife (my mom Linda) a Grand Marquis wagon once without talking to her first. Wood panels and all. I’ll let you guess how that went over.

This particular wagon here is the one he got us lost in Talladega National Forest driving. He was taking me to a mountain bike race at Cheaha and I had already been there a hundred times.

He pulled out a crumpled page of Mapquest directions and declared we would try a new way. I just told him alright, hand them to me and let’s go. I would read and he drove.

It only took a couple turn offs from pavement and we were in full gravel mode in the Caprice. No cell service. No map. For what it’s worth, a Caprice wagon is really bad with tight turns on loose gravel. It’s probably fun driving, but whoever isn’t driving will be scared as all hell. I was.

We had gone from being 90 minutes early to the race, to pretty close to being late to start. Eventually we popped out on pavement again, and made it up to the top of Cheaha.

I grabbed my stuff, begged the promoter for a plate and promised to pay when I finished. He laughed and let me race. Dad smoked his pipe in his camp chair like nothing had happened at all then drove me back down the mountain after the race.

This was the same day I got motion sickness for the only time in my life. I raced in the heat for two hours, then layed in the backseat of the wagon while he drove it down the twisty mountain.

Dad was super into cars, and that was probably my favorite thing to talk about with him…even if it was fighting over the best time of year for me to prep the entire wagon to paint by myself*.

The photo here is from a trip that went through Bryson City, North Carolina in the early 2000s. Dad was always happy to kick it in the parking lot for a few hours while I got a ride in.

*it’s never the right time of year to prep a Caprice for paint by yourself*

————-

Skyway epic 2022

I have done the 60 mile version of Skyway Epic numerous times, with the most recent (2017) leaving me fairly disappointed. That year saw me dropping from the 100 mile to the 60 a week before the race due to a heat exhaustion scare during my last long ride. I rode the 60 at a pace I could have done the 100 in and finished knowing I could have done more. Not good. A halfway effort feels bad, even if you place well! I had to wait five years for redemption and get a good shot at the 100 ish distance. 

“Ish” is a phrase you will hear often around Skyway…because it is true. 60 and 100 mile distances are offered, but rarely right on the money. I think the 60 usually ends up a 68 and I ended up with 110 miles right on the money with a calibrated wheel speed sensor this year. It is part of the mind game to get this race done. 

After a couple years of barely riding any, I got back rolling consistently summer of 2021. My looming goal was Skyway 100, so everything revolved around that. I even ordered a badass race bike for it, a Trek Supercaliber! After multiple delays  I lost confidence I would have it for the race. Around the time of this realization, I lucked into Lee Neal’s old Vassago Jabberwocky singlespeed. A couple rides later, I committed fully: Skyway 100 in full idiot mode on a rigid singlespeed. I had fallen hard for the bike and as often happens, love isn’t very rational. I wrote a race prep plan for myself and whoever else wanted to buy it, then stuck to it best I could. I’ll detail this in a later post as it is a bit different than some others I have seen! As far as my bike goes, it is a bit odd so I’ll detail it briefly:

• steel Vassago Jabberwocky frame

• Niner carbon fork

• Chris King headset

• Shimano XT brakes

• Shimano M520 pedals

• M952 XTR cranks and BB

• KMC X11 chain and Wolf Tooth cog

• 32x20 gear

• Chris King hubs with Stan’s Arch rear rim and Race Face ARC 30 front built by me.

• Maxxis Rekon 2.6 front / Ikon 2.2 rear w Orange Seal

• Basic alloy cockpit parts

• ESI grips

As I rolled down towards the start of the race, it certainly felt colder than 40 degrees. The wind blasted me and it felt good to be cold somehow. Adrenaline was high and it was time to race. I saw lots of familiar faces and any pre race nerves I had were gone from just enjoying where I was. Brian Toone rolled in from his 7 hour commute from home, got his number fixed in a frenzy, and it was go time. Skyway 100 had begun!

For those unfamiliar, here is a brief rundown of the Skyway 100 course: It starts at the Sylaward trail system near Lake Howard in Sylacauga with about 10 miles of fast twisty singletrack, then turns out some rolling gravel hills towards the real meat and taters: the Skyway Motorway. Around mile 20, the major climbing starts up towards Bull Gap and heads all the way out to the road climb up to Mt. Cheaha. You return the same way and eventually end up with 110 miles and 12-13K climbing. It sounds simple enough, but it is, to put it simply, unrelenting in its challenges. 

My plan was to hang back at the start to ride easy in the singletrack so my legs wouldn’t feel dead from going hard in the cold. {Narrator: He did not in fact ride easy} I ran an easy ish gear this year (32 x 20) and got spit further out back than I wanted and had to really push on the road climb to get into the singletrack conga line mid pack. Oof. I ended up riding harder than desired the first 5 miles due to kinda being stuck in line. If you stop it can be almost impossible to get back in. My hands ended up being WAY colder than expected and I was a bit concerned I would crash through here because of it. I rode with Lee Neal and Brent Marshall and let them go once we got to Wiregrass. Jason Shearer rolled up in the Explorer and asked how I was feeling. I started whining then realized maybe just faking it til I felt good would work. Nick Butler, also on a SS, rode with me most of the way to Bull’s Gap where I saw Brent packing up to leave. Well, well…not that far ahead. Oh yea!

My legs were smashed from the hard initial effort in the cold. Or maybe my whole body. Everything just felt like hell and I didn’t want to ride. Knees hurt, quads hurt, my ab muscles cramped a few times. I was in a state and didn’t want to ride 90 more miles. Dammit! Brent seemed pretty upbeat so I pretended to feel the same the next 30 miles or so. I rode conservatively downhill, so I didn’t get too beat up by the rigid front fork. I realized during my pre ride, this would be critical to finishing. I had another Brent sighting at the 60 mile turnaround aid, and didn’t waste time filling bottles! Not long after leaving that spot, I saw him fixing his chain trail side but figured he would make quick work of it, which he did. Around mile 48, I popped out on the pavement at Adam’s Gap and made a resolution heading up to Cheaha: Don’t. Fucking. Walk. Brian Toone was pushing hard up Adam’s Gap with a commute from home also in his legs at this point, which was super motivating! 

Walking is part of singlespeed racing, but having to do it on a paved road just feels pitiful so I stayed on the bike and had a really strong climb all the way to the top of Cheaha. I was able to count riders coming back from the 100 mile turnaround and was probably midpack overall and 4th Singlespeed. I knew the chances of me catching Chad Brandon, John Schwab, or Lee Neal this particular day was about that of me beating the mid 90s Chicago Bulls in a pickup game. Nobody, absolutely nobody, shows up for Skyway 100 with one gear that’s a slouch. You finish last place SS, and it would still be a victory! 

I saw Jake Huggart, Hunter Cole, and Matt Ithraburn at the top of Cheaha and was jealous of their cohesive group. I made quick work of the aid station and did my best to catch them on the way back. I also saw my other singlespeed friends, Brent and Nick, grinding up Cheaha as I was descending. A bit too close for comfort with 54 miles to go. I had some things on my side at this point. My nutrition and hydration was dialed. 250 calories per hour of Uncrustables, Payday bars, gels, aid station Cokes, and potato burritos. Eat real food? I say eat it all! I stuck with Nuun for hydration and abided by my own advice at aid stations…no weird shit!

Something also kinda got together with my legs and mind here. I no longer wanted to quit and the chase was on. My descent energy conservation worked and I was able to really start ripping on the downhills headed back without worry of some kind of total arm and hand failure! I rode back and forth with a couple guys headed back…Chris and Jason I think? In my opinion, the hardest part of Skyway is the gravel climbs headed back in towards Bull’s Gap. They are steep and loose and it always seems to be sunny. Once on Skyway, Jeep traffic started picking up, but most were pretty easy to share the trail with. I only got yelled at once but kept my cool. I made a decision to leave my light behind at the 60 mile turnaround aid station to give myself some extra motivation to get back. 

I rode back and forth with a group of Katie Bolton, Bo Bozeman, and some others back and forth towards Bull’s Gap. I had more mud and water on my glasses than optimal but also didn’t want to stop and mess with them. I ended up setting a PR on the Bull’s Gap descent. I guess if you can’t see much, it is also tough to overthink your lines. Point and shoot! I still figured anything was possible here with about 20 miles to go. Brent seemed to be riding well, and I know him well enough to know he wouldn’t just sit up and spin to the finish. What I didn’t want was a Hardwick type catch to happen. You know if you have been there. They stalk you for a while, then make a low key catch with 5-10 miles to go. It hurts, but is so well calculated, it feels like fate. 

One of the most common failure points at Skyway is the last 10 miles of singletrack and I was determined to not implode here. I caught a few 60 milers on the way back in on Wiregrass and got my head in the game for the last 10-12 miles. I ate half a Payday and took a caffeine gel during the first mile of singletrack with my main goal to keep focused and ride smoothly. It is also important to stay realistic about the distance. I knew I had to ride 110 miles and it would NOT magically get shorter. I somehow felt really good the last few miles and was able to enjoy the trails and push hard! Jason changed up the last little bit of singletrack this year giving a cool run into the finish that makes pretty much everyone look like a badass…which if you made it that far, you are! I don’t know if I have EVER been more proud to finish a race than this one. I finished around 11 hours and Brent never caught me. The back and forth really made for a great time out there and I enjoyed myself once I got in the zone. It only took 50 miles to start feeling okay! This was also the longest race I have done since 2012. So pumped! I am not really back to great shape but well on my way. 

Melissa was waiting for me at the finish, which was awesome. The whole finish line vibe is one of the best parts of Skyway. Everyone is stoked for each other, and I think the level of community involvement here is what leads to high finisher rates for a very hard race. I stuck around for a while to see other finishers come in, including Kellye Carlisle, who I have coached for months leading up to this race. This is the hardest race she has ever done and she finished! Patrick Wigley and his crew all had good races, which I was really glad to see. Finishing this on the Vassago was also special. That was the bike Lee Neal rode when we first started racing together long ago and I feel like I brought it what it deserved. Everything worked great on it all day long. Brent also rode his old Vassago, which was pretty cool. After the race, I already had next year on my mind…have fun and go faster! This probably means I’m a lunatic, but I have a feeling I’m not the only one planning a return. See y’all next year! 

There is no way to properly thank Jason, Wendi, and everyone else that helps out with this race. Pete Foret (Cajun Sherpa LLC) washed my bike for me post race, after his 100 mile DNF, and had everyone’s back as usual! All the volunteers killed it out there. Josh Waldrop even put up with me putting him in charge of filling my muddy bottles out there, haha. You guys rock, all of ya!