May Updates

For some reason, blog updates always seems to fall to the bottom of the stack of stuff to do! Just a couple of recent happenings.

Both Ti frames are in and we are working on getting pictures of them built up. The etching looks fantastic on the frames but is tough to picture.


We did get some really nice wicking jerseys made up. These are a casual cut without pockets so they work great off the bike as well as on the bike. We have been trying them out the last couple of weeks and they work great. Right now, all sizes (s-xxl) are available in either royal blue or team orange for $34.99


The Source Burn 24 hour race is next week end and is always a great time. Darrell will be rocking the single speed Goat on his first solo single speed effort. Wes is going to be crewing for Darrell as well as Ross and David.

We did sell our first "in-store" spec bike over the weekend. When we built up the last batch of frames, we bought a couple of extras that weren't painted so we could finish them in the customers choice of colors. We wanted to have one built up in the shop so we built up a 19" single speed Route 29 with a nice mix of parts and had it powder coated in red. Lee, a long time customer and trail worker, came in and decided to give 'er a new home. Looks like it is time to built up another.

The National Geographic channel ran a program called "I was Superhuman" which featured Goat Owner, Sinjin. The short story is, Sinjin was trapped under a boulder while hiking and was able to summon up superhuman strength and push the boulder off of him. Towards the end of the segment, there is a great video of Sinjin riding his Mountain Goat. I'm going to try and post a copy of it soon.

Spring is good!

Man it sure is nice when the weather takes a turn for the good. It is great to ride on a fairly regular basis again. The Goats are all getting their regular exercise now.

A couple of updates:
-#26 arrived, got build up and is out on the trails. Joe was unsure about totally committing to riding a single speed so we set it up with stealth braze-ons so it can be run geared in the future. Pictures are posted on the Mountain Goat web site.
-#27 is the first ever (to my knowledge) titanium Mountain Goat.The etched panels sure do look great. It is a unique and subtle look. We are currently gathering parts to build this one up and will post pictures when it is complete.
-#28 will be the first Ti 29" frame and will also feature the etched panels. ETA is April 10th on this one.
-#29 is in line at Sycip and will be heading to the Netherlands when finished.
-#30 looks to be our first frame built by Carl @ Vicious Cycles. We have talked to Carl for awhile now and will be looking forward to getting our first frame from him. We have been taunting Sean on our local rides about being the only person on a production bike and #30 will take care of that issue. We are still working on the finish options but it is sounding very cool so far.
-#31 Could be you, give us a call!

-The SWOBO jersey may still live but we'll see.

-There is a new wicking t-shirt stype jersey in the works. This one will feature the "cartoon" Goat, by Gabi, standing on top of a bike. Colors will be royal blue or orange and they should run about $35. ETA of about 3 weeks on this one.

-We'll probably end up with a Mountain Goat bar end cap next time we order headset caps and spacers.

That's about it for now.

The girl in the wall

This is our girl in the wall.


You'll often see bikes with some type of "mojo" zip tied to the handlebars of a bicycle. The girl in the wall is the mojo for our shop. When we first moved into this building, in 1995, the area around the bottom of the stairs was walled off and didn't have much light coming in. I was coming down the stairs with a flash light and as the beam hit the wall, the doll eyes lit up and scared the bejesus out of me. When I calmed down, I took a closer look and saw a disembodied doll head wedged in a hole in the brick wall. It was kinda spooky but neat at the same time.

A couple of years later a guy came into the shop that worked in this building when it was five and dime store in the 1970's. He told stories about going upstairs and pulling out laid-away toys at Christmas time. After we talked for a bit, he asked if the doll head was still in the wall. I told him that she was still there and we went to the stairway so he could check her out. He said that it had been there as long as he remembered. That makes her at least 35 years old!

And now a couple of Goat updates:
-The first Ti Whiskeytown Racer should be here around March 19th. Can't wait to see the panel etchings.
-We have now placed an order for the first Ti Route 29 as well. We are doing the etched panels on this one as well.
-Mark, owner of the purple flamed Goat, has started a Blog to update the building of the beast. Check it out at http://thepurplegoat.blogspot.com/

Goat site overhaul

I've never been 100% happy with the Goat web site so it has a new "face" as of today! Take a look and see whatcha think. Hopefully it is a little easier to navigate and a little easier on the eyes!

There is a PDF file of the new Ti Goat at http://firstflightbikes.com/Ti_WTR_proof.pdf. If you get a chance, take a look and give us some feedback. The idea was to replicate the panels of the team paint except substituting brushed Ti and etched Ti for the orange and green. I really like the look of it. As soon as we finalize the details, construction should be a short 3 weeks!

The new map on the blog is a kinda neat addition. It is fun to see the location of the blog viewers. The APO flag in the middle of the ocean threw me off at first.

New Goat Goodness

Lots of pretty cool stuff happening here in Goat land.

Goat #22 finally made the scene after wintering at AirArt to get a shiny new coat of Hot Rod flames over a deep purple base coat. The yellow/orange flames really stand out nicely against the dark purple.



Many more pictures @ http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g304/firstflightbikes/Goat%20MG/ and I hope to get some pictures of the built bike soon.

The first set of Ti bull moose bars have also landed. These are made exclusively for Mountain Goat by the Lynskey family. We'll be trying this set out before we finalize the specs but they should be pretty close to perfect already.




If you've followed the Goat Droppings since the beginning, you'll remember the nightmare of trying to get wool jerseys made. Well it finally happened and we sold enough that it was time to re-order. Now the minimum quantity has gone up and it just doesn't look like a viable project right now. So......if you are interested in a Goat wool jersey, you need to grab one of the last couple available. We've knocked down the price to $99.99 but in limited sizes.

It's Winter in Goat Land

wESd here, since Jeff has been spending any spare time on the new www.mombat.com website I figured I would check in and let everyone know what has been going on at the shop.
We measured up Matt's beloved Rock Lobster to get its geometry for his Ti Goat and will hopefully place the order once we go over the details with him next week. Its finally just about to cold for a night ride on Tuesdays so we started our trainer ride tonight and It has reminded me just how bad riding the trainer hurts.
Russ called to let us know that Mark's frame should be headed our way very soon. I can't wait to see how the flames look in another color to compare to Sinjin's.
I called Swobo to order some more wool jerseys and we will have them stitched up as soon as we get them to fill in stock.

Thats about it for now, more soon

Pinewood Derby and "Do your best"

As a few of you know, I am Cubmaster for Pack 171 here in Mooresville, NC. For those not familiar with the program, Cub Scouts is for boys in Grades 1-5 and our pack has about 75 boys in it. The flagship event each year is the Pinewood Derby.

The Cub Scout motto is "Do your best" but as I have heard, that changes to "Have your dad do his best" when it comes to the Pinewood Derby. Each boy receives a small chunk of pine plus four plastic wheels and four nails. The idea is to sculpt the wood into something that travels down a 20' track as fast as possible. The cars have a maximum height, wheelbase and weight. The wheels and axles can be "smoothed" but not really modified. As with all racing, the winner is th one who can bend the rules the most without actually breaking them.

Dads armed with cordless drills hover near the weigh in area ready to drill out that .005 ounce in order to hit 5.0 ounces exactly. In gravity racing, every ounce counts. Being in the heart of NASCAR country, it seems like half the dads work in race shops and the cars reflect it. Some of these things are works of art with paint work that would put a Mercedes to shame and polished axles gleaming with some unobtanium lubricant.

To try and channel all of these creative juices, I started an adults/siblings race last year. We changed the rules to allow axle and wheel modifications and upped the weight to 10 ounces. There ended up being 15 adult/sibling cars which was great but there were still a lot of "adult" kids cars. Not everyone got the memo! It's tough to see the kids who actually built their own cars (as evidenced by the hand painted racing stripes on the asymmetrical body) get whooped on by kids who had no part of the building process (as evidenced by the look on the kids face when he sees his car for the first time at check in). Not sure who the "winners" and "losers" are in this process?

It is a tough process to sort out and we generally get a pretty short time to do it. Typically, a Cubmaster serves two years and the first one is spend trying to learn the system. The second year you get to improve on the mistakes made the first year and then it is time to pass it on to the next generation of leaders. Maybe, some future leader will figure out the Pinewood conundrum, since I wasn't able to.