Custom artwork'd dingle speed monster cross surly karate monkey - Niche enough for you?

So taking on the N+1 rule into accounp bars and some lovely looking bikes whilst riding gravel. So flared bars was a must! t I decided I needed a single speed cyclocross bike as it is more hardcore than the cyclocross bike that I ride around trail centres anyway. However I have been obsessed with the American bike craze of monster cross where they have flared drops.

Example of why I wanted flared bars, just look at how cool it looks.

I then thought that I want to be able to use the bike for more than just cross so I really need more than one gear but didn't want shifters or mechs as that's not the point of a single speed, so a double single speed is a must. If a 120 O.L.D. is used then a dinglespeed free hub can be used on certain hubs but this had to use the wheels I already had standard shimano freehub (and two wide based sprockets were used to avoid them eating into the freehub).

An example of dinglespeed

Then after that I had seen a guy on pinkbike doing some lovely custom art on a dirt jump bike and thought I absolutely had to have that. So a custom decorated frame was also an absolute must.

Unfortunately there are a few issues with the choices I had made, the flared drops are not an issue as On One sell the midge bar, which was deliciously cheap at the time of purchase, and could be installed with no issues. The dinglespeed was more of an issue but from reading a difference front and back of 2 teeth would give enough chain length for a horizontal drop out to take up.

The biggest issue then was the custom art work. As an engineering student if it isn't a box on a flat surface I am completely useless, thankfully my girlfriend was willing to give it a try as she's an illustration student.

So from here all I had to do then was decide which frame to buy, which was a tough one as it had to be upgradeable with my wheels to disc wheels. So the criteria for a frame was standard bottom bracket, steel (with 130 or 135 spacing), disc mounts, canti mounts and extra larger (as I am 6'4"), all of this was difficult to source, until I started posting twice daily on singletrackworld.com in the wanted classifieds and was contacted with the offer of a Surly Karate Monkey frame and a Surly Troll (I think) fork, which ticked all of the boxes and some (as it will be able to turn into a disc tourer post dingle speed monster cross).

The frame (pre-powder coat) with a few components.

After a powder coat at the local coaters the frame was then white and could then be drawn all over which took approximately 20 hours of work time (including coming up with the ideas in the first place). After this a large amount of helicopter tape to try and protect the frame (which amazingly didn't bleed the edges of the artwork). Turns out helitape (even on plain tubes) is very difficult to apply and using a hair dryer really helped with applications.

On the build there were a few issues. For one the FSA chain ring I had wouldn't fit over the crank tabs, so a certain amount of filing had to be done (sorry but it had to be done). Then cantilevers are an absolute PITA to set up so that took what felt like forever (as I have no idea what I am doing really). Other than those two there were no real issues in building the bike.

And after reading all of that you probably want to see the actual bike now fully built up, preceded by the ratios.

Ratios
34t chain ring with 14t sprocket (road gears)
32t chain ring with 15t sprocket (cross gears)

Drive Side

Non-Drive side

The rigid rockshox logo

Non-drive side chainstay detailing

Seat tube detailing

Top tube geometry detailing

Drawn on head tube badge with her name

Close up of the rear dingle with the chain tug

Chainline is spot on!

Chainring dingles

Drive side chainstay detailing and the dingles

The 1.6L ecoboost reveal (top side)

The 1.6L ecoboost reveal (down side)

The unzipping

Whimsical top cap (sorry for misalignment)

The cyclists ideal body shape

I hope you have enjoyed reading this and looking at the pictures of this, quite frankly, ridiculous build. If you have any questions about it don't hesitate to ask!