First new bike in 22 years

After years of secondhand bikes, project bikes made from garage detritus, and Grandfather's Axe bikes, I gave myself a GT Peace 9r for Christmas.

For the last few summers I have not done much mountainbiking, spending most of my spare summer time at Manukau Velodrome, but this year I'm determined to get dirty on a regular basis.

Despite owning an under-utilised GT I-Drive, I figured that the Peace 9r was a way to try out both singlespeeding, and 29-inch wheels in one affordable package.

Needless to say, I started fiddling with it as soon as it came out of the carton. A Cane Creek Thudbuster immediately replaced the original seatpost- I'm 45 years old, and there's no way I'm riding a hardtail off-road without it.

The Q factor of the Truvativ Blaze cranks was a bit wide for my roadie sensibilities and manky knees, so they and the Howitzer bottom bracket, were consigned to a cardboard box, and replaced by a set of 180mm Ritchey Logic crankarms on a square taper Kajita BB.
This opened another can of worms. The 110pcd Ritchey cranks take a 34t chainring, so Rick Woodward gave me a Shimano 19t sprocket to equal the original 32 x 18 gearing. As it turns out Hyperglide cogs don't do much to keep the chain on, but fortunately I have found an old Shimano Uniglide 19t cog that should be more secure