Special Project: Finished! Ti Fargo

Well, all the parts finally got sorted and showed up to complete the titanium Fargo for Mike. I must say, it is a stunning bicycle.

Orange/Mango is the theme here, obviously, and several parts came together to give this bike some real "eye candy" besides just being an awesome titanium framed, drop bar mountain bike.

The old steel Fargo had some of the parts in Mango already, such as the titanium Eriksen Sweet Post and orange wrap on the bars of the bike.

Mike also had these outstanding King/Enve wheels with Mango Chris King hubs laced to Enve carbon hoops which were mounted just before it was picked up. The new titanium Fargo frames also have a new 44mm head tube, so we fitted a new Mango Chris King Inset 8 1 1/8th head set to allow the use of the standard steel straight steer tube Fargo fork here.

We also got a new seat collar in an orange anodized hue, a Salsa Lip Loc. The standard seat collar provided is a pewter anodized Lip Loc, by the way. Finally, the orange highlights flow around the frame tubes in the form of a Jagwire cable housing kit. You can see how we routed the cables to keep them out of the way of Mike's planned use of a handle bar harness/bag set up for Tour Divide. Plus it just looks neater with a bar end shifter set up to route the cables in this manner, besides keeping everything off the head tube.

In this view I want to draw your attention to the way I routed the front brake cable. I learned this from former Salsa Cycles GM, Jason Boucher, and I call it the "Boucher Route". It not only routes the cable in a more "out of the way" manner, but the bend coming down out of the handle bar is less severe, and the cable does not touch the head tube. For suspension fork use, it can easily accommodate the length of the axle to crown without replacing the cable.

The handle bar is the unique and somewhat rare Ragley "Luxy" Bar. It has a super shallow drop, short reach, and radically swept drop section that Mike finds super comfy. Unique to this bar is that the top section is a 31.8mm diameter from the stem all the way to where the bar starts to bend to the drops.

The bike turned out fantastic, and it is significantly lighter than with the steel frame. Plus, it should be more comfortable, with an easy to care for finish that looks killer. If you are interested in a titanium frame for yourself, Salsa has Fargos, El Mariachi 29"ers, titanium Warbird gravel grinder bikes, and titanium Colossal long distance roadie rigs too. We're happy to chat with you about any of those or the other fine Salsa Cycles offerings anytime.

See ya soon!