Blinged-out Trail King and Monster X Touring Ride Reports:
Trail King:
If you haven’t already seen this on the Willits site, this is my brother James’s new Trail King. I must say that it’s cool to see James on this bike as he was one the first people talking in most of the Austin ears about 29ers years ago and isn’t one to mince words when he feels strongly about something. That being said, we swapped bikes for a week: he took my Monster X out touring (we’ll get to that) and I got to put his Trail King head-to-head with my own.
First and foremost, my brother and I are both about 5′9″, have proportionally very short legs, heavy build (we could be anywhere between 175 and 215 at any given time), and a grinding, technical riding style that lends itself to Texas endurance racing better than short XC races. That being said, a custom 29″ bike is our best option to get something that will be a dead-on fit.

James went for the full-meal-deal on his in terms of build and parts. The frame is a titanium Trail King with a 23.5″ shaped toptube and B2 seatstays. His parts build is a 970 XTR kit with some Easton EC90 carbon, DT hubs laced to Bontrager Race X Lite tubeless ready rims, Ritchey WCS stem, Chris King Ti NoThreadset, FSA 36t middle ring and bashring, Reba Race, and Maxxis Ignitors. The bike is built for abuse and weighs in just above 23.5 lbs.
My Trail King, while a year older, is no slouch. It’s the prototype for the modern Trail King with the bent downtube and standard toptube and seatstays. Identical build kit to the one listed above but with a Willits prototype ti seatpost and carbon Pace 80mm fork. It also weighs 23.5. Alright, enough of the tech stuff. Jeez.
The experiments done on Jared’s wife’s (we’ll call her “Peg”) bike that we took to NAHBS, like the B2 at Interbike were priceless and immediately became production-standard. While Peg’s bike was the “myth-buster” 11″ seat-tube extreme, the toptube manipulation brought with it some other benefits. Similar to a Mountie, Peg and James’s bikes are incredibly stiff, torsionally. Still somewhat compliant, they seem to react more quickly in a standing sprint. Really cool feeling. Aesthetically, the bend looks really cool in how it mimics the B2 stays and creates sort of a vintage gas-tank look. I really really like that, and it doesn’t hurt that I can standover this bike with some room to spare, more-so than my own.
This was also the first bike that I’ve gotten to ride extensively with a B2 rearend. One of the rides I took this bike on was a 3.5 hour loop around West Austin including bombing down the Balcones Escarpment, a 1000″ grind up the road, an hour of limestone-laden singletrack, and another very hilly hour on the road back home. The B2 rearend left my back feeling fresh and never felt like it was absorbing any pedal-power. That, paired with our ti post, will be the ultimate endurance setup. All the benefits of a hardtail with less chatter.
Wes and Jared also busted out a very short headtube on this bike at 85mm. That’s a good 15 to 25mm shorter than most other 29rs out there. What this translates to is a potentially lower front end. Run with no spacers and a standard stem, the bars can easily be level with or lower than the seat height, allowing you to run the racer position or bomber freeride setup. I personally prefer something inbetween, and this bike can nail it without any oddball parts.
The other really major ride I did was on my favorite technical system where yo basically can ride for a couple hours either straight up, straight down or traversing a cliff with a huge drop-off always at your side. For a bike I had never ridden, the lower cockpit and steering angles gave me all the confidence to ride this stuff without blinking, as if it were my own steed. It’s as nimble a climber as my own Trail King, but the descending was just another couple clicks beyond my own. I can’t say enough about confidence on this thing.
So yeah, James’s Trail King is the next generation of fit, performance and aesthetics for Willits. I may or may not give it back.
Monster X:

This is less of a ride report than just a commentary on the versatility of the Monster X. One of our old riding buddies was in town from Colorado, so he and James and crazy-Sam decided to a 5 day tour of the Texas Hill Country that consists of lots of rolling road riding, dirt roads, packed paths and all the things that go with that terrain. Little did they know we would have a freak spring freeze, but that’s a different story.
James transformed the Monster X from my singletrack climber to a full-on tourer by simply adding a rear rack, front shifting setup (I run 1×9) and some hybrid touring tires. I think the beauty of the 29r format (especially versus the 69er or 32″er) is the ability to throw on any road tire, cross tire or hybrid tire. It’s a standard size with endless possibilities. Anyway, the light weight, disk brakes and plush ride made the MX perfect for this task. Sam was on a rigid Karate Monkey and Jason on a Kelly cyclocross bike, so the Monster X Really fit in as a mutant of both.
I won’t jibber jabber too much (as I wasn’t there) so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Heading West

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Hill Country Scenery

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On The Road

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Huge Climb

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Granite!

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Low Water Monster Crossing

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Considering an individual fork? Be sure to check ours out.

Basic Unicrown: $150 with purchase of frame, $200 reg. price
Fork Span: 420/465mm
Straight blades, disk or canti mounts

Raked Unicrown: $225
Fork Span: 420/465mm
Raked blades, disk or canti mounts

WOW:$250
Fork Span: 465mm
Extreme vertical compliance, disk or canti mounts

Type II: $450
Fork Span: 420mm
Potts crown w/ brazed leg, disk or canti mounts

The 465mm span is for suspension, 420mm is uncorrected.

Congratulations to Scott (Mountie rider/retro-geek) and Meryl Linville for bringing in the 2007 model Trail Queen with all the options, and an early delivery to boot! Meet Maya.

Ah, only in Texas would a group of individuals go out the first weekend after the holidays and subject themselves to a 6+ hour race through the Lost Pines area east of Austin in weather that can’t be determined until the gun goes off. The race consists of a full lap at the Warda race course (a favorite NORBA XC course), an hour or so on some seriously hilly roads, a long lap at Rocky Hill Ranch (the other favorite NORBA XC course), back on those very same roads, and then guess what, another lap at the Warda course. This is 87 miles of pain even on a nice day.

In the true spirit of the race formerly titled the Torture Test, the weather was cold and rainy. Despite the fact that the race was renamed the Excruciation Exam this year, the racers riding Willits Brand bikes killed it, like they always do. Congratulations to Stewart Stafford, Shontelle Gauthier and Sandra Musgrave for their fine results (2nd, 2nd and 4th respectively). Nice work. I bet the titanium cleaned up nice!

As the New Year approaches I felt like it was appropriate to look back at what has transpired here in the past 12 months or so.

As you might know, Wes is genuine train-buff. He’s studied them for many years, has taken some BURLY rides on them and the fact that the new Willits World Headquarters abuts the Missouri-Pacific Railroad is actually considered to be pretty cool by most of us.

What does this have to do with Willits? I was thinking about the rebirth of the company being not unlike a locomotive getting up to speed. It initially seemed like those giant wheels would never start turning when Wes and Hill got started. If it wasn’t the everyday practicalities of starting a company (”where do the tools go?” “what’s our phone number?”), it was the big picture issues (”which bikes are we going to focus on?” “how do we position ourselves in this crazy market?”). Word got out that Wes was back at the torch as he was finishing up some of the last Crested Butte-era frames. With an unnerving jolt, the wheels slowly started grinding forward. Suddenly Wes had some new ideas and settled into his new environment. The wheels turned a little faster now; all that hard work converted into forward-motion. Then one day, Jared showed up and started shoveling coal into the engine (he sure can shovel coal efficiently!). It quickly became apparent that this wasn’t one of those new-fangled electric contraptions; this was a dependable, elegant behemoth from a time long-gone. New designs started to flow and plans started coming together. The wheels now turning at full-speed, the train rolled out into the open countryside. The big bike shows came around and it became clear to those outside of Texas that Willits was truly back in business. Industry interest and internet buzz spurred the final website design, re-brand, and photo-shoots. Suddenly the orders started flowing in, transforming the stream from what had been a steady trickle into a roar.

The old train remembered how to burn through the night, charging full-bore towards the moon-lit mountains ahead.

Happy New Year, everyone. This is going to be a great one.

Whew! As you can see, the new site is finally up. Lots of hard work has gone into this and it’s great to finally see a face on the modern era of Willits. Poke around the site and see what you find. Be sure to check out our Fit Forms for each bike. They are very thorough and create a great workflow when you’re having your bike built.
Check back often for additional features and content. Expect a range of hard and soft goods very soon.
Thanks to everyone who helped with the site.

Darren Poore, amazing photography
Jonathan Jackson, slick Willits logo
Jared, Wes, and Hill, boat-load of copy
Alexis and Megan Ann, great input
Scott Linville and Shontell Gauthier, owner stories

We have been slaving away in the shop building Scorchers and Monster X frames for the past few weeks. For those of you that are Austintites you can sneak a peak at the Scrochers at the Bicycle Sport Shop’s central store. For those of you unfamiliar with the Scorcher, it is a single speed with a rigid fork meant for scorching through town or wherever you dare to take this fixed gear steed. The Monster X is described by Wes as “a cross bike on acid”. You can fit big tires and run drop bars on this machine, but the thing that makes it a real pleasure is the smaller diameter tubing used give the frame a very comfortable ride. Build it up with a Type II fork and you have a real light bike capable on any surface. Pictures of the new frames will be coming soon!

Our dank, wet, ride the other night was bad ass. As Steve commented we were one Scorcher shy of the Willits product line on our ride. It was so cool to watch all the frames we built in action. Especially because of the snotty trail surfaces we were maneuvering over. To be honest wet lime stone still scares the crap out of me, but the Trail King shod with Specialized Fast Tracks kept me from slipping over into the abyss. Literally, there were times I looked over the edge of the off camber side hill trails and could only discern that there was a precipitous drop, what lay bellow is still unknown to me. Scott and Steve were the total tough guys riding with wholly rigid setups. Wes has a mad titanium strut style fork on his Moster X that provides him with the small amount of compliance he needs to continually thread the needle’s eye. I’m glad for my Reba personally, it has saved me from myself countless times in the month or so that I have been on it. I’m from the northeast, known for highly teched out terrain, but the trails here are way harder. Descending into ravines, where most of the trails are in this area, the trails pass through numerous strata of rock, and each one posses unique qualities. On top of that the trails are carved out of hillsides where one miscalculation can lead to severe punishment. When the trail is dry the surface is littered with loose marble like rubble that can send your wheels shooting out from under you if you take a corner too hot. Then it rains and the line stone turns into a frictionless surface that bike tires seem to be magnetically repelled from. It’s good stuff! Between my new Willits and all the challenges that Austin’s trails offer I feel like I am rediscovering mountain biking all over again. Having new bros to ride with is the icing on the cake. Boyz night out will not see a new edition for a little while cause Steve in going on vacation, but he deserves it.
Drink a few for me at Octoberfest Steve.

I had a pretty cool and unique oppurtunity today. In honor of my departure for a 3 week trip to Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy, some of my best friends sent me off with a memorable ride that ended up being pretty hairy, but successful. It’s cool enough to ride with the guys behind Willits Brand but to also get to ride with three other buddies on varying brands of 29ers was really cool. We headed out on a transitional pre-Fall evening about 2 hours before dark to what I would consider to be the most challenging trail in Austin. With over 2200 feet of climbing, an endless labryinth of roots and rocks, and stifling humidity, we had our work cut out for us. Then came the rain. Wes and I were both on our Monster Xs (his with drops, mine 1×9 with risers), Jared on his Trail King, Scotty on his Townie, Rob on a full suspension 29er and Dave on a fully-rigid steel 29er; we plowed through what could have been a deadly wet excursion and turned it into a pretty cool ride. It really seemed like the 29-inch wheel equalized our varying skill levels and made a treacherous ride manageable. I commented on how slick the rocks weren’t, Jared commented on how slick the ROOTS weren’t. I decided our 29ers took the traditional struggles of a wet ride and made them really minimal. The tacos and beer afterward didn’t hurt either. I’m going to check out the UCI World Championship Road Race in Austria and a huge cyclocross race in Switzerland, I’ll let you know how it goes and will take plenty of pictures. See you in a month!

Hello, everybody. Well, today I got goosebumps and for the first time since about March they weren’t caused by dehydration or heat-stroke. After 32 consecutive 100 degree (plus) days, summer has finally released its choke-hold. While the high temperature today WAS a toasty 86 degrees, that’s a good 20 degrees less than just a couple weeks ago. The lights are back on the chargers with the evenings losing light at an insane pace and the sun isn’t quite so overhead at 2PM. In September, not only does Austin weather change, so does local culture. The first race of the Texas Fall Series has already gone down (go Shontell), judging by the Scratch Acid show at Emo’s last Saturday all the students are back, Jared and I scorched our mouths and got a “wicked” afternoon buzz at the Austin Hotsauce Festival, and UT made their return to the gridiron since the Rose Bowl.

Goosebumps indeed. Fall in Austin is the best. Probably how Spring feels after a long northeastern Winter. I’m dedicating the next 2 weeks to hitting the trail hard everyday with a lighter CamelBak, testing out my new GPS unit, but most importantly, breaking in my newly dialed Willits Monster-X. You may have read my blog entry about my trials and tribulations on my Trail King. While it’s easily the most fantastic race bike I’ve ever owned (got my best result of my life on it at last month’s Texas Chainring Massacre 6-Hour race!) the Monster-X is clearly the funnest.

At the heart of the Monster-X concept is versatility. I’ve been running it through its paces with several different configurations; a 2×10 cross bike, a road bike, a drop-bar all-day bigwheeled climber and most recently as a back-to-basics rigid 1×9 masterpiece. The latest setup was kind of a fluke but ended up being the biggest surprise I’ve experienced in so long. Raw acceleration eminating from the most elegant, simple construction. Railing corners on this bike reminds me of the simple joys of bike riding. I’ll run it hard for another month and give you the
details.

Edit (Dec. 6th): I now am running it with Salsa Poco bars (short-reach) with Dia-Compe levers, Salsa interrupters, and a Dura-Ace 9-speed bar-con shifter going to my 1×9 setup with a 950 series XTR rear der. Very simple and elegant.

You might see the phrase “South Austin, Tx.” adorning Willits Brand materials and ask yourself, “why “South” Austin, isn’t “Austin” enough?”. Yeah, it probably would be, but there’s something about South Austin that is at the core of Willits Brand.

Maybe it was a young Wes Williams racing his StingRay in South Austin, Hill Abell taking over the tiny Bicycle Sport Shop in the now Flipnotics on Barton Springs Road in South Austin, or maybe it’s just the genuinely eclectic attitude that goes with the 10-mile blast-zone of Barton Springs Pool that seems to permeate the surroundings of the Willits Brand World Headquarters.

By definition, South Austin is the section of Austin that lies south of Town Lake Read the rest of this entry »

This is my first attempt at living outside of the northeastern corner of the country. I just moved from upstate New York with Peg (my wife) and our cats, Simon and Dylan. We are starting to get acclimated to Austin’s balmy spring weather, and find our way around town with some aptitude.

Wes and I met at the beginning of this year to discuss working together. He wanted to breath life back into Willits and I was looking for a change of pace. Our combined experience seemed to compliment each other. Wes possesses the spirit of invention, and I love refining and developing the manufacturing processes.

Merlin Metal Works is where I cut my teeth as a frame builder. Read the rest of this entry »

Rolled over my first 1000 miles on my Ti Trail King today. This has been my all-around bike since it was built for me at the beginning of the year while my wrist was broken. My wrist finally felt strong enough to go off road as of the first week of March and I’ve ridden this bike nearly everyday ever since.

The part of Austin I live in is right off the Balcones Faultline escarpment which gives us our own little slice of a mountainside all the way through town. The escarpment along with endless limestone shelves, razor-sharp loose limestone, 100 degree heat, sweltering humidity, bone-dry loamy dirt and every conceivable pointy/stingy plant and/or bug makes for some pretty fun riding. Of all the bikes I’ve ridden here over the last 15 years the Trail King really takes all the punches best.

Needless to say, the assembly was as smooth as anything I’ve ever built, Read the rest of this entry »

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