My Crust Bikes Dead Sailor
Hi.
I’m Jackie. I work for Blue Lug Kamiuma as a bike mechanic. This is my first time posting a blog post, so let me quickly introduce myself.
I’m 23 years old coming out of the Ibaraki prefecture.
The nickname Jackie was given to me by my senpais here at Blue Lug because I said I have some experience in martial arts on the first day of work. Everybody immediately interpreted martial arts to Jakie Chan, the legend, even though I actually didn’t had no business in that style of martial arts, but the young me, who was swinging a DIY nunchucks should be stoked to be given that nickname.
I ride a MASH STEEL and a SURLY STEAMROLLER.
I grew up BMXing and I became more into the FGFS culture, so I’ve been enjoying learning tricks on the MASH Steel.
FGFS/Track Track is a “genre” where people do tricks on 700c fixed gear bikes, like what Matt Reyes a.k.a. Slum Worm does.
I truly respect his riding and I’m so stoked that he recently dropped this video.
I’ve been doing tricks with 20″ wheels for so long, but changing to 700c + fixed gear is definitely a challenge. It’s nothing you can do with instincts, but I’m enjoying the way I need to learn tricks, using my brain.
Anyhow, I’m writing this blog to show off a recent bike of mine, I recently built up.
I like to visit Crust Bikes’ IG page and their website in my spare time. One day I saw this frame and I couldn’t get my mind off from it ever since.
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The 26″ Dirt Jumper, “Dead Sailor”.
For those of you who are not familiar with Dirt Jumpers, they’re basically a sub-genre of MTBs. They are like an MTB made for jumping around and doing tricks like BMX.
Something like this. This gentleman is doing a Tobboggan.
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Dirt Jumpers typically has 26″ wheels and a rather compact geometry, in order to make it easy for riders to fling the bike around and are typically made of very durable tubing in order to withstand the impact of landing a big air. Oh, they also have suspension forks to make things easier and no gears.
Now, let’s talk about The Dead Sailor.
The Dead Sailor is made by Frank Wedelton, also known as FTW, a former frame builder for YETI. To see him collaborate with Crust Bikes was pretty darn sick.
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Just the fact that this is a dirt jumper made by Crust Bikes, made me want the bike really bad, so I built one up for myself.
The frame comes without any paint jobs. I opened the box and started to think what color I should paint this thing.
Watched this fun video from Crust for some inspiration.
I really thought into it, but ended up with just a clear coating.
Here’s what the build looks like.
I polished the crap out of the frame every night and had Konno san from Cook Paint Works clear coat the frame. I like the solid look of it.
The Dead Sailor comes with five logo decals, all in different colors.
I chose the Rock Shox Pike DJ Forks. It’s a classic fork for dirt jump riders. A fork used by many pros, super sturdy and looks really nice. Can’t go wrong with these.
I always trust Chris King for their durability, so I chose them for the headsets and matching color Profile Racing bottom brackets to install BMX cranks.
Other than the bottom bracket, I used a Profile Racing rear hub, cranks and chainrings for this build. For this frame, 30t is the max size for chainrings, so most BMX parts go really good with this frame.
Mike Aitken signature saddle from Odyssey. These saddles are a rail type, so you can fit normal seat posts, so I really like them.
Thomson seat post. My favorite seat post of course. It’s a bummer that I need to hide the logo, but I need to have it low and the saddle facing up for doing tricks.
Had to put all these BMX components to show love for the culture.
Velocity Blunt 35 rims. These rims are great because they don’t break. I have been abusing them for a while, but they’re totally fine so far. I’m really glad I chose these rims. If you’re looking for extremely tough rims that fits fat tires, I highly recommend these.
I like the rocket valve cap I bought at Tandem too.
Rode this bike for while, I can say that this is a fun one!!
Because of the short rear center, this bike is really good for bunny hopping and the being longer than the typical BMX so it’s super easy for me to hold my manuals. 26″ tires are becoming the minority these days, but in my opinion, they are great for jumping around, so I love them.
Some of you may be concerned of the sturdiness of the bike since it’s made of aluminum, but don’t you worry. All the tubings are super thick, so there’s nothing to worry about. I laughed at how giant the rear drop out was though.
This bike was supposed to be one of those bikes for just messing around, but I like it so much that I’ve been commuting with this bike. There’s no gears and I constantly have to be out of the saddle so by no means it’s a comfortable bike, but it’s all good.
Check out this bar spin rig I recently did.
I put the front brake cables through the fork and put longer cable housing for the rear brakes for doing bar spins legally. (since Japan has strict rules for brakeless bicycles)
Lastly, I’d like to share this fun video of Matt and Derrick absolutely ripping on the Dead Sailor.
Thanks for reading til the end!
-Jackie-
