Okay, so things moved pretty rapidly in the end!
Which means this thread needs a little housekeeping to bring it up to date.
Basically: the first version of the bike is now complete!
Well, more-or-less.
There's just a couple of things to mention first:
1. This first version was built entirely to serve one purpose: a mile a 100-mile-ish bike camping weekend. Which is actually due to take place THIS weekend! However, life and work converged in a hell storm of bad luck and circumstance, which has sadly resulted in me being unable to make it to New York, and thus Connecticut. Which is heartbreaking and incredibly frustrating for many reasons, and means that the bike sits, finished and begging to be ridden, in Brenden's bike shop in Brooklyn!
2. We're still working out how and when to get it sent over to me here in LA, at which point I plan to ride it as is, and assess what immediate changes I'd like to make, if any.
I'm curious to ride a bike with a modern 1x drivetrain for the first time, and I'm actually really pleased with how the bike looks from afar. It's not for the purists, but for a bike that's probably at least 50% things I had in parts bins, it looks kind of alright, I think!
My plan, as of right now, is to ride and enjoy it while I collect the remaining few pieces needed for the 2.0 period build. At which point most of what's on this one will migrate over to another frame, once I've found something suitable.
Based on how it looks right now, I'm tempted to look for another, later Merlin and just switch everything over to a frame I feel much less precious about.
And, if not, I'll aim for something in the late 80s steel mode, ideally fairly slack geo'd and thus suitable for a camping bike!
Anyway, before I get to photos and notes on the completed 1.0 build, I do want to talk a little about the forks.
So sit tight for a minute... I'm about to get to that.