Marc-André's Black Mountain La Cabra

This is a frame which was brought to us by Marc-André, who wanted a very specific build.

Black Mountain Cycles are a shop in Point Reyes Station, California. It's a small town not too far North of San Francisco on Highway One, with lovely galleries, ice cream, and this manufacturer within view of the Black Mountain. They design really particular frames which I can only describe as "What if a road bike could mountain-bike". It's a really fun idea but makes it a little more difficult to build the complete bike. There's not a lot of leeway on which components work with the frame, and together. Honestly, I appreciate their philosophy both as a company and in the way they choose to make bikes.

This build wound up being really appropriate to the kind of trail riding Marc-André does, and has zero compromises. We've got Shimano GRX on the drivetrain, with a small mountain-bike crank and a wide-range cassette, superb wheels from DT Swiss (handbuilt by us), and lots of winning Ritchey WCS bits to fill it out. There's no other way to say it: this bike absolutely rips. It's meant to be very stable climbing at low speeds and descending quickly on rough gravel trails.