I was tinkering around in the garage the other day and decided to update the Monster to more modern specs. The goal was to shed some pounds and maybe make it roll faster. I replaced the small 355 (18″) front wheels with some lighter wheels – 406s in the front and a lighter 559 in the rear – all with Ultremo tires. I adapted the Vortex carbon fiber seat and replaced the aluminum crankset with a carbon fiber crankset. I think that these changes dropped the weight by about 2-3 lbs. It’s probably in my head, but on a test ride, I could feel the weight difference. It also seemed faster overall.

I’ll probably reinstall all of the vintage 2005 parts to keep it original but it was a fun experiment.