The Woodsmoke Returns
I bought the small Salsa Woodsmoke years ago as a hardtail mountain bike for bikepacking where a gravel bike wouldn't be great. I liked it much more than the Salsa Cutthroat at the time. I realized that the Woodsmoke was too small as a flat bar bike, and I put drop bars on it. I got a Medium frame, transferred the MTB components over, and was running a dual Woodsmoke setup for a minute. It was great. However, I got annoyed at the geometry and gearing. The bike geometry was unstable at really high speed on pavement, and I couldn't get the gearing I wanted easily for gravel racing. I had a hard time getting a bike fit that was really comfortable, and I wasn't aware of my hip deformity. So, I converted it to a flat bar bike and let my girlfriend-at-the-time borrow it as a mountain bike. Meanwhile, my flat bar Woodsmoke became my primary fun bike - the Soma Saga was my commuter, the Woodsmoke did almost everything else. I'd run 42mm tires and a rigid fork for gravel ridin