Homemade inner chainguide and 1x9 on a Leviathan

Bench grinders are fun

Awhile back I posted a thread soliciting advice on how to mount a Jumpstop type inner chainguide on my Leviathan (original thread here). Got alot of good advice, but none of the products were quite what I was thinking ... either they were too heavy, too expensive, wouldn't fit or were no longer being made. I continue to be surprised that there is no simple design inner chainguide device like a Jumpstop designed to mount up on a frame without a the traditional seattube mount area. So (with inspiration from Shiggy and Bigwheel's homemade contraptions) I decided to have at it with my bench grinder, an old Acera E-type FD bracket and whatever else I could find in the garage.

Ended up with what appears to be a good working solution. Wish I had taken a pic of the e-type bracket before I went to work on it, because I took a whole bunch of material off of it to end up with a good fit. The "arm" that is doing the chainstopping duty is some piece of metal that I think was part of a window blind kit. I've ridden it once with this setup over some root-infested washboard trails and so far/so good.

Some other random stuff ...

• Got a new Shimano 7701 chain to replace a SRAM. Much quieter, no wind up noise and it was NOT packed in all of that thick glue/sludge that I've always seen them packed in before. Nice. SRAM quick release connector works fine with it so far (only 1 ride though).
• Finally got Lock-on grips (ouries). How come they can't design soft endcaps for these things?
• Just switched back to my 9 year old cloth-covered saddle (kind of like Kevlar) after trying out a smooth leather seat for the first time. Missed it I did, the lack of traction on the smooth leather really didn't work out for me.
• I rode a wheelie for 1/2 mile on the Lev over a dirt road today. (hopefully someone here will appreciate that, because my wife just said "that's nice honey").

Anyways, some pics ...