Back in April 2023, I got my dream bike - a Salsa Cutthroat. Actually, I didn’t get the entire bike. I got a Cutthroat frame. To build it, I mostly stripped down my old 2018 Motobecane Mulekick CX Pro for parts. I moved as much as I could, including the SRAM Force 1 shifters, deraileur, handlebar, seatpost, saddle and brake rotors. Some things weren’t compatible, like the brake calipers, wheels, cassette, cranks and chainring.
So, I built the Cutthroat, then put the parts I had leftover up for sale on Craigslist, hoping to recoup some of what I’d spent. I sold 2 wheelsets, the cassettes, and brake calipers. Three years later, I still had, unsold, the seatpost, saddle, Quarq power meter, chainring, cranks… and the frame hanging in the garage collecting dust.
I had contemplated doing so over the past year, but late December 2025, I finally decided to go ahead and rebuild the Mulekick. I wasn’t going to be able to sell the parts or the frame for anything. I figured I might as well get some use out of it. Plus, while Cutthroat is great off-road, it’s really intended for long days in the saddle loaded with gear. The Mulekick has geometry that’s between a CX bike and a typical gravel bike of it’s day. It’s a little twitchier, but also more suitable for twisty single-track.
The Cutthroat remains my primary do-it-all bike. But the Mulekick has a place for those times when I just want to get more aggressive and focus more on bike handling.
In the rebuild, I decided to go as cheap as I could… mostly buying used parts on eBay. If I had to upgrade, I’d try to upgrade the Cutthroat first, and move old parts back.
After getting all the parts, it was time to clean things up and assemble. As these things go, the first issue I ran into was that one of the the headset bearings was shot and fell apart in my hands. So… I ordered a replacement. While waiting, I decided to work on wheels and tires.
For wheels, always too expensive, I found a deal on some DT Swiss G540’s. These came with some 50c Maxxis Rambler tires that were too big for the Mulekick, but maybe next time the Cutthroat is ready for new shoes, I’ll give those a try. (Although, I REALLY like the Fleecer Ridge tires on there now.)
The G540’s were tubeless ready, but not set up for tubeless. I had to tape and add my own valves. I was shocked at how easy this was. I mean, I spent SO much time and sweat with 2 sets of WTB i23’s trying to get them to seal with mixed results. Compared to that, setting these up with my old WTB Nano 40’s was like a dream.
Before I got the Cutthroat, I had upgraded the Mulekick’s handlebar to a Ritchey Venturemax V2, which was considerably wider and more flared than that which came on the Mulekick. That moved to the Cutthroat, but I still had the original bar. So that worked out.
For the seatpost, I moved the original Ritchey post to the Cutthroat. For this rebuild, I upgraded the Cutthroat to a Salsa carbon post and moved the Ritchey post back to the Mulekick. For the saddle, I had moved the WTB Race saddle to the Cutthroat, but had, last summer, upgraded to a WTB Gravelier. The old WTB Race was sitting in a box waiting to be put back into service.
I happened to find a used SRAM Force 1 package that included a derailleur, brake/shift levers and some flat-mount brake calipers. This was good, except the Mulekick frame takes post-mount calipers. After a little research, I found a flat-to-post mount adapter.
It worked out pretty well. It require me to size-up my front brake rotor from 140mm to 160mm, but that extra braking power and heat dissipation isn’t a bad thing.
Long story short, I added new shift cables, bled the brakes and there she is, ready for adventure:
