So, I’ve been swithering on the edge of buying a new bike for months and, after a successful test ride, settled on an Aeris (it’s brilliant!).

So, using the Brexit sh*tstorm that’s almost certainly coming our way as my excuse to get in there now before prices soar, I’d like a few tips on what spec to go for please.

I’m looking at the XT11 one – http://shop.birdmtb.com/aeris/aeris-xt11.html (I hate SRAM brakes with a passion and not a big fan of their gearing either), with the following bits decided:

– 150mm RC Pike (+£110) (Ben himself reckoned the extra £50 for the RCT3 is literally for a blue knob that no-one uses.
– Monarch Plus RC3 shock (+£100)
– XT brakes – got them on my current bike, they’re fantastic – unless Zee’s are ‘that’ much better, these’ll be fine
– Bigger Ice Tech rotors (203mm / 180mm) – cheap upgrade
– Bash guard (£45)
– XT cranks (£0)
– Minion Front / Ardent Rear tyres (might chuck a High Roller on the back)
– Bars is bars, stems is stem – standard 760mm / 50mm ones will be reet
– Reverb Stealth seat post
– Hope headset (+ £40 over the standard Cane Creek one)

My main quandary lies with the wheelset, as I know nothing about them other than to get the best set I can afford.

The options are:
– DT Swiss E1900 (£0 – come as standard)
– DT Swiss E1700 (+£130)
– Hope Enduro Pro 4 (+£240)

I’m happy to put the money into good kit, but I’m not arsed about tarty bling for the sake of it – any tips?

Go for the wheels upgrade – £130 is definitely worth it

But your last line and the choice of a hope headset don’t really go

I thought I was being reserved looking at Hope and not a Chris King one tbh…

Why a bash guard? Not needed for 1x really

Hope headset worth it, not a fan of cane creek relibility

Get the best wheels you can afford

760 bars not that wide. I’d get wider, you can always cut

Why a bash guard? Not needed for 1x really

Hope headset worth it, not a fan of cane creek relibility

Get the best wheels you can afford

760 bars not that wide. I’d get wider, you can always cut

+1 x 4

Hehe – i looked at an Aeris at Hamsterley last year and one of the other guys (not Ben) said that the best value upgrade was to the 1701 wheels

Chris King is a nice bit of bling tho

So – 1700 wheels over the Hopes then, is that the general consensus?

I’d get the E1700s, not bother with the bash or the plus shock or the Hope headset and swap the cranks for the Aeffect SLs and the bars for Atlas 800s. Shorty on the front and DHRII on the back.

New 8000 XT aren’t particularly well thought of, I’d spec the Guide RSC’s.
E1700’s or EX1501 well worth it but I’m sure I saw the xm1501’s were an option? Slightly less robust but lighter.
Elsewise that spec looks great.

Yay, an Aeris thread, something I actually know about 🙂

RC Pikes are great. Ben’s right.

XT brakes are fine as long as you get the most recent batch (Bird know all about this – sorry guys).

Zee brakes – nice but I couldn’t stop the rear of my loan set from rubbing a touch and that stuff annoys me.

XT cranks – typical shimano fit and forget but make sure you put crank skins on them first to stop rubbing. I’ve got an oval 32t Absolute Black ring on mine and it’s great.

Bash guard – worth it (for the bash, not guide), just fitted an AB Taco on mine.

Bars – I’d have gone 780 but I ride a lot of very narrow stuff and 760 just about fits through.

Wheels – get the best you can. EX1501 on mine and love ’em.

HTH.

Why a bash guard? Not needed for 1x really

Mine is bashed and chipped so it’s doing something right.

For trail centres you’d probably be ok without. In the wild, loose rocky stuff (rock stikes) and trialsy trails (big logs/boulders) they are a must. A borked chain or bent chainring teeth could ruin a ride – i know from experience – but may result in having to replace the whole shebang. Luckily, in my case, everything was fairly new so i didn’t need a new cassette. 1x stuff isn’t cheap – bash guards are. YVVMYVVMMYV or something 😛

If it was my choice I wouldn’t bother with the bash or the headset upgrade – I am a big hope fanboi but have a 40 series cane Creek headsret in my pivot and can’t fault it.
Wheels for me would be try and get the hope pro4’s, the DT Swiss wheels will be excellent however they are a little trickier to service and it will be harder to get spares for the strait pull spokes. If the serviceability and easily accessible spares is not going to be an issue then go with the DT Swiss wheels.
[edit] cranks, if it was my choice I’d go aeffect cranks for the cinch system and single ring direct mount options over the xt

My thoughts for a penny:

– 150mm RC Pike (+£110) (Ben himself reckoned the extra £50 for the RCT3 is literally for a blue knob that no-one uses. Yep!
– Monarch Plus RC3 shock (+£100) Yep!
– XT brakes – got them on my current bike, they’re fantastic – unless Zee’s are ‘that’ much better, these’ll be fine. As JRuk says the issues with early ones are resolved now, and so normal service seems to have resumed. All our brakes are the latest edition now.
– Bigger Ice Tech rotors (203mm / 180mm) – cheap upgrade. Why not…
– Bash guard (£45) – Definitely want one of those.
– XT cranks (£0). If it were my bike I would have the Aeffect.
– Minion Front / Ardent Rear tyres (might chuck a High Roller on the back). Check. Go 2.4 on the back though.
– Bars is bars, stems is stem – standard 760mm / 50mm ones will be reet. 760 is fine for most people, although the comments on going 800 and cutting are valid. I would take the 40mm Turbine R stem personally. Its a beaut.
– Reverb Stealth seat post. Obviously! 170mm now in stock too.
– Hope headset (+ £40 over the standard Cane Creek one). Yep I like hope headsets. I wanted to spec them as standard but we couldn’t agree a price so they are still an upgrade only.

On the wheels, I think we have a single EX1501 set left in stock until our new wheels roll out….

Aeris owner. Ask The Nest to stick a GX cassette on your E1700 wheel (xd obvs). You might not rate SRAM gearing but the 11-42 wasn’t quite enough range for me but the 10-42 seems spot on. Enjoy!

What is wrong with the Xt brakes? And how do I tell if I’ve got the “latest”? Literally just bought a set from ribble and plan to fit this weekend….

Apologies for the hijack

Another +1 for the E1700 wheels – I specced them on my Aeris and they are *really* nicely built. Coming from a Hope wheelset on my previous bike, the freehub is seriously quiet! That said, there ain’t much that’s louder than a Hope hub 🙂

My Aeris is pretty much the same spec as what you’ve outlined above, apart from 1×10. I’ve taken it round the techy fun of Gisburn, and the DH fun of Bike Park Wales, and it’s been utterly brilliant so far. Great choice!

I’d also recommend the 3C compound for Minion DHF on the front – I was pleasantly surprised by the huge amount of edge grip it had.

I like this thread. I bought a frame only as I already had the rest of the stuff from the Stumpy.

Helps looking at potential upgrades as stuff wears out on mine. Thinking of going 1×11 soon, maybe new brakes and an Ardent 2.4 on the back to replace the Slaughter Grid.

@benpinnick – it must be an absolute nightmare to manage al this customisation – Trying to keep stock of all thos edifferent bits, etc?

It’s obviously a brilliant USP for the bikes, mind, as how its done (and priced) on the ste is excellent, but I’m trying to imagine the logistics of it all – does it force you to keep a huge amount of stock

(obviously your business is none of my business, just curious)

What is wrong with the Xt brakes? And how do I tell if I’ve got the “latest”? Literally just bought a set from ribble and plan to fit this weekend….

I think IIRC the dodgy ones are labelled (on a little sticker under the lever) as ‘NG’ . Don’t quote me on that though. Just because they are NG ones doesnt mean you’ll have an issue though, it seems sporadic.

Honourablegeorge, yes and no. Its a pain when suppliers let you down, and its tricky when you get a run on things that suddenly get a great review in a mag or something, but we’re getting better at it! Whats most tricky I think is that 3 people have to do the work that some companies would have 30 people to do, and while their numbers are bigger, its the same jobs to be done.

I guess what some people don’t realise is that we’re buying direct from the factories which means we have to manage everything from dissecting the 20,000 line OE product catalogs and generating very specific orders, arranging the shipping both ends, managing the stock/checking in etc. when it arrives, building the damn things 😉 and then shipping them out again. We’ve sold around £1m worth of bikes in the last 12 months, so thats a fair few bits in and out!

@ben – yeah, that’s exactly the kind of chaos I was picturing. Sounds like it’s working well for you though, hopefully you get to keep a little bit of those milions for yourself

@DT78 – I went through a few of the early sets of XTs and as Ben says they had a little silver sticker on the bottom where the last two letters were NG. The ones I’m on now have been fine (fingers crossed) but have rather mysteriously had the stickers removed – they came from Madison, nowt to do with Bird. It’s the master cylinder rather than the pistons that caused the issue. I’ll be switching to metallic pads in the winter as prefer the solid feel.

@jamesmio Re: Tyres – I’ve gone Minion 3c on the front and a standard HR on back. Bike climbs like a beast even with me pedalling so I wouldn’t worry about the drag too much.

Whatever you stick on it, you’ll love it. To quote a riding buddy “you’ve got a lot bloody faster since you got that bike” 🙂

I love these kinds of threads, to see what people are buying and the reasons why. Only downside is I’m always tempted to ditch what perfectly good parts I have in favour of something new.

Also great is seeing Ben (amongst others) from bike companies engaging with customers/ prospects. It’s this customer service that I think is so important to us as consumers, many can learn a lesson from this.

Finally, jamesmio look forward to seeing the build pictures!

If it was me:

Cane Creek headset to free up money towards ex1501 wheels. They are amazing, wouldn’t run anything else.

Wider bars, shorter stem

Probably wouldn’t bother with a full bash, just a Hope or Saint quarter one.

Minion SS on the rear

Oh, and CCDB CS but all that might go above budget

I love my aeris , had it a year now and its been brilliant , I hardly made any changes to mine from the stock build . I went with the race face chainset which i prefer the only thing is it does tie you into race face compatible chain rings and bottom brackets which tend to be a bit pricier than shimano options .

I’d match the length of stem to the one you test rode. I’m assuming that would be 35 or 40.
I personally love 760mm bars.
I’ve now replaced my previous fav Ardent rear with Minion Semi Slick.

I was dubious of the bash, but it looks very bashed now, so I’ll keep it thanks 🙂 The bottom bracket is pretty low and it’s nice to not care at all, especially as they’ve managed to make a single ring cost so much!

Pike RC is fine.

Enjoy!

Went for a spin around Swinley last night – it was Aeris city. Enjoy OP!

I’ve Pike RCT3s on both my bikes, but I can’t remember the last time I considered having an advantage of a third setting between on or off. Better to save a mid-setting for the rear shock where RC3 makes more sense.

XT cranks are the default, I’ve used nothing else for years. +1 for getting them covered in clear plastic though.

I wouldn’t bother with a Hope headset, unless the anodized bling is on show, nor would I bother with an Ardent, especially given the horribleness of summer so far. Minion plus High Roller is the winning option.

For me the priority is always Shock (Aeris works really well with all their options), Fork, Wheels, Tyres, Brakes and Dropper Post. Work the rest of the components around these to suit the budget.

I was fortunate enough to not have a budget issue with mine so managed a 28lbs build in the end.

So what spec did you chose Alextemper?

Monarch Plus
Pikes
Cane Creek 40 Headset
XT shifter and mech with SRAM cassette
XT brakes
Next Cranks
Atlas Stem, SXC bar
Stealth Reverb
Bontrager Carbon Saddle
Prototype Bird Carbon Wheels 30mm
Minion Tyres

Nice! @alextemper

Personally I see nothing wrong with the E1900. Maybe a little heavy but I have a set that came with my Zero that are as true a year later as the day they arrived.

Some photos of the build.

mechanicaldope – Member
Personally I see nothing wrong with the E1900. Maybe a little heavy but I have a set that came with my Zero that are as true a year later as the day they arrived.

Yup, decent enough wheels. I have a set of 1700 on a 29er hardtail and they have taken a fair bit of abuse with only a slight wobble here and there which is to be expected.

alextemper, I hate you man, my 26″ soul is 1 1/2lb heavier than your Aeris.

But you still have fun on it, right?

Different tyre choice would a dropped more weight but I’d rather be riding then replacing sliced up tyres.

Yeah, it’s great to be fair, some lighter tyres and wheels would be nice, and a better drivetrain.

But part of my basis for sticking with hardtails is that full sussers are heavy lumping things that are crap uphill…….

Is that a Bird?

I’ve had my Aeris for 15 months now. In that time ridden it over 3500km all over the UK and a few times abroad. The spec you’ve put up first looks good (although I do like AlexT’s bling spec). Here’s what I started with and haven’t changed

Cane Creek DB CS (not as great as I thought it’d be, would be happy with the Monarch I think)
Pike RCT3 – same model as original but new warranty replacement. Agree on the ‘t’ part
Cane Creek headset – zero issues, still smooth after lots of gritty riding
RF Turbine cranks, beaten up but fine, BB’s not great, on my third and they are expensive. The large axle thing means small bearings. Might go back to Shimano
XT transmission – good as ever
Zee brakes – 203/180, definitely more powerful than XT’s. Prefer to have the Zee’s on the big bike
Reverb 150mm – fine needed one service
RF SixC bars – cosmetically battered but still going strong after many crashes!
RF Turbine stem – 60mm – I bought a Med (was on the cusp of a L but have short legs) – keep meaning to try a shorter stem
Charge saddle – getting battered now but comfy and hard wearing

Things I’ve changed
Bird AM Carbon wheels on DT350s (original not new ones AlexT has) to DT Swiss rims and hope 4 hubs. The wheels were fine but a bit high maintenance for me (kept breaking spokes) and the rear hub is a nightmare to service if you need all the bearings out. Also my carbon rims were cosmetically beaten up (not surprising) but new DT swiss rims (alloy) seem a bit more hard wearing. Sourced from Ben@bird – great build. Bit heavier than carbon but just so much more field repairable with hope hubs.

Transmission. 1 x XT 10 speed cassette and chain, just replaced with 1xXT 11 speed cassette, chain, shifter and mech.

Tyres: Originally Minion 2.35/Ardent 2.4 now Minion 2.35/HR II 2.35

Oval chain ring 32T

RaceFace grips (Nelson’s same ones as supplied, just wore out)

It’s a bombproof bike, just getting little knock in the main pivot bearings now but Bird will sell you a whole set of 12 (I think) Enduro Max replacements for £50. Look pretty easy to replace as well.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/J7mezz]Bird with Funky new wheels[/url] by Alex Leigh, on Flickr

Current spec. Great bikes and Dan, Dave and Ben are top people to deal with.

EDIT: Last thing I run mine in 140mm mode for most things, quite a low BB already. Only go 150mm for BPW/Antur etc.