I picked up a ti456 earlier in the year and love it. I'm a one bike only mtber due to owning 5 other bikes for other duties and came from a full susser with no regrets. More agressive riding in the Peaks or Scottish trail centres (Golspie is not far from my folks) seems to be it's natural home built as it is with Pikes, 710mm bars, short stem & Stans flow rims). I'm really happy with it.
However, it's a bit of an overkill for simple XC riding & its not long and low enough as is to be truely quick on the flat stuff. I have done a bit of Polaris/ off-road duathlon type racing in the past and was wondering if a ti456 could handle a temporary "face lift" for those sort of events and if it would be worth it. A lighter, shorter fork (RS Reba or the like), lighter wheels with narrower tyres, longer stem and shorter bars on paper would transform it. But would it ride like a bag of spanners? Has anyone set up a ti456 like this or should I just wind the fork down and suck it up?
To my mind a bunch of bits sat in the shed & a 20 minute makeover makes for when it is needed to switch duties makes more sense that owning another bike.