Recomendations puhlease..

Something with a bit of spring in it. I have a Liteseed Obed which is a lovely bike but the rear end kicks like mule (square stays) & my back isnt as young as it was. Looking for something that is SS/Alfine compatible, steel & made in the good ole U ok K. XC orientated too, I’m going to run a 120mm fork on it.

Cheers.

Curits, 18 bikes, demon frame works, Dave yates, Brian Rourke, Roberts, enigma…to name a few! Sure/know there are more out there too.

If I were in your enviable position I’d enquire at http://simplecycles.co.uk/ as its within 5mile of my home, or for something a little more ethnic I’d head directly to http://www.shandcycles.com, their bikes are fantastic.

Sliders, track ends or EBB?
Builder choice
Geometry + fit
Tubes – material and dimensions
fittings

If it was my bike to be ordered tomorrow, for what little use that may be –

Bushnell EBB, or paragon / black cat pivot dropouts.
Builder, not sure.. Curtis, Shand, Mather? Someone with good MTB and/or tandem experience if it was an EBB frame. May depend on how much geometry experience / help you need and what their build style is.
Angles, verging on slack but not lazy, low BB.
853 main tubes, but 4130 cr-mo would be fine too. For me, something a bit stiffer than a stock 31.8mm top tube if the forks are 120mm or more.
Bottle bosses – 2 on down tube, 1 over + 1 under, none on seat tube. Rack eyelets on the dropouts just in case, but no seatstay bosses.
Colour – easy. Gloss black every time.

And for the kind of riding ss/alfine works well for (imo), I’d go for 100mm forks and 29″ wheels these days. That’s assuming this is to be a long-distance bike. But be careful if having a custom as your first 29er )

I’m looking for a 26 inch trail bike. Other than that I don’t have too many other parameters. It needs to be fun & whippy, (read not uber stiff, the Litespeed has that covered) something if I felt like I could race xc on..

A pretty simple brief for a good builder then, steel does ‘whippy’ very nicely, just need to be sure on what tension system you’re after and some approx/basic fit and handling numbers (or hand-waving body-english descriptions, a good builder will turn that into numbers anyway). A s/h 26″ cotic simple with a respray may be a less exciting but very safe option.

Got to be 18bikes.. If I could afford a UK made bike, that’s where I’d be heading.

But if not UK built, but UK designed the list grows a lot.

Any thoughts on the Pace RC 104? Love the blue colour..

Thanks to those who have mentioned us. We could definitely do something that fits the bill. I’ve run an EBB (bushnell) myself and we’ve built frames with paragon and 2Souls sliders so know the pros and cons of each system. I’m about to start a frame using the Paragon rocker dropout so will hopefully know a bit more about them soon.

If you want to chat design, please email me direct at matt@18bikes.co.uk

Matt

Oh and we can build using the DMR swopout system if you aren’t totally sure on ss. Combine this with bolt on guides and you get a singlespeed that looks (and works) like it was meant to be a singlespeed but can be made into a fully functional geared bike when your knees are as broken as mine

29er too Matt?

26, 29, 650b, whatever you want

Even road bikes huh!