Pace RC305 XCAM, with Pike 426 Coil, Hope/DT wheelset, 2nd hand XT go-bits, 2 year old Avid Juocy 5 stop-bits, FSA double and bash crankset, Truvativ bars, Nuke Proof stem, ControlTech post and Selle Italia seat.

This bike was built around a front tyre, with encouragement from a holiday. My On-One Inbred (the really ugly one with the saddlebag!) felt a little under-booted on a trip to Southern Spain with Sierra Cycling back in April. On whim, I bought the big 2.5inch Kenda Nevegal to reduce the number of pinch flats I was getting. Huge fun.

When I got home, we ended up with a RockShox Pike 426, which was intended to go on the fron of the Inbred. It never got there, because I had a reckless evening in Moose Cycles in Colliers Wood as a result of which I ended up with the frame (a medium RC305 in anodised black), the Hope integrated headset and the Hope/DT Swiss wheelset.

The result is a really entertaining bike. I’ve never really had anything like it. It is immensely solid, muscles through anything and does all manner of jumping around, bouncing and frighteningly tight turns. It will climb after a fashion as long as you’re in no hurry, and will jaunt along comfortably enough, but pointed downwards it absolutely flies.

Seen here in the sunshine earlier on Surrey Hills.

Thanks to Johnny Mitchell at Sierra Cycling for an inspiring holiday, Greg at Moose cycles for failing to talk me out of impulse bicycle buying, and my wife for not hitting the roof!

The very muscular frame of the Pace is very obvious in the second pic. The downtube in particular is enormous. Pace claims the frame is engineered for some compliance in the rear end. I can’t pretend to be able to notice through the squelch of a 2.3inch rear tyre running fairly soft whether a series of aluminium tubes are flexing. Suffice to say it isn’t conspicuously uncomfortable!

Hows it with the wide, flat bars and short stem? Something I’ve kinda been toying with on my Blur 4X…

Looks like mucho fun though.

The bars are wider than anything I’ve had, and the stem is shorter. So far I like it. Control in the twisty bits is fantastic. The frame is rather short though, and I think 50mm may be slightly too little stem length for me in the round. I’m giving it time!

flat bar seems like an odd choice, but if it works for you…
not sure about the angle of the brake levers either

and where does your wife sit?

I’ve actually spent more time and money on this than on the cargo bike! It’s rather nice…

The bar is 70cm wide and has 10 degrees of sweep, so apart from the fact that it’s flat it’s almost a riser bar! Pace have gone to a lot of trouble to keep the front of the frame low, so I went with that. Brake levers are fine when caning it, they may need a fiddle.

I’m bumping this for Monday morning because I am an attention whore and I have a proper mountainbike for the first time in 5 years. 🙂

Nice Bike

brake levers look right to me – the flat bars look right too 🙂

It is immensely solid, muscles through anything and does all manner of jumping around, bouncing and frighteningly tight turns. It will climb after a fashion as long as you’re in no hurry, and will jaunt along comfortably enough, but pointed downwards it absolutely flies.

That’s a really good summary of the charm of burly hardtails. Enjoy!

Very nice, kind of purposeful-looking. My Cotic is slowly morphing into something like that, via smaller stems, wider bars, longer forks… it’s all good 🙂

Checked out some of your Dummy pics on Flickr- do you live in the Apostles? Think I used to live on the same road, along from the glazing workshop/industrial unit! (Won’t quote the road name, seems unfair to post peoples addresses in public)

I do indeed Rich. Lovely spot it is too! That is a splendid piece of stalking… 🙂

It will climb after a fashion as long as you’re in no hurry,

How so?

looks “core”

I really like that! The flat bar looks good, is is a new stylo?

Wors – it is quite a heavy bike, running very heavy tyres, 22/36/bash on the front and has a tall fork and a very short stem. In this set-up it doesn’t exactly fly up hills, but it’s perfectly possible to keep the front down and keep moving. But it is heavy, it is short, and the front end is high, so it does want to wander slightly on steep bits.

If you’ve got time and inclination to put the seat up, wind the fork down and increase the compression damping then it’s fine.

For anyone Surrey Hills local, I climbed up to Leith Hill Tower from the Dukes Warren gate without any bother on Sunday, and also up to Ranmore from the North fine. So it’s alright.

I think for general purpose Surrey-based faffing about a slightly longer stem and some slightly lighter tyres would help a lot. Also, although 36/22 front rings give a good spread, I do find myself dropping into the 22 ring quite a bit when I think I’d have powered through in a 32 but can’t currently manage to in a 36. Psychologically, once you’re in the granny you do tend to dig in for a slow climb rather than forcing the pace.

(For comparison, the last sport bike I bought was my road racer, which amazed me with the ability to change up and attack on hills. This isn’t like that.) 🙂

Si – it’s a Truvativ Stylo World Cup single Speed 2009, for some reason.

This one

That bar looks so wide, must be because it’s flat that it looks much wider than 700mm – stick some end plugs in there though.

My new bike was built around a pair of tyres too, glad I’m not the only one with a complete lack of self-control when it comes to buying bikes.

Looks very tasty anyway, would definitely be on my list if I was going alu.

like it! Flat bars need to make a comeback.

That frame’s so burly looking that Pikes look skinny!

I might actually build a bike around that flat bar 😉

BigDummy in Getting His Gnarl On Shock

😉

Aight. I wasn’t even wearing sandals yesterday. 😀

I wasn’t even wearing sandals yesterday.

Good grief!