Some pics of the Yelli.

Still waiting for stem to arrive… but this is how it will look

Looks good, xl is the best looking size 😉 Was out on mine last night and they are great fun to ride, just make you want to pop and hop off everything. Appreciate you’re in the midst of changing stems but you’ll probably find the front is very lifty on climbs with that many spacers under the stem, particularly if your forks are set at 140mm. I’ve got mine slammed on the headset cap.

Front brake cable should go inside the fork leg but you might have to slacken off the nut to twist the hose round a bit. Should be able to do it without any fluid leaking out.

Looks like a 96′ Zaskar I had once.
🙂

Looks nice mate. And been good following the build.

I was debating the routing on the front hose, i just felt it looked more correct on the outside… Would they usually go on the inside because of getting caught on trees/branches etc ?

I left that many spacers mainly due to it being in initial setup phase, i’ll be out over the next week, moving the stem up, moving it down etc… seeing where it all fits and works best for me overall. It’s certainly not set in stone, but i didn’t want to cut the steerer too short, leaving myself without any spacers/options.

Just been out for an hour on it. First real test-ride.

Ride was purely XC, but that’s the majority of my riding anyway.

Doing some back to back measuring with the Giant XTC29 i’ve found that they’re now very very close in actual measurments for the ETT, BB>seat etc. The Yelli however FEELS a lot bigger. Not really sure why. the 50mm stem on the Yelli has brought it down almost to the size of the Medium Giant with a 90mm stem.

The one MAJOR plus though is the BB height of the Yelli compared to the Giant. I’ve got one particular tight XC trail by my house which was great on the Bionicon but it’s rubbish on the Giant due to pedal strikes. Rode it today and no pedal strikes at all, so that’s REALLY pleasing to me.

Again, with the measuring, the seatpost is laid back a good 3-4deg compared to the Giant and the Forks are much slacker, this gives the Yelli about 3-4″ extra overall wheelbase. Which boy can you notice at times on the tight twisty stuff, the Giant is more flickable at the moment and i got caught out on a couple of corners running a little wide on the Yelli.

The next part where the Yelli excells is in speed. I seemed to be 1 gear higher most sections today, even though both bikes are running the same gearing ratios, both 32T front. Same cassette fitted to both. The flat/downhill speed of the Yelli is fantastic, the thing cracks on and when you hit the downhills, you have to hang on because it picks up speed brilliantly.

The Yelli powers up hills standing really nicely, even seems to climb better sitting down. The perception of less fatigue was something i noticed a few times.

Overall, i think i’m going to end up with a bit of a dilema, despite them both being markedly different, they’re also distinctly simillar. There’s not THAT much difference between the 2 bikes for me to say “well, i’d use this one for XYZ and that one for ABC” So i see the longer term picture that only one of the bikes will remain in the stable long term.

It needs more testing before i begin to make that sort of decision though.

Nice build Weeksy & glad you’re pleased with the forks 8)

Well the bike now has a new HOPE headset, which is excellent. All at a great price at my new LBS, supplied, fitted, setup… top job.

Swapped out the blue temporary cable ties for some back ones… checked it all and ready to ride as soon as the monsoon we’re in the middle of has passed. 🙂

Just put a raceface atlas flat bar on mine and with the forks still at 140mm it seems to turn in a LOT faster. Stem is pretty much on the headset as well…big improvement imo.

Even at 6’3 I’m running a flat bar slammed with forks at 130mm and still wouldn’t mind if the bars were a little lower. Despite being 6lbs heavier than my old scandal it doesn’t give that much away on the uppy bits but is a whole bunch more fun pointing down.

Looks great 😀

If it keeps feeling too big, give me a shout, I really regret selling mine!

It’s a long list mate, i’ve had 4-5 people wanting it…

It doesn’t feel ‘too’ big… feels big… but not silly.

Again, this evening i’ve only been out with my lad to see the horses and goats. Tomorrow if it’s dry then i’ll be out giving it a proper thrashing 🙂

Looks great! Cant wait for mine to arrive on Monday.