I promised Khani and a few others that I’d post up some pics of my re-worked 2005 5spot once she was complete. Well, here she is!

No trail pics I’m afraid, so you’ll have to settle for the apres ride, pre-wash ones.

I sold her bling accessories and mothballed her when I was made redundant about 18 months ago, and I’ve slowly built her up using spares and cobbled together parts here and there.

1×9, coil front and rear and 29.7lbs.

I’ve been riding a light single speed for 18months and this feels like I’m riding a monster truck!

Its the most stable and sure-footed bike I’ve ever owned. It flattens everything on my local trails, even deliberately shiite lines on rooty drops, turning them into boring motorway blasts. The fork dominates the whole ride. Lots of inertia to winch up through velocity changes and climbs.

TBH I’m not sure I like it. Whilst undoubtedly competent, its just doesn’t feel very ‘perky’

😕 😳

Oh, and the XCX is fine for keeping a rattly chain on, but not for correcting chainline – Its too weak.

and 36T on the front may be a little too high.

It looks very nice 😛
I noticed a lack of Perkyness when I built a burly 5spot, I think a long fork and a shock with no lsc or propedal caused the back end to squat when climbing or hard pedaling and made it feel like it was dragging it’s arse, a dhx with some propedal made it loads better and a 130-140mm fork kept it feeling more nimble in tight fast singltrack, what travel are the forks?

My Van R is push tuned. Its not that. Originally I had the ‘dragging its arse’ on the ground thing with its oem RP3, that was the damping, and is why the Van is pushed.

The Nixon is 145mm (a-c of 518mm). It might have something to do with its 5.2lb weight…

She felt a bit better winding down to about 130mm, and the bars are too high aswell. Never the less, she feels more lethargic than she should for the weight although the forks kick the previous air pikes into touch. I’d forgotten how good they are.

It’s just more of a slack, absorbent, down-oriented bike. The way you describe it being lethargic under power is how I felt about the Orange 5 I tried. Find something frightening to ride it down!

I think that’s the price for running coil front and rear, much plusher but not as perky
And as you say you’ve been riding a light ss, so it’s a bit of a leap to a plush susser,
Like a laydee, perky or plush’ what do you prefer? That’s the good thing about 5spots they can do both
Do’s look nice though

Aye. I think you’re right, the SS has quite a bit to do with my impressions so far.

Ironically, I deliberately built it up like this to be more of a contrast to my SS. It certainly didn’t feel lethargic in its previous build (RP3 and air pikes).

I think longer term it might find an air shock and shorter air forks going on.

Try tweaking the ride position as well, as you said’ the bars look high and the saddle looks pushed right back as well, try lowering the bars and pushing the saddle forward a bit to get over the front more,

nice, if you ever feel like flogging that pushed van R let m know please.

I think they are the only ones that may fit a small framed DW link spot.

Will do vortex. I may be open to a straight swap if you’re running an air can.