http://www.peterverdone.com/red-five/

Interesting long, low and slack 29er.

A 49mm head tube allows for a top and bottom gimble in the AngleSet. This is important and is the key to a high performance mountain bike

What a **** bellend. I’ll tell you what’s key to a high performance mountain bike; rear suspension.

It does look pretty good though.

Haaaaaang on, last time I saw him was he not busy putting a 120mm stem on his nomad?

It looks broken.

That’s quite interesting- looks a bit hardtail geometron-y (albeit with short rather than long rear end). First thing I’ve seen from him that has been ‘interesting’ in a good way

Verdone is an arsehat of the highest order (clever,skilled machinest maybe….but a complete t£$%waffle never the less).

Turns out the whole make it longer, slacker and with shorter chainstays and stems is kind of crap/lazy anyway

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/behind-the-bike-developing-the-xxl-santa-cruz-v10-2016.html

“You can’t just make a bigger and more stable bike by simply making the front end longer or the head angle slacker,” jokes Marshy, poking at what some manufacturers have done to their DH bikes. After experimenting with increasingly slacker head angles, “the guys felt that their weight was still on the back wheel and they didn’t have enough on the front wheel causing the bikes to understeer. The bikes felt stable, but they couldn’t turn them quickly enough as a greater turning circle is the by-product of a slacker head angle.” Having already determined that a head angle of around 63.5-degrees was the best option – also, the stock head angle of the production bike in the ‘low’ setting – the scales soon came out to figure out how weight was being distributed between the front and rear wheels.

The frame actually looks better than I was expecting, but the article is a parody, right? I feel bad for giving him another page view. “Gingerbread”? Do one.

Some interesting opinions here.

I like crossmarks, but you dont put one on the front of a 160mm travel hardtail!

I like crossmarks, but you dont put one on the front of a 160mm travel hardtail!

No! And you don’t put a 2.1 Crosspmark on the back of a hardtail especially when you’ve said…

The wheels are 110/15 and 148/12 spaced. 2.0/1.8/2.0 spokes and black alloy nipples three cross. The rims are WTB KOM i25 front and WTB Frequency i25 rear. We want 29er wheels to be as light as possible but the rear wheel of a modern hardtail needs to be Mack Truck tough. The rear wheel is going to be punished and broken quickly. It needs to be tough. The front will see far lighter duty.

Minion DHF or similar on the front (or even a 2.4 Ardent if very dry) with a 2.25 Crossmark on the back.

That being said I do like that. Having ridden slack 26er hardtails, Trail 29er hardtails and tried a daft slack geometron, it intrigues me.

I believe the may be some interesting opinions here…

I think it look great. Seat tube it too slack though.

Looks OK

He could have just bought a fast forward and saved a lot of bother though. 🙂

Looks great, bet it’s not the lightest though and the slo mo 1 ft drop vid made me chuckle. Even I could have ridden that!

pvd666 – Member

Some interesting opinions here. Welcome to the forum!
You’ll find lots of ‘interesting’ opinions here 🙂

Bet that climbs well…..

So let me get the straight, he’s custom built a bike and fitted it with an angleset to get the right head angle. 🙄

So let me get the straight, he’s custom built a bike and fitted it with an angleset to get the right head angle.

I think it’s so it can be changed, the whole bike is an experiment.

Am I the only one who thinks an angleset is as ok idea.
Not only can you test it and adjust it to suit (how the hell are you supposed to know what you like from riding bikes that have different other geometry), but you can also change it if you are going to be using it for something outside the norm – like a long tour, or something., maybe.

Anyway – anyone who builds their own bits has some respect from me, even if he loses most of it for the hyperbole and #thugnonsense

Could you folks post some pics of your bikes? I’d like to see how it’s done.

Stragely I was reading a lot of his blog yesterday about SRAM spiders and rings,

Everyone’s allowed and opinion Peter. Stuff gets thrown around on the Internet without being filtered by common manners.

Once you grow a thicker skin and realise it’s all piss-talking barstards round these parts you’ll be much happier.

I just want to see what the experts here do. I mean, someone suggesting 1,100 gram tires for a 29er must be onto something nobody else is.

Well I have a 2.1 crossmark, ive run it on the back of an xc bike, wouldn’t run it on my endure bike though as it would pinch, even tubeless. Run a Rock-razor instead, just as fast rolling, yes heavier but you get the bigger volume and stiffer sidewalls so you can run lower pressure without getting tire squirm. Low weight is great but pointless if you cant get the grip for going quicker.

I’m amazed no one has said it’s not slack enough, too short and chainstays too long… he’ll be along shortly.

I think it looks pretty cool, nice details.

Could you folks post some pics of your bikes? I’d like to see how it’s done.

Unfortunately you’ve stumbled upon the highest concentration of armchair expert know it alls (aka arseholes) on the internet. You’re lucky it’s a hardtail or someone would have done a linkage analysis and said it’s 0.5% less good than something else and therefore rubbish.

There’s quite a lot about that which I like but there are a few curious design decisions, notably the very slack seat angle and the narrow low volume tyres. With the pressfit BB and stay yokes there should be plenty of room for big tyres but it isn’t clear on the drawings. I don’t get why it has quite so much fork travel either, 165mm is a lot on a full-sus, let alone a hardtail!

I started designing my own hardtail last year but before the build got started Bird launched their new Zero AM and I realised an angleset and shorter fork would make it very close to my design:

My own design had 10mm more chainstay length, 5mm higher BB, 5mm more reach, 10mm less fork travel and the angles were within 0.3 deg. Having ridden 500 miles on it, I’ve concluded I prefer the shorter chainstays of the Zero AM, the shorter reach and the greater fork travel (130mm) but I’d rather the BB were 5-10mm higher.

My summer rear tyre is a Minion SS 27.5×2.3 Exo Silkworm, front a Minion DHR2 27.5×2.3 Exo 3C.

Uh. I have one with tyres near as damn it that heavy.

I assume you disapprove, or can’t see the point of big tyres on hardbacks?

Who else missed that this was a 29er?

Why are everyone’s handlebars so high? Doesn’t anyone have to get up a hill?

No, there’s easy access to uplift in the Pennines.

I have to climb about 2,500 ft. before dcending. Internet enduro bikes don’t work for that.
I do have a real enduro bike for heavy days.

What’s wrong with the seat angle?

What’s wrong with the seat angle?

Nothing. I guess some people can’t read drawings.

weird bike designer love in imminent.

Yup 29er, 6ft4 so why run smaller. Dont have that much climbing in one hit, but over the course of a ride yes. Suppose if I was lugging it up one big hill I might be tempted to drop some weight, but more likely just suffer it to get the most out of the one descent.

Basically crossmark is now reserved for undemanding gravel rides, better tyres available for no extra rolling resistance. I agree you dont need/want to go massive all the time, a heavy wide tyre has its time and place, but equally you still want a good tyre. We do have rain and mud though, guess you dont… even still, not a crossmark for a bike id want to hammer (and ive just seen a vid of you blowing it off the rim so dont know why you wouldn’t want a better tyre).

I saw it was a 29er, that’s one reason the fork travel seemed so high. What’s the effective seat angle, as the tube is offset and the drawing only shows one angle?

Regarding handlebar height, yes the head tube is short and the bars and stem low, but they’re on top of a 29″ wheel and 165mm fork, so that adds 88mm of ground to crown height vs my 27.5 130mm front end.

I also saw it was a 29er but didn’t think to comment because, well, they’re not that uncommon are they?

The highest elevation round my was is 1000 ft, but I’ll easily hit 2500ft in the course of a few hours. So, my individual climbs are smaller. I’m happy to tolerate slower climbing for more optimum descending, but it still has to climb. My climbing is not exclusively fire road though. Often its singletrack or historic trails and traction is harder to come by – you can’t just lady down the power and expect to go forward. Big, low pressure tyres help here.

PVD…arsehat and t~@$waffle are British colloquialisms for terms of endearment and admiration.
Hopefully this clears up any cross Atlantic misinterpretation.

PVD…arsehat and t~@$waffle are British colloquialisms for terms of endearment and admiration.
Hopefully this clears up any cross Atlantic misinterpretation.

No their not, they are outright insults.

thats fugly and why is the seat almost over the rear axle?

they’re…..your(sic) on the list.
Also…..he’s American not an idiot.

Being a fan of steel long travel 26ers I quite like the idea and look of this esp if it works well with a long travel fork.
Must agree that I would be using bigger grippier, tyres though.

I mean, someone suggesting 1,100 gram tires for a 29er must be onto something nobody else is.

Yes, long travel 26er,frames,forks, wheels and tyres are all lighter but then I remembered that weight suddenly stopped being an issue when 29ers eneterd the market 🙂
But seriously the Maxxis tyres mentioned are 825-925 g aren’t they?