Briefly, the frame is a medium Orange Blood, with Rockshox 2Step Lyriks, Race Face cranks, bars, stem and new SRAM XO shifters and Elixir brakes (in pink and purple respectively)
NukeProof wheels, an E-Thirteen chain device and just ignore the saddle and seatpost – they’re off his touring bike…
Chipps adds…
Wow, you stick up a quick picture before going off for a long weekend and look what happens 🙂
To answer some of the questions and comments:
No, that saddle isn’t staying – I clearly said it was just whipped off my tourer because I currently don’t have a 27.2 post spare. Something squishier will go on it. The tyres, too, are easily changed. This isn’t being presented as ‘This is how all bikes should be set up’ – it’s being shown as a ‘Look, I just finished this before the weekend, here’s a quick picture…’
Yes, I AM mainly an All day/XC rider – and as such quite representative of the average Singletrack reader. I figured that as I have the chance to build up such a (silly) bike, perhaps my thoughts and experiences on such a bike might be of interest to those fellow mid-life-crisis riders who wonder if getting a ‘rad’ bike will make them radder (it probably won’t, but it should make being rubbish a whole lot of fun).
I won’t be the only rider on it. It’ll get its share of other testers on it. In fact, if anyone’s passing, they’re welcome to give it a go one evening and show everyone how it’s ‘meant’ to be ridden. It’ll be ridden in Calderdale, but also around the place at trail centres, all day rides and whatever sounds fun. It weighs in at 33lbs currently in the build in the picture. Just swapping the saddle out saved half a pound off that…
There’s nothing wrong with pink. I merely have a dry and rather contrary sense of humour and I figured if I’m going to be riding like I’m on a Barbie bike*, then I might as well showcase it. (* I would say ‘Riding like a girl’ but I know far too many VERY fast girls…)
The anodized components were a mix of what had just been sent in (SRAM XO in pink) and a few bits designed to clash with everything else (the Race Face cranks, Elixirs, pink grips and blue zip ties…) – Lighten up everyone, it’s not meant to be a concours fashion winner. 😉
I’m running Rockshox Lyriks because we’ve not seen a pair of the 2-Steps since our previous pair were recalled a couple of years ago.
How’s that? Keep the comments coming… The near-final build will appear in issue 50 of Singletrack.
Lovely, in a wrong way. Bet it’s a lot of fun.
Alright if you’re a girl (just), but for a man perhaps a little bit gay.
Perhaps a bike that is so allegedly hyper gay, can only be ridden by someone hyper non-gay?
The Lecht Rocks
Have you ever ridden one? Might be a good idea to try one before you decry it as the worst bike ever. Who cares if it doesn’t have a Horst link or if the BB looks low? It’s surely the way it rides that counts. I tried one of the prototypes and came away really impressed by how it felt compared to my 5 Spot. Will be interested to see if it releases Chipps’s inner hooligan……… :-0
yeah…. it’s just the attention to detail that worries me a bit, the matching purple anodized cranks and brakes and the pink grips. and are those costom decals on the lyrik? I hope it’s going to get ridden properly because you know people’ll be watching
” how does induced pedal bob and pedal strike appeal to you”
Why will it Bob? I’ve always found “proper” 4 bars the most noticeably squating under pedal loading types of bikes that i’ve rode.A Horst Link is there to keep the bike active under braking ( which on 5″ bike is hardly noticable anyway) And Pedal strikes once in a while are a lot better then stupid high BB’s 99% Of the rest of the time IMO.It’s still not as good as My Alpine 5 anyway- Now that has a really Low BB ;]
I think it looks great apart from the weedy looking tyres.
I would build a bike with a simalar colour scheme. :o~
I think it’s safe to say that TLR doesn’t ‘get’ the blood.
Sanny. Respond to my email you sod!! 🙂
RHS no 2
Sorry. Reply coming your way amigo!
That bike SCREAMS “mid life crisis”.
There is a classic pic of Chipps from (I think) the MBUK days with one of his biles at the time, was it a Yo Eddy with Ringle etc kit and everything in 3-D Violet.
Looks like some peoples sense of decorum never matures!
I like the Blood, I like the colour, just don’t like the rest of the stuff on the boike
i hope the seat doesnt stay up most of the time otherwise it`ll be the biggest waste of bike ever.
correct – i don’t get it.
calderdale seems relatively steep and rocky.
if so, it’ll bash pedals all over on the climbs and try to spit you off on fast rocky descents. if you run the correct sag.
if you overcompensate for the pedal strike by boosting preload and reducing sag, it’ll stiffen up and you’ll lose what you’ve gained by designing the suspension in a set way.
usually, if something looks right, it normally is.
in this case , to my untrained eye, it don’t look right.
I’m afraid your untrained eye is positively a “special needs” eye 😉
Climbs are usually done on farm track or roads (for expediency reasons). Pedal striking is not an issue.
Why do you think a low BB will try to spit you off? A low BB makes a bike HUGELY more stable and un-endo-y on steep terrain… and better handling through corners too. The descents this bike is designed for don’t require much (if any) pedalling.
ben 1
TLR 0
It looks (to me) like it would be well suited to bike parks and Coed Llandegla stylee trails, where pedalling in technical terrain is not an issue, nor is going uphill particularly fast and the low BB will help in the berms and such?
my helius AM has a low BB for a 167mm trail bike and i suffer mega pedal strike on air and coil [ccdb] shocks, irrespective of sag.
good luck 🙂
Pink is wrong, even on womens bikes (well my girlfriend says so)
Hitler wasn’t happy when he got a pink bike.
Sorry, here’s a you tube clip of Hitler finding out he got a pink bike:
“my helius AM has a low BB for a 167mm trail bike and i suffer mega pedal strike on air and coil [ccdb] shocks, irrespective of sag.”
Do you know that you can have you pedals at 2.45 as well as 6pm? ;]
matt – that’s my mistake, thanks 🙂
and i think it’s 3.45 unless you’ve splined your crank arms on out of sync ?
What I dont understand is why Chipps has this as his longtermer? He has stated many times before how he is more of xc rider? And I think the trip to switchbacks proved it..So what sort of meaningful review are we going to get from this? Surely it would ahve been better for one of the other more Dh oriented guys to have this?