I believe Olsen has stock of gearboxes and loves a bit of monstercross / gravel.
Drop him a line, he'll happily talk to you online instead of talking to me over a pint (joking / not joking), I've seen him answering questions at 10pm.
@18BikesMatt thanks for adding that. I should probably have done a better job of passing on the message you gave me
Sharing purely as it's bike porn, but may be of interest to see what a chap local to me did with his Empire (as feat. on GMBN a while back)
https://revoroute.co.uk/gallery
Yer speak to Gary at Curtis.
He built me a custom adventure bike last year - lovely to deal with, I did mull a pinion for my build.
Phoned better than email for Gary.
I got a pinion Curtis MTB late summer last year. At that point Gary said probably his last one. Lead times as above and the hassle of importing and dealing with an overseas supplier in Pinion were factors.
Interesting, that’s proper bespoke then. Mine is founded on their base Am9 with tweaks. Didn’t realise did proper custom, looks good.
Shouldn’t be too long before they combine pinion gearing technology with electrical motor technology
Ebike with gearbox, sounds the perfect combo
Apparently that’s on its way, along with a 7-speed automatic transmission!
Once I know how my finances stand, I might contact Curtis to see if it’s possible to adapt an existing frame to take a Pinion ‘box - I have an Inbred 567 hooligan hardtail that’s seriously overbuilt and is unpainted, just a quick coat of clear lacquer, so wouldn’t need a re-paint. It would need sliding rear dropouts and the extra insert for fitting a Gates belt, and I’ve seen someone who ditched the Pinion fitting and fabricated a new one to simply things.
I haven’t ridden it for ages, but being able to ride in sand without trashing the chain after twenty minutes, and generally having almost zero maintenance is hugely appealing!
I’ve also got an Inbred 853 singlespeed that would look good with a Pinion, but that’s more involved, so I probably wouldn’t bother.
