So bought a frame I’d been looking at since January, only really issue was there ended up being no distributor in this country by the time I decided to pull the pug!
so went to the company direct USA order’d payed for it payed for the shipping etc. Eeeeeek.
build it and man right from the start just not got on with it. Fits fine! but something just doesn’t suit my riding, so much so every time I go to ride I look at it and just grab the other bike 🙄.
such a pain in the ass gotta say. Gotta say does look nice on the wall.
but 4 rides and already thinking of just cutting the substantial loss I know I’m gonna get hit with 🥺.

*reports stealth ad*

What?

Can’t say I have done that no. My big bike I’ve always slightly struggled with losing the front wheel – I think I should have gone for the size smaller in hindsight.

However, with some coaching / shorter stem / suspension adjustments / bigger drop dropper I’ve now got really comfortable with it and I’ve never been faster downhill.

Try making some tweaks and persevere with it and you might surprise yourself.

What bike is it and what don’t you like about it?

Yep. A Santa Cruz. Totally underwhelmed after wanting one for years. Thankfully the shop swapped it for an Orange and been happy ever since.

If Ton had octopus genes, it’d still be an unfair poll.

Pace RC305 – think it was about £550 for the frame – which was pretty spendy for an alloy hardtail back in 2006.

Never really liked it, i just felt a bit “dead”. Could also never get the rear brake set up without it rubbing. Turns out the rear disk mounts were about 5mm from square! Got Pace to fix it under warranty but then sold it as I was fed up with it.

No from me, I normally buy something in a colour I like. As long as it’s fit for purpose I’ll get used to it.

Got Pace to fix it under warranty

Wait, what!? Shurly shum mishtake?

Yup, first gen Capra. But had already budgeted into the equation for selling the frame and putting all the bits onto something I knew I loved, as the whole build was such a bargain.

Yeah done a stem change and adjusted saddle (same saddles on all bikes) just doesn’t suit me lol.
regards stealth add people who have known me on here over the years would know I’d just sell it! Not stealth add it ffs! That’s just more a passing comment!
its a GG pedalhead hardtail.

im finding it hard to pop off and over things generally and ridged the most stiff steel frame I’ve ridden and I’ve done a over the years lol

Ooh. That was on my shortlist earlier this year, but I opted for a Pole Taival instead, which, I’m sorry to say I’m pretty pleased with.

I was thinking that those square section stays would be pretty merciless.

That’s interesting on the pop comment. I wasn’t familiar with this make but it looks like it has a reasonably long reach but very short chainstays. Shorter despite it being a 29er / 650+ than my hardtail that I already thought had short chainstays. And that pops manuals etc easier than any other bike I’ve ever had.

It does look like the GG is quite long wheelbase though – so it must have a long front end so maybe that’s the issue. Edit – it may also have a very low BB)?

You might find you just need to ride it more and you’ll get into it. My full suss is 481mm reach and has chainstays 435mm long – so it’s longer reach / chainstays than the GG in the size 3 frame which is suggests if you’re over 6 tall (I’m on an ML size bike at 5’9). I appreciate it is slightly different ht vs fs as I think the reach increase in a ht when the fork sags.

What’s your other bike and what’s your riding style? I find you need to ride much more aggressively on a LLS to get the most out of it. I can chuck mine through the most ridiculous stuff and it almost always carries me through giggling with what I’ve got away with.

2018 Enduro 29er, Ohlins RXF36 forks, STX shock, carbon wheels.

Struggled to get it setup and handling right. 18 months later and its pretty sorted.
-RXF36 air forks replaced with RXF36 coils, then Lyriks
-STX air shock replaced with a coil
-Carbon wheels ditched in favor of a set of cheap arch S1, then a set of DT Swiss XM481’s.

2019 had a the frame replaced due to a manufacturing issue.

All I have left of the original bike is the seat collar…

Yup. Done that. Bought a bike years ago I couldn’t test ride before based on received opinion and having wanted one for a decade based on reviews etc.  Knew it was wrong from the outset, even splurged on carbon wheels to try and inject some life into it…now just have an overpriced sluggish slow energy sapping numb feeling bike that is 1% better than it was before. Lessons Learnt. Stupid thing is I can’t be RSed to sell it as will lose so much money as now old model…got used 4 times this year. One day will give it away to some lucky punter for a pittance just to be rid…Best to get rid of straight away if you feel it’s wrong.

Wait, what!? Shurly shum mishtake?

They couldn’t really say no after I sent them a picture with a disk facing tool showing how far out the mounts were.

If its any consolation they dented the top tube before they sent it back and blamed it on the courier

Will answer this properly next week once the Hello Dave I have on order arrives. I’ve gone for XL and I strongly suspect it’s either going to be amazing or a total dog.

Hay joe. Yeah I’m 6.4 and went for the no3 top of the height range, so it was a more playfull it’s long but I’ve had/& got longer bikes which are all ok. Transition smuggler and a transition carbon vanquish! Both way longer on the reach numbers. Riding wise I’m just an old single track kinda guy, minimal jumping really other than log jumps etc but do like to use the trail to pop off stuff when it’s there to be done! Bb is average by today’s standards.
regards those square rear triangle yep stiff as lol. Very much like the mk1 chameleon which would near on cripple your ankles back in the day 😂😂😂

😂😂good luck in that case.

Nope .. but spent £250 on a frame and been really unimpressed after a couple of rides.
Given it wasn’t a huge push to sell though I kept it and a year later I love it!

OK, to be fair it’s a bit more involved but I was just mis-using the bike.
The bike was over-biked for what I was riding especially at my skill level and just felt like it sucked out the fun. It was probably faster than the bike it replaced but less fun.
Then took it to Dyfi and Revs at half term and had to follow the nipper and I really appreciated the bike when it was being used for something that brings it to life/stops me dying following the nipper.

Dunno if any of that might apply to you… but although there are few bad bikes now there are bad bikes for what and how they get used?

Rigid stays don’t sound great – sounds like it’s a play bike without the playfulness! I’d have thought you’d be better off with something more conventionally sized / shaped for the type of riding you list that will actively encourage you pop off stuff.

My Vitus Sentier is like this, and my mates Kona Process 134 also actively encourage it. My Bird less so.

You might just need to get the bars higher.

I’ve found it to be the case with longer front centre bikes, certainly for my preferences.

Well being the impatient twerp that I am I didn’t want to wait till early next year for an orange crush 29er that I originally wanted lol. I’m sure I will probably get it sorted if not then hay ho lesson learned

Got 25mm riser bars and plenty of spacers under them. Plus the head stock is fairly high so it should dame wellcome up easy enough lol.
only other frame I’ve had this issue with was so long so low & so pink was the Pipedream moxie! Still say one of the best looking bikes I’ve had though hell of a machine though if you could get the best out of it! Which I couldn’t 😂

yes. a few times.
main two were a Jones plus, and a Nicolai.

Yep, my old Foxy Carbon. Had one on demo for a month and liked it so I bought one a few months later. I upgraded a lot on it, and it wasn’t cheap to start with either! What the demo bike hadn’t taught me was how shoddily they were put together. The thing literally shook itself apart almost every ride, the BB creaked like hell and and it just felt and sounded like a bag of nails. It didn’t even get ridden that often, so it wasn’t like it was knackered because it was out 3/4 times a week. Reckon I had 20/30 rides on it max. When it was working, it was without doubt one of the fastest bikes I’ve ever ridden, by a good distance too, and it looked amazing, but the reliability of the thing was abysmal. I sold it after 18 months (and due to the low mileage, cosmetically it was mint) and lost the best part of £2k on it, and I bought it at better than regular trade price… yep, that hurt, a lot!

marin mount vision pro back in 1997, rode it for 55miles – hated it, then sold to a mate and continued to ride my 1994 indian fire trail till 2004 and bought a customs steel single speed hardtail that was my best ever bike (soulcraft)

2019 Whyte 901, bought new.

Reliable’ish (stupid back brake and the BB has just gone), fits fine, is fast downhill….. just does not do it for me and I’m bored of it. How can a bike be boring??

And I too built up a bike from a 2006 RC305 frame…. which I still use. Perhaps just buying a bike off the shelf is no fun?

For me it was a Cove Hummer, could find a demo but reviews were great. I found to too short in the TT and as harsh as hell at the back.

Genesis Vagabong.

Love the type of riding it’s aimed at, love my cross bike, love my SSCX, love my similarly setup rigid 29er.

Just didn’t like it. A few short local loops and one big 60mile sportive and I just couldn’t love it. Felt like trying to ride your big brothers bike with the bars too high and weighing a ton. Then if things got rowdy the weight made it less chuckable than the CX bike which you can just hop out of the way of stuff.

Chumba HX1. Didn’t even ride it. Broke my arm shortly after it arrived and just ended up with a massive case of the CBA’s.

Specialized Pitch – an absolute dream going downhill, absolutely brilliant, like a 32lb DH bike. Just 5 years ahead of it’s time as it needed 25mm longer reach and a 75deg seat angle to get it back up those hills.

few times. never demo’d a bike in my life. bought a jeffsy on the back of all the stellar reviews and hype – LIES.

Custom built Ti Blacksheep frame.
Cost a small fortune.
First on turned up and it wouldn’t even fit a 2.25 rear tyre in there.
Second one turned up and cracked pretty quickly.
Third one turned up and was the worst riding bike i’ve ever had the misfortune to throw a leg over.
All 3 frames were supposed to have the same geo.
All 3 were different.
Sold the 3rd on pretty quickly as I’d just had enough by then.
It’s probably still doing the rounds in the niche tat singlespeed world…
I know one person that bought it emailed me some pictures to show me how he’d polished it to within an inch of it’s life, then sold it. 😂

I dont read magazines, I have no brand loyalty, I take no notice of geometry and I’ve never demo’d a bike.

If I like the way it looks and the price is right I go for it. I can usually tell straight away if I like it or not and I’ll quickly sell it on.

The only bike I didn’t get on with was a gt sanction. It was the best looking bike (at the time) picked up a bargain on ebay. For my local stuff it was terrible, too heavy, too slow, too bouncy.

I hauled it up snowdon and it came into its own. I loved it going downhill. When I got home I stripped it and sold the frame and forks to a friend who used it for a while before admitting defeat and he sold it to his friend. Its still going.

I remember that blacksheep. It was a very cool looking bike. His stuff now looks amazing as well but ths numbers just seem all wrong to me.

Bought an On One Fatty (one with Bluto forks) for £1000 thought it would be the ideal winter bike, go anywhere, lots of mud clearance, good grip etc… and save my Transition Patrol for summer/good weather use

After 3 rides i realised i hated how slow and boring the fatty was to ride, sold it on and lost a couple of hundred quid

Replaced it with an e-mtb for £4500 after demo’ing one, 2 rides after i bought the e-mtb i never rode the Transition again and it was sold and the money put into my bike fund pot

Not ridden a normal mtb since and its been 3 years now

For me it was my last bike, a canyon strive cf9. Didn’t really pay much for it brand new as I had an insurance payout on a written off stumpy which I loved, but fancied something really bling.
Reviews were good and the spec was amazing but I just couldn’t get it setup well enough to feel confident on it. Felt terrible in berms and couldn’t get the fork working properly, had so many warranty issues on it.
Sold it to my mate a few months ago and he loves it, has it looking mint and is faster than he’s ever been.

Transition Smuggler. Not bad, just didn’t do anything for me. Some people love them though, so I sold it to one of them 😀

The only really expensive bike I’ve had was a £4k-ish Trek Fuel EX in about 2012-2013 – paid for by an insurance settlement when my bikes were all nicked.

It rode great and was very fast, but then wheelsizes started to change and I began to learn that longer bikes could be better at the same time.

Never hated it but it just became redundant very quickly – and I’ve been firmly back on the budget bike wagon since.

A Chas Roberts custom job. Not the Dogs Bollocks, the one below but I blew my entire Alliance & Leicester windfall on in 1997 as a student. It was just shite, the whole experience from dealing with CR, riding it and to watching it warp like butter any time a tool went near it.

Full marks for completely failing to meet expectations.

£2500 odd on a SC Blur LTc frame in June 2012, was gone with a grand loss by October 2012, i reckon i did less than 200 miles on it before shopping it in for a Tallboy,