I need the STW picture police to find all the niggling faults I've missed.

I'm already aware of, and apologise for:
Headset spacers – I haven't riden it yet, so not set on bar height.
32t chainring, needs a 34t Renthal.
Orange Lock-On Collars – yuck.
QR15 in odd place.
Weight is 25lb 10oz.

Lush.

looks nice and 25lbs is one light trail FS bike, especially given you got 647 pedals on it.

Excuse my ignorance is it the carbon or ally one? Looks like the carbon one to me

Nice bike 🙂

I'd be looking for some black cranks, black mrp with red chainring bolts!

It's the alloy version, in medium. The back end is full carbon though.

The light weight is due in no short part to the wheels. Hope ProIII SPXC3 hubs with Stans 355 rims.

*shakes head at wheel logo/tyre logo line up failure*…

Nice bike by the way

The light weight is due in no short part to the wheels. Hope ProIII SPXC3 hubs with Stans 355 rims.

And the fork, and the tyres…

Nice build.

Nobby Nics. Epic fail.

Nobby Nics. Epic fail.

I've been tempted to try a different tyre, but don't really know what. Possibly an Ardent/Crossmark combo…?

I personally like Nics. Light, grippy – what's not to like (other than the price).

You could try Rubber Queens, which seem to be popular on here (but also spendy), or Ardents? I'm thinking about a single-ply Minion DHF/Larssen combo when my Nics need replacing.

The van's looking well I thought. £4k bike in a £400 van…

Nice. I'm struggling to find anything to poke fun at. 34 tooth ring? Are you not going to be going *down* any hills?

Have you built enough slack into the rear mech cable? When the bike sags it might change gear if not.

It'll be used almost exclusively in Welsh trail centres, where 34/11 is plenty fast enough, with my 'RoadRunner' legs.

I'm pretty such there's enough cable slack. With 70psi in the shock, it'll bottom out with a car park bounce, which didn't make it ghost shift.

685mm Sunline Carbon bars… Hmmm, RaceFace Sixc, at 725mm sound tempting.

£4k for that – you are kidding me aren't you? Please don't tell me you are serious.

Lay back seatpost and saddle all the way forward on its rails is a fail too.

The only thing I will comment is that I'd probably use a SRAM road mech to get the shortest cage possible if I was running 1×9/1×10. Not so much for the few grams saved as for the ability of the short arm to avoid trail "features" and clag. Looks beautiful IMHO.

Unless you ride a lot of road (maybe cos you ride locally or to join trails) do you really need a 42/44 on a true off road MTB? The only use I have ever really made in a proper off road situation of the 42 was in combination with a large sprocket on downhills to get maximum chain wrap/tension. Very rarely pedalled any highre than a 32/34 with an 11/12 sprocket.

Each to their own though.

If I ever have a full suss again I think I would be tempted to run 1×9/10.

44:11 is a gear that I have used a lot on singletrack.

Trust me Jimmy, I paid less for this than you did for your bike… But if you tot up retail prices, it cruises over £4k quite quickly.

And the saddle is 5mm forward of the middle of it's rails. Certainly not 'all the way'

1961:
Fairly certain that Sram road mechs use a different pull ratio. Might be wrong though. The long cage is on there so I can go back to 27 speed should I ever want to. The 1×9 was meant to be a short term experiment, but I quickly grew to love it.

Trust me Joe, you did not pay less for your bike than I paid for mine. After years of spending obscene amounts of money on bikes I have decided that it's a mugs game. Once you get over £1200 or so you get no additional benefit.

jimmyshand – Member

44:11 is a gear that I have used a lot on singletrack.

34 / 11 can be pedalled to 25+ mph easily. How fast do you continue to pedal at?

Thanks for showing us all the true path then Jimmy, with your 50mph singletrack shenannigans. If only you'd imparted that pearl of wisdom before.

I guess this is the end of the high end cycle industry, now that Jimmy's cracked it.

Thank you so much.

TandemJeremy – who wants to be spinning at 110rpm+ off road though? Which is what you would need to be doing to do 25mph+ off road on 34:11. Better to have bigger gear options and not have to spin as fast surely no?

Aw, I think someone might be a little bit jealous of the nice shiny Yeti. 😉

Zaskar. You have no idea just how wrong you are.

jimmy – its not 110 rpm at 25 mph I doubt. You only loose the top two gears anyway. None of my bikes have a higher than 36 / 11 top gear in offroad trim. 25 mph is fast enough for me to be pedalling on singletrack – faster than that I am freewheeling or braking.

I much prefer to have the extra ground clearance and not to have the legbiting big ring.

Jeremy. Fire it into a cadence calculator and see what it comes back with.

Its easy enough to do – to pedal at 25+ mph on that gearing.

I know loads of people running twin and bash and no one ever complains of too low gearing offroad – including some really fast riders.

I rarely am pedalling at those sorts of speeds anyway – more like hangng on for grim death and on the brakes belting downhill.

I know that it's easy enough to pedal 25mph on that gearing. I wouldn't choose to need to do that though.

And just to haul things back on track, look how poor my front brake hose routing is:

And that shifter needs to go inwards a bit.

I wouldn't worry about the front brake hose routing – so long as it doesn't catch your tyre you'll be fine – I've got RC40s on one of my hardtails and the front hose routing is pretty much identical.

jimmyshand – Member

Zaskar. You have no idea just how wrong you are.

Did I say anywhere that I was referring to you? Sign of a guilty conscience, that is 😉

Zaskar. Only a complete and utter dufus would try and pull that line there. Are you a complete and utter dufus? Thought so.

STOP ARGUING AND TELL ME HOW GOOD MY BIKE IS!

I NEED ANONYMOUS STRANGERS TO VALIDATE MY DECISIONS, GODAMMIT!!!

nowt wrong with nobby nics, nice bike…..for a yeti 😉

jimmy – Yes, yes I am. A complete and utter dufus. You are correct.

Saying that though, I'm not the one currently with my arse in a sling because:

a) someone else has a nice bike, and
b) someone has hinted that you may be a little jealous of said bike, going by your attitude.

If you'd like to trade insults mate, that's fine and dandy, but let's stick to the topic of the thread for now, shall we? Good-oh.

That front tyre is pointing the wrong way. They have a (very small) direction arrow on them.

joe@brookscycles:
STOP ARGUING AND TELL ME HOW GOOD MY BIKE IS!

I NEED ANONYMOUS STRANGERS TO VALIDATE MY DECISIONS, GODAMMIT!!!

Its shit mate 😉

Yeah, I saw the arrow, and choose to disregard it entirely, and fitted the tyres the way I think they work best. They roll better in 'rear' mode, and the braking is easily good enough anyway. At least, that's what I thought.

Hmmmm so when the local 'welsh trail centre' thieving scum see that van with that reg' parked up they'll be looking for that rather nice bike in the back……. 😉

Darwin 😳

Nice bike!

It's a well-known fact that a gaggle of Welsh chavs can not only relieve you of the contents of the back of your van like silent valleys ninjas, but can also operate on a vehicle travelling at up to 14mph.

It's a wonder they don't employ them in the F1 pits. Although I guess once they'd got a wheel off the car they'd be legging it up the pit lane with it.

Yep, and it often holds this:

And sometmies the CX bike too!

If someone really wanted to find me, my shop, my bikes or my wife, I'm sure it'd be easy enough. With or without a number plate. I keep the rear windows clear, so the local scallies can see it's empty, which it always is (overnight).