My new bike!
Parts bin for the gears, controls and brakes. The rest was new:
2018 Medium Nukeproof Scout 275 – it actually comes with a pre-installed headset!
2018 Nukeproof Neutron Boost wheels – comes with tubeless rim tape, valves and spare spokes
Total £495 with BC discount
eBay 140mm Yari boost forks – immaculate. £300
Specialized 2.8 Butcher & Slaughter GRID tyres – £90
Total spent: £885
The bars are Fatbar Lite with DMR Death Grips – great recommendation from someone on here because they’re comfy and turned my desperately uncool 740mm bars into 780’s!
I’m running a 40mm ragley stem
10 speed Sunrace cassette with XT mech and wolftooth adapter.
Magura MT5 4 pot brakes with SRAM discs – fantastic stopping.
Just need my pregnant wife and daughter to stop being ill so I can go out on it!

Sweet ride

🙂

Lovely

Could do with some grass seed.

Decking could do with a clean.

Bike looks ace.

saddle droop 😥

I’m with sandwicheater (not normally mind as that would be dangerous/brokeback mountain style). You need to stop ragging it across the lawn.

Your decking is too tightly laid – water won’t drain properly.

Nice bike. 8)

You added 20mm a side to your bars with the grips? Are they overhanging the ends? Not sure I’d fancy that.

Bike looks good though!

That’s a medium? 😯 looks tiny!!!

Also confirms my thoughts that building a hardtail for around £1k is no cheaper than buying one off the shelf unless you have some parts already.

Thanks for the feedback. I was over-zealous with lawn feed and weed in October and massacred my beautiful grass 🙁

Point taken on the decking too, but there’s more of a gap between than the photos suggest…

rOcKeTdOg – I’ve got massive nuts. And I’ve not made any proper adjustments yet.

‘Carpark test’ got me very excited, instantly felt at home and that it would go like a bullet off road.

Countless baby robins will die if you don’t stealth out the fork decals, Slaughter grid is a bit of an optimistic tyre for this time of year?

woodster – I pushed the grips on pretty firmly and that’s the result! I’ve tried them on some other bars and got the same increase.

ta11pau1 – I was thinking that but it’s a slightly better spec than the top of range Scout 275 (in my opinion), in particular the forks, but then you could argue that Yari’s are overkill on a hardtail compared with Pikes/2018 Revelations.

Either way, it was fun, I used old bits and I’m delighted with the results.

Yup, it’s a medium. The tyres are big! I’m 5’8″ and 85kg of manliness. (nice mix of imperial and metric)

dumbbot – did you see my rather fetching grips?!

Agreed on the Slaughter. Hopefully go to Nant yr Arian this weekend so I’ll see the results before popping something like a 2.6 or 2.8 Butcher on the rear too.

Orange grips, red & yellow sticker on the mudguard, blue fork decals…nothing matches, whats wrong with you man.

Will surely explode if you try to ride it fast,

Nice, interesting that they design the 27in bike to take 2.8in tyres. less of a compromise than putting them in a 29in frame probably.

Butcher looks good.

Looks good , I almost ended up with one last year before ending up with a sale Solaris .
I really enjoyed building something from scratch and fair enough I had a few spares lying around but I think you end up with something nicer for about the same money .

I’ve got a set of Deathgrips on a Renthal bar and just tap them on with a soft mallet and there is no extra bar width or overhang. The plastic core inside the grip is tapered to resist spinning on bars once on. They’re quite the bugger to remove once on mind.

The grips don’t look right

extremely good looking hardtail!
Great Job!
😉

You sit on the seat like that?

Lovely!

ta11pau1 – I was thinking that but it’s a slightly better spec than the top of range Scout 275 (in my opinion), in particular the forks, but then you could argue that Yari’s are overkill on a hardtail compared with Pikes/2018 Revelations.

Oh if you’ve got bars/saddle/gears etc lying around then it’s a much cheaper way of getting a bike, I added it up and versus a Vitus Sentier VRS+ at £1170 it would cost me £1200 to build a scout frame to similar spec, with a £200 used fork, matching SLX groupset or GX groupset, dropper etc. So unless I could get an absolute bargain of a fork out would be a worse spec for the same price!! The scout isn’t quite as good value as the Vitus – the race model isn’t anywhere near as well specced and the pro model is another £360 for a Revelation over a Reba and no other spec changes…

Seat hasn’t been set up yet but not really sure what the issue is considering we’re all anatomically different.

Thanks for the nice words to all.

I’ll address the rainbow colour scheme in due course. More interest in finding the grip limits on those whopping tyres!

You’ll love it, such rad little bikes for the money! Built my parts bin XL (I’m 6ft) on a budget with leftovers, they do looks small for their size but has very similar numbers to my large Airdrop – though I’d get a bigger one of those if they built them.

Looks great in silver!
I nearly went for a large but I thought that ambitious. Feels great in medium at my height.

Funny how the plus tyres don’t look ridiculous despite my 25 years of mountain biking. I went with the 2.8 specialized because their 2.3’s come up smaller on my Jeffsy and I expected the same from the 2.8’s.

Nice, but destickering the fork and mudguard is definitely in order.

I nearly went for a large

Mine was actually miss sold as a large but after riding it for a year or so worked out it’s actually an XL! I wouldn’t have bought the XL but turns out it actually fits me perfectly.

My mate who’s slightly shorter than me bought a medium then after riding mine bought a large, after he built that and it was still smaller than mine we worked out mine must be an XL. 😆

If you want some stealth graphics for the forks give me a shout – have the artwork here and can run off a set in a vinyl colour of your choice (as long as it’s gloss or matt black 😉 )

After succumbing to peer pressure on here I’ve made some slight changes to my Scout… fortunately the 2.8 Nobby Nic was a “bargain” at Merlin Cycles and I already had a blacked out Mudhugger front mudguard.

Had it’s inaugural run yesterday at Nant Yr Arian… in the snow. It was bloody fantastic, so comfortable, fast and popped off everything. The cornering was incredible.

I’m not sure what pressures I was running but I think it was about 15 PSI in the rear which is quite incredible. I took it down the Reaper DH track too and it was brilliant there.

Absolutely loved it!

Just need to sell my Jeffsy 29er frame now…

These were the pre ride photos!

Yes, I have noticed that the Nobby Nic is on the wrong way around. It was hardest tubeless tyre to fit in the last 14 years of running tubeless. I had to resort to the inner tube in job to get a decent seal on one side first.

However, both the Nobby Nic and Butcher performed brilliantly in the foul conditions. The grip was just unbelievable.

Looking good, even better with no fork decal though… Looks a lot of fun, how are the big tyres?

Ignore me, just read further up.

I ordered a 2.6 Nobby Nic and it was tiny! Not bothered about 3.0 having ridden the 2.8’s.

Nice bike!

Looks like an absolute missile and a bike that is truly at home covered in mud at the bottom of a descent with a slightly crazed-looking rider attached.

Good job!

How are you finding the Magura MT5 brakes ?

Tempted to give them a go as a set with discs is working out cheaper than Zees or guide RS.

Just put off by reviews saying the brake levers are too big/long .

Anyone manage to weigh the frame? Looking at building up a 290 frame to replace my smuggler.

Interested in one of these myself, not sure if to go 275 or 290 though, i think I’d use it more with the 27.5 x 2.8’s. Looks like it would take a 29er tyre on the rear if needed.
Would it be a big compromise running 29er wheels in the 275 if I decided to run them when its really muddy ?
Other frame that caught my eye is the commencal meta HT AM which takes either size wheel but has higher bb than either of the scouts anyway which makes me think 29er wheels in the 275 still gives a lower bb the the meta.

Very nice indeed!

I bought one of those Ragley stems recently (with bars as well), really good for the money and looks more expensive than it is.

FYI everyone,

I have a 2018 Scout 290 XL frame which I have weighed at 2307 grams including maxle and seatpost clamp.