New Bike day and first ride: Bird Aether 9c

Ooh. Whats the replacement. Also curious on the rationale for the change.

I wanted to try something with more travel:

NBD: Propain Tyee 29C XL

Ah. Same as me.

Same bike, or same reason?

Same reason. I wanted more travel and better tech climbing. Ended up with a Ripmo.

@Scienceofficer how do they compare? What does either do better/worse? I guess the Ripmo would be quite like an AM9, which I did demo before buying my Aether 9 – found it quite boring on red/black trail centre trails.

@the00 got a link to the advert, couldn’t find it in the for sale section of the website.

@Scienceofficer how do they compare?

Hmm. Where to begin. My comments below are for me and my riding preferences. I’m an old skool trail rider that likes lumpy, narrow, awkward natural trails in the main – both up and down. I barely ride trail centres. IMO its worth trying to ride something even if its going to be slower than walking.I guess you could call me an All mountain rider, if thats still a thing.

Despite being longer travel I found the Ripmo a more engaging and capable trail bike. I found the rear suspension on the A9 to squat and be quite inert around the sag point. Stable for climbing on fire roads, but it sucked energy tech climbing quite badly. I found it quite un-supple for a HL bike, which historically I like. I kept finding the stops of the travel unless I filled the shock with spacers and then the compliance suffered. I found exactly the same on a friends and he had reached the same conclusion independently. At warp factor 10, you could tell it was a 130mm bike – again, not a problem on groomed trails, but much more notable on natural.

Geometry of the A9 was great – it shone on man made trails, but I wanted more travel/sag for the unpredictable stuff and something that didn’t fight me on un-manicured climbs.

Interesting, cheers. It’s the only modern bike that I’ve ridden enough to get to know properly. I’ve come to ride trail centres less lately.

Bird do publish anti-squat curves etc. and I found this analysis by Pinkbike for the Ripmo.

Despite being longer travel I found the Ripmo a more engaging and capable trail bike.

That’s interesting, I’d have expected it to be more like an AM9, which I found notably less fun as a trail bike.

Stable for climbing on fire roads, but it sucked energy tech climbing quite badly.

I’ve noticed (finger on shock) that it barely moves at all on smoothish climbs. I’m not a strong climber, biggest thing I’ve had to learn is to hunch over the front to keep the front wheel weighted steering on the line I wanted.

I’ve just taken a punt on moving from a aether 7 to a 9A (nearly went for one of the paint grade b 9c but in the end decided I didn’t want carbon). What forks and at what travel 140/150) were you all using on 9s? Struggling to decide if I use the pikes I have on another bike with a longer air spring or try something else (helm or manitous).

Need to get the 7 up for sale, really didn’t use this as much as I should have despite liking how it rides.

140 pikes on mine. Did consider 150 lyriks but figured that would be overkill

Was any part of the reason to switch due to bike sizing? I.e. Bird sizing is huge – a Large Aether 9 is longer than most XL in other brands.

@bikesandboots I added a MegNeg to my Deluxe Select+, which made a huge improvement. I got the DS+ because there was very little available when I bought the bike, and I wanted to swap it out right away because it felt a bit harsh. It feels really supple with the MegNeg around the sag point, then ramps up fast (but smoothly) as the travel runs out. I like the feel a lot, but like you I don’t have a lot to compare it to.

@nixie I’ve run mine at 150mm (Pikes and Mezzer) and at 140mm (Mezzer). It climbs a bit better at 140mm because your weight’s further forward and the front feels more planted. It descends a bit better at 150mm because (I think) the slacker HTA makes it feel a touch more stable. I’m 173cm on a Medium fwiw.

I bought a set of Pike ultimates for it originally but I disliked them quite alot!

I rode an M/L Bird and ride a L Ibis. The ibis is still shorter and taller but not by much. So no, sizing wasn’t a factor because I’d already chosen an appropriately proportioned frame size.

I really didn’t like my Pike Ultimates either!

Yeah. It was weird. They seemed to have had a stiffer, more ‘platform’ feeling to them than the older model, which was more of a baby Lyrik.

150mm Lyriks going on my new A9C build. Really didn’t like the Pikes on my old Aeris 1.5, especially so after running Lyriks on the Forge.

I like the idea of the mezza so I can play with different lengths. Shame the cheap set is 51 not 44 offset.

I love my Mezzer Pros. I got them for £580 when CRC had them cheap.

A 140-180mm travel change takes 20 minutes. They manage to be both plush and supportive, they’re really stiff, and they’re only 200g heavier than my harsh, unsupportive Pikes (2021 Ultimates).

I don’t care that I’ll have to buy service parts from overseas. I wish I’d bought two sets!

I have mattocs at the moment and really like them. What offset are yours?

Quick PSA on forks, CRC has the 2023 Fox 36s with Grip2 damper for £531

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/fox-suspension-36-float-factory-grip2-boost-fork-2023/rp-prod214211

With code FLASH15

Amazing price.

Aether 9A with 150mm Lyrik Ultimates and absolutely love it.

I got the 44mm offset cos that’s what Bird say.

Wow on those 36s, northersouth!

I’ve got a large Aether 9 with 140mm Pike Ultimates (last gen). No reason to upgrade, but that deal above might help someone in here who was looking.

140mm 2020 (B4) Pike Ultimate RCT3 on mine.

Good trail centre fork, suits the bike. However, medium speed rough stuff (think Castle Crag descent) and my arms will be knackered, and slow steep tech (think down a steppy path) they won’t keep the front end up. To be fair, I shockwizd them for “firm/poppy” at a trail centre and have 3 volume spacers in them – I should try setting them up on different terrain. I don’t have much to compare to but I’m sure better is possible, either with these forks set up better, or a different fork.

I like the select + pikes on my other bike at 130mm but not ridden that anywhere rocky. One option is taking those out to 140/150 and getting sids at 120. Not historically liked RS forks in the rough stuff though!

Have ordered a set of 51 offset mezzers. Wiggle had 2 left in stock at £479 last night and 1 this morning so decided to take the last one while the price was there. Discovered that they can be converted between 27.5 and 29 with just a lowers swap and that the offset can be changed with a CSU swap (£200ish).

Bargain!

I’m not sure why the Pikes didn’t work for me, as they get a lot of love, but maybe it’s because I mostly ride lumpy & chattery bridleways.

With the MegNeg and Mezzers, I really love my 9c. It’s stable, fun, and very forgiving for someone of my modest skills. But I think I agree with scienceofficer in that rocky climbs aren’t its forte.

“Discovered that they can be converted between 27.5 and 29 with just a lowers swap and that the offset can be changed with a CSU swap (£200ish).”

Surely the CSU is the top half of the fork and the lowers are the bottom half. That only leaves the air spring and damper unchanged if you swapped both!

I ordered 29er with 51mm offset so will only need the CSU (if I change it at all).

That both parts can be swapped was more for into. It seems there are two CSUs, long and short offset, which are the same between 27.5 and 29. Then there are 29 lowers and 27.5 lowers (the extra 29 offset is the lowers). If for example a super deal came up on a set of 27.5 37mm offset these can be made into 29 44mm offset with just a lowers change.

@nixie I hope you get on with it. It took me a bit of messing about to get the main and IRT pressures right (which I guess you’re already familiar with) but once I did I was grinning. I think it’s a great match for the Aether 9.

got a link to the advert, couldn’t find it in the for sale section of the website.

Well funny you should ask… In response to your post I thought I really ought to get a move on and get it stripped down, cleaned up and listed properly. The trouble was the blasted thing decided to throw some more quirks at me.

The pivot ‘nuts’ are not bonded to the frame parts at either the main pivot or the swinglink/chainstay pivot. The nuts have very small flat sections that are meant to brace the torque when. When trying to undo the main pivot the nut just span in the frame, chewing up the carbon.

In same ways I am fortunate to have a spare chainstay and pivot hardware from the first round of warranty replacement shenanigans. With this in my back pocket I unhappily set to cutting the chainstay off the pivot.

I then also discovered another broken collet bolt at the swinglink/chainstay pivot. I have broken three of these now. Experience has taught me to have a spare in stock.

The only pleasant surprise from the rebuild was that all the bearings were in good shape. I will be including a set of spares with the frame when it is listed.

So now the frame is cleaned up and rebuilt and as good as new. The trouble is that in my opinion it really isn’t good enough. I could not recommend this frame to anyone, and it will be listed for sale on ebay. I haven’t tried the alloy one, but I hope it is better. I am happy I have new frame and don’t have to persevere with this anymore.

@Scienceofficer interesting reading your feelings about the suspension. I ended up in a similar place. It was stable when pedalling, hardly moving, but it’s seemed to suck the joy out of climbing. This was my first full suspension for many years, so I just assumed it was the comparison to a hardtail, but my new bike has shown that to be incorrect.

The suspension also felt quite overdamped in response to bumps. It was worse with the Fox shock than with the RS. It might have been interesting to try with a coil shock, but I’ve lost patience now.

Hopefully you have messaged them already but I’ve always found Bird willing to help out. I have been swithering over a 9c for ages but for various reasons the 9A just feels better as the sensible buy.

Was any part of the reason to switch due to bike sizing? I.e. Bird sizing is huge – a Large Aether 9 is longer than most XL in other brands.

Not for me. The A9 was a ride experience dominated by it’s geometry, which I enjoyed. Muscling this bike through twisty stuff has made me a better rider. I have never ridden a bike so willing to drift the back wheel with such control.

I bought my new bike despite the geometry, it’s more than 50mm shorter in reach. The ride experience is dominated by the suspension and grip.

Hopefully you have messaged them already but I’ve always found Bird willing to help out.

Everyone always say this. I’d much prefer a bike than just worked reliably in the first place. They’ve always sorted me out eventually, but not always very efficiently.

1. Initial delivery they sent my shock to the wrong address.
2. Warranty replacement frame took 10 weeks, and was still faulty and I needed to fix it myself. At least they gave me some money off.
3. 5x broken bolts, one of which was sent to the wrong address again.

They have got a reputation for reliable bikes and good customer service for the most part. I wonder if it being their first carbon bike has been a learning experience that threw up some issues – combined with Covid / bike industry supply problems?

Yes, I do wonder if they might have had their fingers burnt a little with their first foray in to carbon. Clearly some of the frames from this year have arrived with a sub-standard finish too.

Both my Bird and my Propain have the same sticker on the BB shall, so I strongly suspect that they’re actually made by the same supplier, possibly even in the same factory.

Pretty glad I swerved this one. It was on my short list after seeing a few very nice examples at Hamsterley. I decided against the carbon but was still going to buy an alloy version until the Privateer sale happened.

I’ve never really been sold on carbon anyway and this would have put me off for life.

I would agree with the sentiment that it should all work in the first place. I think Carbon probably has brought a few teething issues for them and I believe Ben has confirmed previously it’s a shared factory with a few other brands.