New Bike Day! Meet The Mongrel…

Username checks out

Good lord, that’s bright!

Your lawn needs cutting.

Holy mackerel

Looks cool! How does it ride?

Jeez louise, that is bright :)

Username checks out :)

I can see your pink ring.
*snigger*

Responses about what I should have expected I guess!

More seriously, only ridden it around the fire roads and some gentle blue bits so far for a bit of a shakedown and to make sure (a) the geometry isn’t going to kill me and (b) I’d bolted everything together properly. All good so far. Off to The Peak with it on Saturday so a better test of things then.

Feels pretty good. Steeper seat angle than I’m used to compared to my Cotic is noticeable but should help pedalling/winching and not an issue when the seat’s down.

Time and terrain will tell if my mismatched travel idea is going to literally bite me in the backside at some point or whether my ideas about what makes an ideal UK all-round playbike prove to be right.

Off to The Peak with it on Saturday

I’m in Manchester, will keep a look out for the pink glow lighting up the horizon ;-)

I like it.

“Time and terrain will tell if my mismatched travel idea”

What’s the travel? And the geometry, of course?! You have out-pinked my Moxie!

A few key numbers then…

Mullet+ (2.8s all round)

120mm rear travel, 160mm forks

63 degree head angle

77 degree seat angle

Some other numbers (built for me at 168cm) – Seattube 380mm, Reach 460mm, Stack 615mm, BB height 345mm, Wheelbase 1225mm, Chainstays 435mm.

Was feeling like my RocketMAX was a bit too much bike for a fair bit of my riding, and figured a new bike now would be my last fully human powered one so decided to go full custom with Marino (if the thing turned out to be a dog my pocket wouldn’t take TOO much of a hit).

Years ago I saw a GT Distortion and loved the idea of a short rear/long front FS for UK riding, but couldn’t bring myself to buy a GT. More recently I saw the Chromag Darco and read their thoughts on the idea of a ‘steel hardcore hardtail with some rear travel’. Mashed those two influences together with the geometry of my recent Cotics and came up with the numbers I sent to Peru.

I have pink highlights on my grey RocketMAX so just thought ‘what the hell…’ with the colour scheme on this one. as it’s a one-off, might as well make it look like it too.

That’s awesome. I have 3 grey bikes now, you and me should hook up.

“ Mullet+ (2.8s all round)”

29×2.8 and 27.5×2.8

or

27.5×2.8 and 26×2.8?

I don’t see why mismatched travel wouldnt’t work – I’ve got 160mm travel on the front of both my bikes but 157mm on the back of one and 0mm on the other. Both ride great but I remain curious if there’s a middle ground that gets the best of both…

So thank you for your R&D work!

As a singlespeed enthusiast I keep looking at the Starling Beady Big Eye which is about 90mm rear travel and BB concentric pivot with regressive leverage so it keeps the chain tight without a tensioner, you run minimal sag and it just opens up for bigger hits.

29 x 2.8 front and 27.5 x 2.8 rear.

(My RocketMAX is currently 29 x 3.0 front and 27.5 x 2.8 rear and my Transmitter is 27.5 x 2.8 at both ends – I clearly have a thing for the look of cartoonishly big tyres!)

Great to see something different B-)

Your lawn needs cutting.

Hedge, too

I joked before, but I genuinely like bright and fun bikes. That is all the funs. ?

I mean, I liked Barbie too, but… wow.

Usually I think people are wasting their money getting custom builds when there are probably better off-the-peg options already, but this really is something unique.

Let us know how that 120/160 thing works out. Sounds interesting.

Excellent. I’m looking forward to hearing more.

“Usually I think people are wasting their money getting custom builds when there are probably better off-the-peg options already, but this really is something unique.”

TBH, that was my thinking too. If I was going custom I might as well do something different. I’ve had the mismatched thing in my head for years (even tried suggesting to Cy that Cotic do something with the idea after the original Rocket was launched).

As a steel fanboi I could have tried something like a 2nd hand Flare and stuck a longer fork on it, but that would have been a bodge/compromise in terms of geometry in too many areas, so custom it was…

No excuses for not seeing that one coming at you.  Love it.

Love the look of it (apart from the fork decals for some reason).

No idea what that shock’s going to do through its travel… report back after more riding!

“Love the look of it (apart from the fork decals for some reason).“

Thanks! After looking at the cost of short run/one-off decals I bought a load of vinyl and printed my own. Can’t quite get the black background for the forks as deep as I would like on a domestic printer. The flip side is that I can design, print and try as many variations as I want until one works! Might try something a bit ‘scrappier’ like the downtube ones at some point.

“No idea what that shock’s going to do through its travel… report back after more riding!“

Haha! You’re not the first to make similar comments. I’ll admit I don’t know enough about kinematics to even begin to have an answer. The guys at Marino did try to explain about getting the lower amount of travel from a shock I already had (that used to give me 150mm when it was in my old mk2 Rocket – you’re now going to tell me off for wrongly assuming that the Cotic custom Fox tune would work in a hacked together single pivot set up aren’t you?). They were more concerned with shock placement and angles to get the desired travel though than behaviour through the stroke..

Now done a couple of ‘proper’ rides on it. One around some of the features we have in the local woods and one up your way around Blackamoor. Nothing obviously funky about the way it rides. Feels pretty composed on the rocky descents until it runs out of travel but it ramps up nicely to full travel with no harsh bottom out that I could notice. On the jumps and drops at the local (not huge – biggest are about 1.25m drops onto downslopes or smallish kickers onto flat) it again feels composed and solid, with again no noticeable bottom out.

The way I’ve been describing it to my riding mates (in a really crude layman’s way) is that it feels kind of like the bastard offspring of my RocketMAX and an old Alpine 160 I used to have. The geometry and material feel a bit Cotic-y (since one of the geometries I ‘borrowed’ to base it on was my RocketMAX that’s maybe not surprising), while the suspension feel is pretty close to the Orange single pivot I rode a few years back. I know there’s way more going on than that and it’s oversimplifying things, but that’s the best way I can currently find to articulate things.

As long as it doesn’t suddenly start to demonstrate any nasty habits, or stress the shock into explosive submission, I reckon I’ve come up with something that suits a big proportion of my riding. Don’t worry though Kelvin – I still have and love the RocketMAX for the big days out!

Just the fork rattling to sort out before It gets some further testing…

I’m always tempted to do this and build a replica of my 2012 Orange Alpine 160 with a longer, slacker front triangle, slightly steeper seat angle and make the swingarm just long enough for a 275 wheel, but keep the pivot points in exactly the same place as I loved the suspension feel and how that bike rode.

Also I love a night pink bike