first up sorry for long post but i am about to drop a fair wedge at my lbs and im stuck in a country where no fecker knows bike ! so just a quick confirmation that im not making an ass of specing my new bike 😀

just polishing off the finishing touches to my list for the LBS to source for me

TD-1 owners – 20" for 6 foot 3 with a 34 inch inside leg ? ive ridden twinklydaves and it was ok but i wasnt really sizing it for me i was more riding it to see how it felt as a bike after it was suggested when i was looking at custom bikes for this project- i loved it 😀 ! I cant remember how it felt size wise though – i know it was too small as daves short(er than me) but i cant remember by how much it was too small if you know what i mean. I also dont have my bike with me to compare sizing. but i know they have long top tubes.

While we at it – ragley owners – seatpin size , seat clamp size please!

What goes with brushed Ti …. plain black (headset BB , front hub , STem , Seat pin ) liked the idea of gunsmoke hope bits – but want a brown brooks. so restricts me to black of silver with rasta fliplocks (if you still get em)i think. – show me your polished ti with coloured bits 😉

Ragley – td1 ( with rohloff l/h lynskey drop out and SS r/h)
xlite fork (when it comes oot pace rc31 for now)
rohloff rear hub on arch 29er with click box
hope race x2 brakes
pro 2 on stans arch 29er
Dt comp spokes
XTR chainset and pedals
carnegie bars
WTB vulpines or Small block 8s
Hope ceramic BB (already got one an stupendously impressed with its lasting)
Hope headset
Hope stem
Thomson seatpin (unless someone can tell me the weight of a hope eternity isnt stupid)
Brooks Swallow Ti
Kcnc seat clamp
salsa flip locks
chain and cogs will be sorted when i figure out my ratio.

anything im doing majorly stupid – i want light weight but also dependability – ultimately i want to ride the tour divide on this bike but for now it will be come my "long distance" bike – be it audaxing/24hr racing/commuting/just out for a rag with mates

anything youd change – im open to suggestions – only stipulations i have is no shimano brakes ( im pissed off at their planned obscelence of having non servicable brakes ) and the brooks /rohloff and frame stay ! – only went with hope as i know their kit to be dependable and not "too" lardy

cant wait till october 1st – ill be like a kid at christmas !

tell me that isnt lovely 😀

Here's mine. Now with correct length hoses and ESI grips. Just needs a new post now.

I'm 5'10" on an 18" with 70mm stem if that helps (roughly 33/34 'cycling' inside leg). Wouldn't want (personally) to go any smaller so you must be on a 20".

could you do me a massive favour – bb to seat height as it stands there – and the seat to bar length – looking at that i think that the 20 inch might be too big

thats what my current gate looks like – 20inch framed 26er ! 110mm stem on there

Rough measurements:
bb to (top) of seat 75.5cm
seat(front tip) to stem join 53cm

Hope this helps!

ok that helps – no way id get enough post sticking out on that 18 then judging by what you have sticking out !

20" it is unless brant marches in here and says "dont"

thanks clink

Brant tends to size people on smaller frames btw. Might be worth talking to Stoner (on here) about Brants's sizing recommendations – although that was based on the On-one ti29er.

Definitely plain black mate, go for the stealth/class look imho. A brown Brookes would fit in ok I think if you keep everything else stealth. Introducing any other colours would be a bit messy I reckon. Mine's gonna be Ti/black with white saddle top. I thought about gunsmoke rotors but they're a bit blue really. Tarts, the lot of us 🙂

6'3" = 20in.

Surely Crest rims on that? And Supercomp spokes? (keep it nice and spritely)

That is a lovely looking bike trail rat! Very tempted to give 29er a try this winter.

thank you brant will get on to it

Rod – i want the wheels to be durable for loaded off roading – i have stans 355s on my 26inch bike and im not "overly" confident in them on the rough stuff !

which is the next up the list – is it arch or flow – im not familiar with stans terminology. Basically i dont want to go super super light.

To be clear that is not my bike – it is ade wards – i just love the look of it !

looked it up on stans site im still nigh on certain its the arch i want.

its still lighter than the tn19 mavic rim i used for my weight calcs – 470 vs 510

its going to be mid november before i get it built up though 🙁 too many variables i need to check out before i can get some of the bits – like spokes . I have no idea how many holes my rohloff has , what gearing i will run

ah well long term projects generally turn out better 😀

Is that not an RC29 in the first pic?

Not wholly unrelated, but I was in NWMTB yesterday and they have an 18" Ragley Ti frame for £1k hanging up in the shop. That's a good price, and luckily an 18" is too small for me!

Everybody loves Flows though. They'll give the tyre more volume and better contact so will be far more confidence inspiring and sure footed, especially with a real volume tyre.

Unless you've seriously damaged a 355 or they feel much to flexible, then I'm not sure what advantages the Arch offers.

whats a real volume tire then ?

i wont be running more than a 2.3 very often ….

i dont have an issue with the tire profile , nor do i need more confidence despite them being flexy i dont even think about them i just feel i could do with a bit more stiffness at the wheel . all i want is wheels that dont feel flexy and will handle off road with a load and not moan …

Ragley TD-1 Race Weapon by miketually, on Flickr

This is the 18" Hotlines demo bike. I borrowed it for Hit The North and so did 65 off-road miles on it on my first ride. The fit felt great straight away, coming off an 18" Inbred with Mary bars and a 90mm stem to this with 70mm stem and Carnegie Bars.

Jase is 5'9" and rides an 18" with a 50mm stem. Dave is 5'10" and rides an 18" with an 80mm stem.

just emailed my buddy to find out what hole the rohloff i have bought is

if its 36 im stuck with flows – wont complain for 10 grams each

i will try some of my varying lengths of stems in the shed before i get my stem ordered up !

They do look very nice

Choosing spokes won't be a problem in my experience. 32 h Rohloff on 29er rims = spokes for 26" wheels. Rohloff on 26" is a pain with regard to spoke availability.

As for rims I would recommend something tough on the Rohloff wheel. I find that it is easier to 'get it wrong' hopping over stuff with the Hoff due to weight distribution. This might be because I swap between a few bikes though.

im not worried about getting spokes – its more the number of spokes JRA have only got 2 36 hole flows left in black so need to find out what hole my hub is get em ordered – its the only thing my LBS cant get for me !

as for building – i built wheels for a shop for 8 years up till last year.

DT comps or halo generally cover your spoke lengths for 26" rohloff wheels.

only time ive had to cut my own spokes was putting a rohloff into a 20" recumbent wheel !

oh aye meaning to ask – you from leeds or bristol – work in a shop down there and helped out at the world champs in 07/08??? at fort william

spoke to a guy working with me called will there with a rohloff – first time id ridden one

I am from Leeds (or at least I live there at the moment) but none of the other info is relevant to me!

I will amend my earlier comment to "getting black spokes for a 26" Rohloff wheel is a pain". Like you say ISON/Halo have them now but they didn't years back when I had my first Rohloff wheel.

hmmmm out of stock yesterday when my lbs phoned up

sent an email to a friend last night

lbs gets a phone call saying "we found one for him"

big up my mate 😉 – you know who you are

Sounds like you're going to have a nice bike there… I'd give the Hope stem a miss. Mine cracked after bikepacking Wales and a couple of days before I flew out for the TD.

Luckily, I had another one to swap in there. I don't have an awful lot of faith in them for lugging big loads, though.

sound advice – where did it crack ?

likely just go for a thomson then – we shall see

frame , bars are ordered – lynskey drop out should be on backorder and the forks im just waiting on an ETA …. got rc31s in the meantime though !

cant wait ! – the excitements already started and i dont even get back into the uk till next month ! just have to hope ABC dont sell it between now and then 😀

On the face-plate. Where it's machine around the part for the bolt. Hope replaced it, which is good, but not so useful if you're in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, I noticed it in Bracknell Forest which is not the middle of nowhere 🙂

You've put more patience/planning into your bikes than I do… It'll be great to have it all together!

haha – you do know im stuck working in africa

ive made spreadsheets of weight and costs and ordering it all to be back in aberdeen on my return on 3rd october – sad but i have no bike out here. Ive ran 40kms this week though – walked the same and last week i ran 20 and walked 40 im going mad – ive already destroyed a pair of trainers and ive only been here just over a fortnight !

My merida got bought and built because they did me the best deal on a bike that i needed "yesterday" as the first race of the season was 2 weeks after i got back from touring nz – this is the first bike ive built because its truely what i wanted to build – i just hope it comes together like i imagined !

owners can you help?

i see these have screw in cable bosses.

obviously im going to have 3 cables going to the non drive side on this build.

what width are the triple cable bosses underside the toptube ? do these use the same thread as the left seatstay ones , could i buy more of these and bolt them under the seat stay to hold my rohloff cables in place ? are they going to stick out fro mthe frame loads , will i have to custom manufacture some curved ones to match the profile of the tube in my shed 😉

LBS managed to score a rohloff drop out at the same time – big up angus bike chain 😀

from the pics it looks like even the single guides stick out from the frame (im sure i mentioned this at the time Brant was designing the Ragley's, i still think they look daft) so the 3 cable ones will stick out miles id imagine. I think you can get double guides with a cable each side of the bolt, might be a better idea to run one of those with a single guide bolted on-top?

it may be self fabrication then to some curvature round the tube should make it look a bit nicer 😀