I’d love that Niner but the price is just silly (check out the US price to see how comical it is over here!) I’d go for the Sherpa.

‘ow much sillyoldman?

hopefully i will be buying a new bike in the nearish future, and a tough 29er is the top of my choice list.

in the past i have built up 2 tough robust 29ers, the 1st was a chumba hx2 built with a 140mm white bros fork…it was fantastic, easily capable of riding down stuff a susser did, and this was 5 year ago.

i also built a surly k monkey up using the 1st gen 120mm revelation forks, this too was fantastic in the rough and descending.

1 thing i have noticed is that the quality of 29er forks has made this type of bike as good as any full sus bike.

is the pike air fork the toughest 29er fork now?

is the pike air fork the toughest 29er fork now?

X-fusion Trace?

@ton yeah if there is one bike to rule them all as an all-rounder, it’s a trailsy 29er HT I think – it’ll never be quite as forgiving as a FS of course but a dropper post goes a long way to mitigate that. Personally I CBA with FS anyway, too much tech and maintenance.

Ontor – dunno. £190 posted?

Another vote here for the Canfield n9

Think the OP said he was looking to spend a max of £1k on the frame. Nowt wrong with recommending Honzo and the like (have just ordered the new 2015 Explosif frame) but to me that sounds as if he’s looking for something with a lot of quality. If it was my money, it would be going on the Chromag. Not sure how much the Chromag Surface is but the Samurai 65 which is built for them by Chris DeKerf is £1100 so must be in that price range. DeKerf builds some mighty fine machines but not sure if he builds the Surface for them. So it might be slightly cheaper but obviously still a quality frame. Plus you can choose any colour you want for your frame.

I was given a price of £1125 for a Surface at the end of ’13. I believe DeKerf makes them. Nice looking bike tho the ETT seems pretty short to me, if I am reading the geo charts right. I was thinking of buying one but there is no chance of a test for fit so that uncertainty put me off a bit.

The pic on http://www.chromagbikes.com/frames/surface shows an object of desire.

Mrs AJT and I are moving to Brighton within the next year and everyone down that way seems to have a waggon-wheel baby-head roller.

Amongst those of us who spend more time shredding the singletrack in the woods you’re more likely to come across 6″ full-sus bikes – and that’s what I’d ride if I could only have one bike here. Lots of 29ers out on the downs though. However it’s not so much what trails you want to ride but how you want to ride them.

Think the OP said he was looking to spend a max of £1k on the frame. Nowt wrong with recommending Honzo and the like (have just ordered the new 2015 Explosif frame) but to me that sounds as if he’s looking for something with a lot of quality. If it was my money, it would be going on the Chromag. Not sure how much the Chromag Surface is but the Samurai 65 which is built for them by Chris DeKerf is £1100 so must be in that price range. DeKerf builds some mighty fine machines but not sure if he builds the Surface for them. So it might be slightly cheaper but obviously still a quality frame. Plus you can choose any colour you want for your frame.

Thanks Haggis. I’m certainly not adverse to paying more for quality. This is going to be the last bike for some time – fingers crossed all my cash will be going on baby stuff.

chiefgrooveguru, I’m become more of an endurance rider as time goes on. Did Epsom to Brighton today, powering over the endless loose rocks was teeth-jarring and dead frustration – hard to make progress – easier on the grass tbh.

Some really good recommendations, cheers. Alex

OP go for the chromag then. I had a DeKerf and have had a few decent steel frames and nothing so far comes close to the DeKerf except my P-29er. That might be going soon as I move away from XC orientated bikes so that I can fund a Chromag. Basically the build quality is up there with the top top custom frame builders and Chromag seem to know what they’re doing. The only reason I’m not dropping £1100 on a frame just now is that I’m going to try out this 650b thing as well to see which one suits me best I.e. 650b or 29. Hence I’m going to try the old faithful which to me is a Kona Explosif and take it from there. In a year or 2 I’ll probably be stumping up for a chromag myself. I’ve wanted a custom steel frame for a long time and have looked at plenty of builders. DeKerf, Indy Fab, Soulcraft and Donhou Cycles being the four I like the most. But Chromag are a company I’ve stumbled across relatively recently and seem to be building almost exactly what I want in the Samurai 65 and the Surface as stock frames. I’ll get a bike fitting done first just to make sure a Chromag will fit me first as it is a big investment but from their geometry figures it all looks good.

I was given a price of £1125 for a Surface at the end of ’13.

Might be a battle to get under the £2k mark for the full build then (wasn’t far under that with an El Mar build with SLX/Hope Hoops/Rebas and recycled brakes, and the Salsa frame price is less than half the Chromag’s).

having started to face up to the possibility that maybe my (very new) N9 is a bit long for me, I’ve started looking seriously at the Surface again.

@op look what you’ve done!

out, damn’d spot!

Singular Buzzard looks nice. Shame 400 notes for 4130.

Not all 4130 is created equal – it’s custom drawn triple butted main tubes, nice tapered stays. The tubing quality is certainly equal to if not surpassing many branded tubesets.

And I can do you a better price than £400, especially if you might want a medium… Drop me an email if you are interested.