Picture’s of your Singular Swifts needed for inspiration please.
I’m 50 next month and have a Singular Swift frame on order as a treat to replace my aging steel 26er that I’ve been riding in gravel mode for some years.
I’m not too well endowed financially so will be transferring across kit from my current ride initially, so the Swift will, in the first instance, be flat bar but I might try drop bars latter.
My current ride has reasonably wide semi-slicks and I can’t decide if a proper narrow gravel tyre might be too much of a change straight off, or whether to go for something a bit more ‘monstercross’.
Good luck, this place used to be awash with threads full of nice steel frame builds, rigid and hardtail, but hardly ever see them any more.
Frames have got a lot more expensive, so less N+1 going on I think, plus ‘gravel’ has happened and a lot of the same people are on that type of bike I think, and finally, everyone seems to have gone moar endyooro – longer, slacker, lower etc
I’ve got one. Single speed. Hope wheels, fatbar, going rigid next week as it is being retired from no 1 bike. Lovely bike, expect to keep coming back to it. No photos on phone though.
Oh well, I’m still well out of date then (and I’m still 3×9). I did consider a ‘proper’ gravel bike but I’m not too hung up of minimum weight/maximum speed; I reckon I’ll be more that happy with a more utility like Swift.
Some of the steel gravel bike framesets I looked at weighed about the same as the Swift anyway
I love my Swift and will be riding it on the Bearbones 200 this weekend. I have a Surly Krampus fork on it to allow me to run a 3in tyre, which really helps with comfort and control on the downs. Other highlights include Alpkit Fumanchu bar (like a Jones loop bar), 3×9 gears and generally non-fancy finishing kit.
I did try ‘gravelling’ mine with cx tyres and it was fine – but then I got a cx bike.
Gryphon not a swift.
And my 40th birthday to myself
Was previously in SS build, but since I also have a Ti29er SS it wasnt getting much use, so now a ‘hoffed utility/pub/touring/gravel bike using a redundant rohloff wheel I had in the shed. 2.35″ big apples, it rolls like a fat lad in a half pipe. A tank of a bike.
I can’t post pics but I’ve got an original blue-framed Swift setup almost identical to Shackletom’s above (rigid SS). The best MTB I’ve ever owned and if it ever breaks then I would buy one of the new frames in a heartbeat.
Good luck, this place used to be awash with threads full of nice steel frame builds, rigid and hardtail, but hardly ever see them any more.
Frames have got a lot more expensive, so less N+1 going on I think, plus ‘gravel’ has happened and a lot of the same people are on that type of bike I think, and finally, everyone seems to have gone moar endyooro – longer, slacker, lower etc
Or alternatively, the people who are still enjoying the heck out of their nice, steel rigid/ht builds with straight steerers and 100/135mm hubs have probably realised that 3, 5, 9+ years on, a 12th “Update: still enjoying my Swift” thread isn’t going to add as much to the discussion as some chat on newer, longer, fantakkererr stuff.
However! Here’s my wife’s Swift and my Dekerf. We’re both still enjoying the heck out of them. I take the Swift out for an occasional “safety check”, which isn’t too much of a hardship! 😀
Mastered Flickr again now I’m back at a keyboard. Fitted a -1deg angleset since this photo. Works much better for 100mm suspension forks like this IMO.
I don’t have any pics saved that I can link, but I have the version before last (I think?) in the cream colour.
Spec – original rigid forks, 1 x 11speed SLX and brakes, then a splurge of red Hope stuff – 29er XC Hoops, seat collar, headset – then Ritchey finishing kit.
I absolutely love it and won’t get rid. It ain’t light, but it rides like a dream and fits like a glove (6’5″ on an XL).
I can see that ‘gravel’ might have taken over for someone after this sort of spec, but if you fancy one, buy it, it’s superb.
Never seen a better looking bike either…apart from perhaps a Pace RC100 back in the day. Though I’m obviously biased.
Is Sam at Singular coming up with any new frames does anyone know?
[url=https://flic.kr/p/fDiiRZ]Aug_Rhinogau_Bivi-68[/url] by 99percentchimp, on Flickr
Now with a 29+ in the front (not a lot of room but it works OK) and a change of bars – rode it all last winter as everything else was FUBARed….. out on it yesterday too.
In semi bike packing guise (day ride before last weekend’s bivvi)
It came with 27.5+ wheels which I really enjoyed – this is an experiment with 29r set.
I’ll see if I can find 27’5+ pics.
Not quite a birthday present but first new MTB I’d acquired in 18 years.
MkI Swift (from 2011).
Tends to get used for crossing the moors rather than anything else, given that most of my photos of this bike are from up on the moors (in this case, the middle of August this year):
I built it to occupy a fairly specific niche, so it’s had very little done to it since building it (other than fitting a slightly shorter stem with a bit of rise). I am now debating adding a set of dynamo hub’d 650b+ wheels for it (as well), in which case I’ll put it back to a 100mm OLN front end, but that’s far from certain.