I’m thinking of ordering a Starling Murmur. Has anyone got any real work experience of riding one? If so what did you think?

Saw one with a folded top tube at the gusset.Rider was less than impressed given he had’nt noticed doing it until I pointed it out.

Luckily that can be ironed out

Edit. I’ve got a Swoop (27.5) and I’ve had no problems with it. Really nice feeling to the bike and what little bit of “give” there is adds to the feel.

Goes up hill n down hill nice n fast (for me) and it doesn’t suffer from the afflictions of some other single pivots.

Really loving my murmor. I’ve got it long and slack. Pedals well enough up, descends like a demon. It’s not light, especially with the kit I’ve put on (33lb build) 63deg head angle and 470mm reach is slacker and marginally shorter than a geometron. Prefers sit and spin to mashing pedals. Still fiddling with the x2 to get it set right (need to borrow a shock wiz). I suspect it needs a volume spacer as it feels a little linear, but never bottoms out harshly. You do need to get weight over the bars with it being as slack as mine but that’s the idea. Rails turns. Rear tire clearance is decent. I’ve got a 2.35 Hutchinson toro on a flow with good mud room. If you’ve got specific questions please ask. With the weight it’s not for everyone, but you could build it significantly lighter. I just have a tendancy to break bits. It’s my pride and joy and it’s beautiful Joe is sound to deal with as well.
*edit* it rides a lot lighter than the scales suggest

Rode a proto for a week in the Basque Country and it blew me away somewhat. Very confident on the downs with lots of room in the cockpit to move around. The more I leaned forward, the more confidence inspiring it became. It was no slouch on the ups either, stomping up a 2000m climb. It really hooked up on silly techy climbs too, where there was enough weight over the back to get loads of traction but it didn’t want to lift at the front. Didn’t feel heavy to ride, coming from a low 20s 100mm hardtail…

it doesn’t suffer from the afflictions of some other single pivots.

Care to elaborate – as it’s a single pivot and the pivot looks to be in a very similar location to the recent oranges and it has a similar shock to modern oranges (the few proper single pivot bikes, rather than faux bar linkage)

Thanks for the info so far everyone. My current setup is a 26″ 160mm travel weighing in at 34lbs ish so 33lbs doesn’t sound bad as I manage to drag that around and have a Ragley BigWig for the not so gnar bigger days out.

I was thinking of the X2 shock (seems to have a DPS on all the pics). However, my current bike has a Cane Creek DBair which I love and thought about getting converted (length and stroke) as it needs a service anyway. Any thoughs on rear shocks?

Care to elaborate – as it’s a single pivot and the pivot looks to be in a very similar location to the recent oranges and it has a similar shock to modern oranges (the few proper single pivot bikes, rather than faux bar linkage)

I’d put money on that being placebo syndrome, or comparing to earlier Oranges where the pivot was in a less good location. I’m not saying this as a negative for the Starling, more than people are imagining problems that aren’t there (brake jack – ha!)

I absolutely love mine! First and foremost I think they are absolutely stunning, and a breath of fresh air over the uber tubes of the like of trek and specialized. The frame immediately felt fantastic, but I was coming from an older Yeti 575 so the differences were massive.
You’ve got to adapt your riding a bit to suit, as said above, a bit more weight over the front unless you’re heading down the steepest of stuff. For me the main advantage was getting to spec the geometry myself which has pretty much allowed me to create my ideal bike.
Joe’s at Starling is fantastic and he’s always working to improve the design and spec of his bikes which is nice to see, he’s not content just making something and then stopping the design process. I was a bit of a nightmare customer asking hundreds of questions and trying out his bikes before making a decision but he was happy to accommodate and it’s great to be able to email a person rather than just a random inbox.

I test rode a lot of 29ers before making the final decision, mainly the Trek Slash, Spesh Enduro, the Yeti SB5.5, and a couple of 27.5″ers and the one that came closest was probably the yeti. The main advantage of the yeti being it’s weight but would have had to get an XL to get the right geometry but at 5’9″ the seatpost would have been ridiculous.
The Slash felt great but just felt a little dead compared with the Starling; that manages to keep that amazing roll-over of a long-travel 29er, but still feels lively enough to be fun and let you get away with murder on the trail.
I was looking at getting some travel adjust forks too to help it with climbing but after talking with Joe, he recommended just getting solo air as they’re just not needed and he was right (almost like he knew what he was doing!). The bike climbs incredibly well, especially given it’s pretty progressive geometry and weight, although on really long climbs I do tend to lock out the shock just to save a bit of energy.
The only downsides I’ve found on the bike are:
The boost rear end gives extremely tight chainstay clearance, and with slightly flexy carbon cranks and crank boots, they rub a bit when sprinting up a hill but are fine all the other time. Joe will no doubt fix this in latter models and he did warn me prior to this, but if it really bothered me I’d take the crank boots off.
The other thing was it doesn’t seem to hold the fabric cageless bottles well. I’m not sure if it’s VERY slightly off on the bolt spacing or whether the position of the cage puts a lot of downwards force on the mounts but it chcucked bottles, so I’ve stuck a £3 halfords cage on which works a treat. Other than that I really can’t fault it. The weight is far less of an issue than I thought (mine’s 15kg on the dot with pedals and hope bits) but you could build it a bit lighter if you wanted.. Happy to answer any questions though about it or the process. One very happy customer here!

this thread needs more pictures

The boost rear end gives extremely tight chainstay clearance, and with slightly flexy carbon cranks and crank boots, they rub a bit when sprinting up a hill but are fine all the other time. Joe will no doubt fix this in latter models and he did warn me prior to this, but if it really bothered me I’d take the crank boots off.

flexy cranks rather than flexy chainstays?

Just to elaborate – I’m not comparing the Starling to any other specific brand of bikes

My previous experiences were with a few different brands…I could never get a single pivot bike that went up and down well and stopped controllably (to my liking)

May be placebo effect – tho I’ve ridden enough bikes for long enough to know what I’m talking about. Some of it is to do with the shock – tho I’ve had three shocks on it (monarch +, x fusion coil and an X2) and it has climbed and descended well without significant pedal strikes or bobbing. Basically the pivot position is in a good place and the flex is not an issue.

Only significant flex I’ve had (where tyres rub on Chain stays) was when the bushes on the shock hardware didn’t fit quite right

I’m running a 2.35 minion dhr 2 on a Flow 2 rim

There’s mine in it’s latest guise…

Mates got the 27.5 bike. Its great but it seems to get through a lot of swing arm bearings.

flexy cranks rather than flexy chainstays?

I think it’s a bit of a combination of flexy bits – but the whole stiffer is better thing is really starting to lose it legs, especially in the burly bike market.

Mates got the 27.5 bike. Its great but it seems to get through a lot of swing arm bearings

His is an early prototype and got hammered (it’s older than mine and swing arm is a lot narrower)

Least it’s easy to swap the bearings out!

frood – Member

63deg head angle and 470mm reach is slacker and marginally shorter than a geometron

No it isn’t 🙂

I’ve just got a Swoop. I haven’t had it that long but the two rides I’ve been on have been great. It climbs really well, descends on rails.
It’s so comfortable. I recommend waiting for one, I would try and get a test ride on one first. I’ve have been riding for years so have ridden single pivots before so it was quite easy to go back to one.
Swoop Spec:
460mm reach
64HA
170mm RS Lyrics forks
Ohlins air shock
12-speed X01 eagle
Derby carbon wheels(35MM rim) with hope hubs (normal 142mm)
Hope cranks
There’s a picture of it on Instagram. Look under #starlingcycles
It’s Red and black I can’t get work out how to post a picture.

this one?

edit. dammit. my ninja instagram javascript hack sdoesnt work anymore.

This one?

Sweet looking bike, and I recognise that picnic bench 🙂

<removed duplicate picture>

Edit: Ah too slow

@thepodge Yes! that one. The picture was taken on the first ride in Leighwood.

chiefgrooveguru – Member

(brake jack – ha!)

That’s mostly about technical definitions- when people say “brake jack” they don’t necessarily mean genuine brake jack, it just gets used as a catchall for “braking screws with the bike”.

To be honest, I was worried about the whole “brake jack” thing – but all it’s made me do is brake less in the corners and on the really rough stuff – it’s meaning the bike is carrying a load more speed and the suspension is doing all the work as it should.

Quite like the idea of one of these but as a shorter travel trail bike – like an equivalent of the Process 111.

honourablegeorge – Member
No it isn’t [\quote]
We’re talking about the Murmor, so you’re right, I do apologise. Geometron long is 460mm and 64.2degrees in slack setting for the 29er. So it is longer and slacker. I apologise.

I’ve had a swoop for just over a year now and it’s been excellent. Luckily I managed to get in before the Dirt review and the massive waiting list. If i didn’t I’d probably be looking at a murmur now too

Joe’s great to deal with too, super helpful, even leant me his shock while my x2 was in for a non-exploding air can. Highly recommended, only downside is the waiting list!

I presume his rumoured move to Taiwanese production would have something to do with the waiting list.

Well if that’s happening, he must believe there’s sufficient demand.

Interested to see what geometry he settles on if this is the case, or whether there’ll still be an element of customisation on offer.

I suppose there might be some merit to mass producing all the rear ends, would let you spend more time on custom front ends.

Can’t see why a Taiwanese welder couldn’t do custom front ends too…keep Joe’s input in providing the customer care at the start (as a customer, this was important to me) then get the numbers to the welder and make sure you keep track of the frames

It’ll not be as cheap as “mass produced” but should allow growth. Tho whether or not this is what’s planned, I don’t know.

The Taiwanese model does work for Chromag tho. 50 frames each a year done by Chris DeKerf / Mike Truelove and the rest done in Taiwan

I suppose there might be some merit to mass producing all the rear ends, would let you spend more time on custom front ends.

That makes a lot of sense.

Could even do full off-the-peg frames AND rear ends in Taiwan, with a custom front-end option courtesy of Joe for some extra dosh.

Well if that’s happening, he must believe there’s sufficient demand.

Couldn’t find anyone who would do it in the UK or could and wouldn’t pay what they were asking. I actually heard a lot about this at the steel is real demo some mental idea of getting lots of different companies to make lots of the bits and putting them together dumb.

Could even do full off-the-peg frames AND rear ends in Taiwan, with a custom front-end option courtesy of Joe for some extra dosh.

That makes a lot of sense to me. Much as the custom frame idea seems cool, it does make it near impossible to demo a bike to see if it’s actually what you want. And it adds a lot of pre-sales time and effort to make sure a custom order ends up with a bike they like, so it should cost more.

I’m thinking of ordering a Starling Murmur. Has anyone got any real work experience of riding one? If so what did you think?

Simple question may be – where abouts are you based? if you’re nearby could always have a bounce around on mine?

Simple question may be – where abouts are you based? if you’re nearby could always have a bounce around on mine?

Thanks for the offer! I’m in Oldham, north east Manchester. Where a ours are you?

Not long now my pretty! Not long now… 😛

Mines on order… but this thread is useless with out geometry spec!

So what has everyone gone for with the custom options and your height?