What hardtail frame – 650b long, low slack

Conifer in the background is struggling from lack of water , probably related to proximity to brickwork or could be Cypress aphid (Cinara cupressivora)

Smashing bike , well tasty

It’s here! 😀

Unfortunately I now have I run around like headless Dad chicken, doing final Xmas sorting, so I’ll have to pretend it isn’t here…

If that bird took a 27.5+ (3″) I’d be flexing the bank account now

Thats very nice looking Ben, shame its a 650b as all my stuff is 26 hence why I went with a Dartmoor hornet.

+1 for the bird zero am from me. Built mine up last night, looks great. Can’t beat bird’s customer service either- had a slight issue that was rectified in just a couple of hours via email/phone. Already have an aeris which I love, can’t wait to get out on the zero after Christmas!

One of the guys from Stif won the ‘Ard Rock on a pretty long, low and slack prototype hardtail. Could be worth a bit of investigating?

Vote for a Switchback here, just built this up and having owned alot of different bikes over the years this is just plain hooligan fun. i am 6ft and the top tube is long enough for me to move around.
modded the 12mm axle to be compatible with a maxle for car park wheel removal ease. will be adding a Reverb shortly hence the cheapo post.

Bird need to be doing cyclescheme!

Bird need to be doing cyclescheme!

We do!

hurry up and post my bro inlaws AM frame and headset to glasgow so I can build and ride it lol

The Zero and I haven’t been out yet (still finding time to swap over my old brakes and gears) but I’ve swapped the 800mm bars onto my Spitfire and took that out today – bloody marvellous, shame the trees are too tight on my local trails to run that wide on the Zero. I have fairly broad shoulders and long arms but 800 is wide enough to give me a more attacking forward stance on the bike, great on the steep techy stuff and the control and leverage is huge.

From the brief look I’ve had at the Bird it looks as good up close as it does in the pics above. I’m also very excited about how the Shorty 2.3s look in real life – they’re big volume for a more mud oriented tyre with a solid line of big edge knobs and lots of space between the centre knobs. I suspect they’ll be great on my local trails for the wetter half of the year and still pretty good if we get a surprise dry spell – or indeed very good if it gets so dry it gets loose.

The new ragleys

Got a Whyte 905. Lovely bit of kit. Geo is awesome.

benpinnick – Member
Bird need to be doing cyclescheme!
We do!

Ace,employer is opening it up in Feb,Course I need a hardcore 27.5 for the commute…

@chiefgrooveguru how is that very black thing riding?

@chiefgrooveguru how is that very black thing riding?

Come on, some of us have decisions to make!

Finally finished swapping my parts onto it this morning and then rode to work the fun way. It’s bloody awesome! Looked ridiculously long in the house once the wheels were on but just felt right once I got on it. Feels remarkably like a less squishy version of my Spitfire.

Static geometry for anyone who hadn’t seen it earlier in the thread:

Head Angle: 64.3 deg
Seat Angle: 75.4 deg
Effective Top Tube: 611mm
Reach: 450mm
BB drop: 55mm
Wheelbase: 1178mm

Hope brakes need a bleed and it’s got the wheels & tyres from my Spitfire at the moment, whilst my other Hope hubs get rebuilt with matching Flow EX rims. Might have to put my stupid huge front mudguard on, despite the aesthetics…

Like 🙂

Chiefgrooverider,weight and pain inflicted on your butt by the rear of the bike?)

27.5 lbs including the mud it collected on the way to work. 😉 Regarding the alleged alu hardtail harshness, I don’t think I can report on that until it’s had some hours on it. If the children stop trying to drive my wife insane I hope to get out on Thursday night… My previous hardtail was a Mk2 Cotic Soul so a good reference point!

Lovely bike 🙂

Regarding the alleged alu hardtail harshness

I went from a 26″ wheel 456 to an 650B Orange Crush – the Crush is way comfier than the 456 ever was, really surprised me. I was running fatter tyres on the 456 too. Must be some flex in the bigger wheels 🙂

The mudguard of doom is on – I’ll get a photo tomorrow…

Wondering about making a Reverb guard – only ever used Gravity Droppers before and they’re fairly mud proof – this shiny black stanchion right in the line of fire of my rear tyre bothers me.

+1 for Orange’s new P7. On paper it’s mint and fits your bill, and there’s no reason to think it won’t deliver the goods. Google for pics. Failing that, the Crush is ace and available right now.

+1 for Orange’s new P7. On paper it’s mint

But there is no geometry release on this as yet, is there?

Recently went from Cotic Soul mk2 to a Stanton Switchback. I was worried I’d lose that comfort of the Soul 853 frame, which is part of the reason I went for the Stanton rather than a TransAm or Shan/Oka (both 4130).
The biggest difference I felt was the 650b wheels. They seem to have mad much more of a difference on the HT than changing over on my FS. The playfulness of the old 26″ is still present on the Stanton, and it screams to be ridden faster and faster! As far as I can tell its as comfy as the old Soul, but its winter months, so trails are softer anyway. For a bike weighing 29lb 😯 it climbs just as well as the Soul (26.5lb). It does have XFusion sweeps, so possibly this helps with the ride, but the extra reach, slacker geometry and bigger wheels have made me a perfect (for now!) HT. I’ve yet to see how the extra weight will be on a 30+ mile ride…

But there is no geometry release on this as yet, is there?

There was an article either on here or Pink bike that had some numbers in, as wl says – looks good on paper.

A picture says a thousand words:

I passed one of these almost pulling its owner over as I pedalled to the trails today. And as I was trying to find a way to describe how the Zero AM with Chief’s Gnarpoon Geometry rides, without going all engineer on you I spotted an excellent metaphor. Relaxing is not the word. GNNAAARRRRR MUST SAVAGE TRAIL!!!!!

How does it compare to previous bike? any pics? was hoping to get mine today but have to wait now until next weekend

A couple of pics – commuting earlier this week with winter mudguard on (sorry!)

And this is my old 26″ 140mm hardtail (in red) vs the 27.5″ 120mm hardtail frame I’d been busily designing late last year (in light blue) vs the Bird Zero AM with -2 deg headset and 130mm fork (in dark blue):

I really don’t want to start a thread about this but I have an important aesthetic question and my wife doesn’t care and my toddler is not to be trusted…

Should I leave the stickers on my new Flow EX rims? (The wheels in the pics are off my other bike – also Flow EX but destickered). Do I need to be able to tell the two wheelsets apart (well the fronts anyway, the freehubs have different ratchets)?

Also, tyres? I currently have DHR2 3C on the drier weather set and Shorty 3C on the wetter/muddier set. What does anyone think about instead running DHR2 3C / DHR2 dual compound on one set and Shorty 3C / DHR2 3C on the others? (So a bit less grippy and faster rolling / more durable on the rear tyres). Don’t make me start a tyre thread! 😉

Take the stickers off the rims. And whilst you’re at it you have the same problem as me since you also need to remove the awful sticker rockshox chose to put on the forks. Why murder them all out and then stick a nasty white decal on there?

Incidentally I found the DHR tyres ridiculously draggy on the SC Bronson I test rode compared to specialized purgatory/butcher combo. It was a pretty high spec one so I assume the tyres weren’t some wire bead nasties.

I thought that was a given on all Stans rims?

They’ve improved a bit but still fairly grim, I know they came straight off my Flows. As already mentioned the RS graphics are probably the worse offenders – Slik do some nice black/grey replacements if you need something on there.

That overlay you’ve done is very interesting – would love to see what the Commical comes out at.

Should have my own update for this thread next week… not quite as exciting as it maybe could have been!

Chop the DHR3C down on the front a bit and you’ll be good.

Do you mean trimming the centre knobs a bit to open up the channel for more cornering grip on the front?

That is exactly what I mean….

Btw Ben, I took it to Swinley on Wednesday (failed to get any photos) and had my first ride on actual dry fast trails after 100 miles of filth (apart from two frozen commutes) in it’s first month. Was great! Long, low, slack is the way!

Still sussing out the fork settings – I’ve got it set pretty high for my weight, about 95psi, with two tokens (I’m a bit over 12 stone), which gives it about 20% sag and it doesn’t quite bottom out on one of my regular little (~3′) hucks to flat on my commute (started out at lower pressure). But I’m thinking that with a huck to flat your feet hammer a lot of load through the fork on a hardtail, with no rear suspension to give, so maybe a that’s a bad reference point?

Riding fairly quick through the faster gully runs at the southern end of Swinley, landing in some braking bumps it was pretty hard on the hands/arms and there was still a good 30mm of travel unused, so maybe it’s ramping up too much? It’s very plush in the first 40mm of travel at the current settings, I normally run my forks harder than that.

So now I’m thinking I should take both tokens out and add a bit more air, so it sits with a bit less sag and feels firmer when pumping/pedalling but stays a bit softer when I get further into the travel. Does that make sense?

Loving the Switchback at the moment, good fun and able to take some of the rockiest riding where I live…

Having to do some DH shuttle runs just so I have a reason to use my FS.

@chiefgrooveguru the 130s can be more of a fiddle to set up than the longer ones – I think its the extra large negative you get with the shorter travel. I think its a case of experimentation with the tokens to find your right balance. I would check the forks aren’t sticking down too, that can cause lots of problems with set up. My experience is that closer to 30% sag gives the best performance overall – tweaking tokens to get a decent ramp up and leaving around 10% of travel on the table in normal riding conditions (You rarely want to bottom them out ideally).

For a bike weighing 29lb it climbs just as well as the Soul (26.5lb). It does have XFusion sweeps, so possibly this helps with the ride, but the extra reach, slacker geometry and bigger wheels have made me a perfect (for now!) HT. I’ve yet to see how the extra weight will be on a 30+ mile ride…

Loved my steel Switchback (now have the Ti version) and rode it over some decent distances and it was fine.

Chief – that Bird looks lovely. I was running a pair of DHRII’s but found them way draggy so have ditched the front one for a Minion DHF and it is much, much better. Looking forward to sticking a Minion SS on it for the summer.

Ben, I tried to contact you through the info at bird email,but it isn’t recognised. Could you contact me through my profile email as I have a couple of q’s regarding the bikes before I part with this cyclescheme voucher burning a hole in my pocket. Thanks.