Ok for the skeptics…..

First pic is my HT, alloy frame, air forks, carbon bars, Deore brakes, 1×10, Pacenti rims and a Mary front, Nic rear.
Weight is 28lb/12.91kg

Next pic I think is my road bike, cheap Ribble thing but around the 8kg mark due to a ridiculously light Superstar wheelset.

Next pic is the Trance, may have ballsed up the 26lb weight last night, I’m getting 28lb today with confirmation on bathroom scales with me holding the bike too.
My weight:

Combined weight of me and bike:
http://i350.photobucket.com/albums/q440/simon750drew/6EDDEA1A-F49F-43E4-90D4-A74831DA751F_zps0sowhd6y.jpg%5BbIMG%5D%5BbURL%5D

Nant Y Arian more open, you have to hunt out the singletrack but the views are stunning.
New pump track looks great, due to open imminently I believe.

Can’t comment on the new ones but my mk2 Piglet was great on the trail and uplift days.

2 mins from me, the marked trails are fine….Welsh rock doesn’t get waterlogged.
The off piste stuff is excellent too.

Indeed, I wonder what the comments would’ve been like if it was a Santa Cruz, Bansheee, Transition etc….bike snobs everywhere!

Seriously though, next time you happen across a Giant pick it up, the (lack of) weight of their alloy bikes is almost unsettling….not their fault if the more boutique brands can’t get a carbon bike below 30lbs!

Like I said, pics of weighing bike later….got to get the car serviced this morning.

The scales are accurate, I was expecting around 30lb but it’s got carbon bars, a 1x drivetrain, reasonably light wheels, carbon saddle and full air X-Fusion suspension all round which is often lighter than the equivalent RS or Fox….probably the most important thing is how Giant make their alloy bikes nearly as l light as other’s carbon offerings.
Will happily post a pic weighing the bike later…..we can do it with the luggage scales and we can do it with me on standard bathroom scales without the bike and then holding the bike and subtract the difference…..i do love science!

Also worth bearing in mind is it’s a trail bike I’ve effectively made slacker and more burly…if this was a Reign I was claiming 26lbs for then yes I’d expect to be laughed off the forum!

The thread was a handy helper for Trance owners who maybe think they need something ‘more’ (Reign) when in fact you can fit long forks, slacken out the HA and change the rear travel to almost 160mm with a few subtle cheap mods….hey presto you’ve just built the long travel trail bike you wanted, it still pedals well and descends like a demon to boot. Win/win.

That’s my favorite kind of Enduro/DH, if I’m having to pedal too much then I’ve entered the wrong event.

To be fair the EWS competitors ride 20min+ stages…i don’t.

Certainly not for sale, love it.

May play with some offset headset cups but that’s about it, as always I’m the limiting factor.

I mainly ride this bike on uplift days and Enduro racing, I don’t see the point in a dropper as I’m out of the saddle on the pedals the whole time…..trail riding on the other hand is a different matter and I fit the dropper then….or just take the HT.

I’d be washing my car daily living in rural west Wales!….it’ll get it’s sitting clean next month.

Ok I should’ve put the text at the beginning but was having a nightmare with image hosting websites.

Trance is in SX mode meaning 160mm fork, rear shock has also been swapped out from the standard 200×51 to a longer stroke 200×57 giving around 156mm rear travel….standard is 140mm.
Running 1x on a Sunrace 11-42…..XT brakes all round…..full X-fusion suspension all round.
Carbon bars.
Sub 100gm carbon saddle.
Dropper post is upstairs and works fine but weighs a ton.
More weight to drop with a carbon seat post on the way.
Tyres are DHR 2.3 rear and High Roller 2.4 front, both Exo casing.
Superstar Tactic and Tesla build, nice compromise between fashionably wide (and heavy) and still happily seat 2.5 tyres perfectly when needs must.
Luggage scales had it at 26lbs in current guise…if I ditched the Nanos and fitted the plastic Nukeproof ones from my other bike I could probably save a few more pounds.

More than happy with that, I was expecting 32lb….the bike rode like a dream at Antur in the week.

And how hard is it to flip a wheel over inbetween episodes of whatever boxed set you are watching anyway?

Probably more hassle than sticking a tube in it and being done with it.

Joined the coil revolution today when I picked up a mint X-Fusion Vengeance….at 170mm travel I can’t decide whether to run it on my HT to make a brute of a thing or stick it on the front of my Trance giving me an Enduro-tastic 170mm front and 156mm rear…..decisions decisions.
Also arrived today was a saddle weighing less than 100gms….gonna weigh the Trance later with its air suspension and see what I get, I’ll be disappointed if it’s over 30lbs.

It was 5k and had these problems people would be making excuses about ‘character’…..

Yeah, because none of the major players have ever had any QC issues have they cough (Evil) cough…..

Unfit for purpose?…..what purpose would that be then? There was a Bossnutt going great guns at Antur yesterday embarrassing many so called boutique brands….even looked good too!

Who cares, there’s a plentiful supply of Mk4 diesel Golfs out there with excellent torque and power, 55mpg+ and cost less than 1k….my last two were £900 and £800 respectively….you can’t go wrong with that, in fact I might have to start stockpiling them soon!

This is all good, keep it coming….theyll be going straight on the Hornet HT and taking a trip to BPW so I can ‘evaluate’ them properly….or just hoon down the blues and reds, either or!?

I’m running 26 inch wheels in my 650b Dartmoor Hornet, it’s awesome….you adapt to the odd pedal strike but by God the bike is low and planted, total hooligan of a HT.

Cheers guys, can’t wait for them to arrive.
Just checked with the seller, they’re coil….happy days!

Richwales and Gonzy, no rear triangle clearance problems, it’s almost like Giant made it to be and then remembered they had the Reign in their line up and had to scale the Trance back to a 140mm rear!

The only issues some owners have had is with large reservoir cans fouling the down tube…i alternate between an X-fusion RLZ 200×57 for general riding and a TF tuned 200×57 Fox DHX air-5 for uplift days.

I tried the Reign (Pedalon in Basingstoke) were very accommodating but ultimately as Tom said, it’s a DH bike in all but name, I wanted a long travel trail bike.

Spent the day at Antur, there were a few Capras….almost comical how slack they are next to what were cutting edge DH bikes a few years ago….with the added bonus of pedalling well too.
There were more than a few green eyed monsters from the triple crown fork brigade.

Sounding like a stuck record but get a trance, put a 160mm fork on the front and swap the 200×51 shock (140mm tavel) and replaced with a 200×57 one giving 156mm of rear travel…..there’s your 160mm bike without it seeing like a lifeless sled.
It’s what I’ve done and it’s brill.

Interesting that so many people have such varied experiences of the same kit.

It must be either bodging home tinkerers, crap LBSs or frames with unusual chain lines.

I run a 1×10 Sunrace (11-42) with the most basic of Deore clutch mechs and my LBS says it’s the best working system they’ve put together….cost all in?….less than £100.

By all means spend more but its not necessary if setup properly!

Does it fit on a 2014-16 Trance?

Tom has it right, still to this day the best fork I’ve ridden was a coil spring Sektor.

Since then I’ve had an air Revelation, air Pike and an air X-Fusion Sweep….and while they’ve all been ‘good’ they’ve been some way off the plushness and lacking the bottomless feel of the coil sprung Sektor.

5′ 9″ and riding an 18 inch/medium Trance.

Also ride a 16 inch Dartmoor Hornet.

At your height I’d be looking at large bikes.

Not cheap but Zee and Saint offer the modulation you’re after.
The 4 piston design has one pair biting the rotor momentarily earlier than the other pair giving great feel and when all 4 pistons bite you get immense power, my Saints were great however they fetch such good money second hand they were eBay’d to fund a new bike build.
Highly recommended though.

Ok, I’ll come out and say it…..i don’t particularly like this new era of bike design/fit.

I think we’ll look back on it as we did a few years ago when people were riding 14 and 16 inch HT frames with nearly 30cm of seatpost sticking out….because they were ‘chuckable’ or some such nonsense.

I’m 5′ 9″ so maybe it’s just that this doesn’t apply to me but I’m constantly being told to size up for ‘better reach’…..what exactly does that mean!?….and once I’m stretched out over the top tube of a size L bike with my arms splayed wide on 800mm bars I’m kinda locked in position with my head pointing downhill….and this is supposed to give me confidence descending is it?

Sod that, I’ll stick to medium sized bikes as I’m a medium sized man and I’ll leave everyone else to faff around with overly large bikes and trying to remedy their position with stems and seat posts etc.

Yeah, dinosaur I know.

Trance.

Yes it’s the volvo of the mtb world but it just works, the Maestro/DW link suspension system is pedal friendly and due to its inherent ramping up in design it also feels bottomless on big hits, the older models come with a 140mm fork, the newer ones with 150mm and the now defunct SX with a 160mm front end….a bike for every situation

The older version (up to ’16) is still available heavily discounted if you look around, the new one is also still in your budget and well specced too.

Have 30t with 11-42 cassette on my FS, it’s fine but not as easy as spinning the old 22t granny ring that was on it before in 2×10 guise.
Each to their own, I never had a problem with dropped chains or front mechs going out of sync on a 2x system so I can only assume everyone else is spannering their bikes in the most incompetent of fashions or using crap bike shops to do it for them.

Same as mb51, bought a 456-evo a few years ago now, liked the geo….an evolution of the Summer Season, ordered the complete bike online and waited.
2 days later someone phoned and discussed the build with me, it wasn’t going to be exactly as per the ad but to their credit they were willing to put branded stuff on instead of their own On-One bars, stem etc….more than happy with that, also when the bike arrived it had the coil spring forks as opposed to air spring ones the ad stated….again this may have been a problem for some but with coil spring trail forks becoming rarer than hens teeth (and in my opinion better) I was more than pleased!
The bike then arrived several days later with SRAM X9 hubs too even though the ad stated unbranded or in house (can’t remember!?)…bonus, it rode great, easily the best HT I’ve owned but I stupidly bought into the whole “i need a bigger seat tube for a dropper” and “the head tube doesn’t take a tapered fork” nonsense and sold it to get a frame with bigger seat and head tubes.
Needless to say none of the HT frames I’ve had since have ridden as well due to their ridiculous over built designs.

I’m a fan as you can tell, if I was paying 3k for a bike I’d expect more but On-One are cheap for a reason, still desperate to try the new Dee Dar HT but funds are limited after Christmas at the moment!

Same as others, never found it hard to find work but then I don’t have a degree and my cv reads from manual labour to high-st banking work, I’m versatile and I interview well.
Far too many people think their piece of paper with a degree on it entitles them to a 30k a year starting salary job on their doorstep.

Find an industry you like, in my case it was healthcare, get a foot in the door…..my initial job was ferrying old people around for 13k a year, keep your head down, don’t take the mickey with sick, apply for promotion and crack on….it’s the time honoured way.

This year my end of year tax/p60 thing has me down as having earned £47,000….i’m a paramedic FFS, while I think my job is important that wage seems frankly ludicrous…a friend who is a junior DR earns less than me!
The work (and the money) is out there if you are prepared to put the time in (17 yrs in the NHS so far), grab any courses and qualifications when they’re offered to you because they’re yours for life and gold dust when hawking yourself around the job market…I’ve earned more in previous years by flirting with the private sector as a contractor/bank worker.

Look at the world we live in and decide what’s going to boom and what is fading….health care is booming thanks to all the fatties and oldies….having a state registration as a DR, nurse, paramedic etc is essentially a licence to print money at the moment, don’t believe the media hysteria….i have colleagues (who admittedly don’t have social lives) earning 75k a year as paramedics by hoovering up all the overtime and taking bank work with Reliance, Capita, G4S etc

Shock horror you might have to relocate to work in the industry of your choice, we’re a small country, it’s no real hardship is it?!

Read Chris Froomes book, him and Richie Porte spent their build up to his 2013 TdF win climbing mountains but throwing in sprints and other ‘efforts’ on the slopes too.

There are plenty of Dutch riders who climb well despite it being a fairly flat country, they just seek out the short sharp ones line the Kapelmuur etc and session them instead.

Where there’s a will there’s a way.