Oh very nice….but…is a bike ever really finished?

Black 140 DLA non-tapered:

Blue electrical tape: model’s own 😉

Stilgut are up there with Proporta. Highly recommended:

Stilgut Real leather case

Should point out that mine are old fashioned non-tapered.

Picked up a pair of Crank Bros Cobalts for £250, stuck on a pair of Conti Mountain Kings I had lying around (non-tubeless), banged in some Stan’s, inflated with a track pump and that was pretty much it. It was actually easier than fitting an inner tube! They’ve been flawless for months now.

My first pair of 140/110’s were faulty (topping out), out of the box. Annoyingly I only found this out after I’d fitted them. Rutland Cycles whipped them straight back off me ( they paid all postage), and one week later they were back from the distributer. They performed beautifully for two gentle XC rides before failing again! The distributer put this down to a faulty batch of cartridges. Rutland sorted out the repair again, and one week later the forks were back.

By this point I’d lost a lot of confidence in the forks and the repair, but not Rutland Cycles. They were brilliant throughout the process. They’d already offered a no-quibble full refund, but I thought I’d persist a little longer. Rutland themselves said they really rated the forks and the distributer, and felt this was just a run of very bad luck.

Now that I was up and running, I found that tuning the forks in was tricky. They blew through their travel under braking, and while never bottoming out, every ride, no matter how flat, would see the zip-tie at the top of the stantion. I took the shock pump out on a couple of rides, really dialled in the pressures, and finally got the sweet spot.

Since then, I’ve absolutely hammered the forks. My local ride is Glentress, so they’ve had weekly usage on the red and black runs. The long travel allows me to really rag my hardtail through the various boulder fields and cobbles, and even when unlocked they climb well. In terms of performance, I’d put them alongside my Magura Menja forks and my Rockshox Reba and Recons.

So once fitted and running properly, they feel like a pair of £400 forks.

Good choice Sir. Light, plush and reliable. I’ve been hammering a pair for months now 🙂

Check your seat-post too. Mad as it sounds it can click on each crank turn if not tight enough or contaminated with water. Remove, clean, re-fit and see if that sorts it.

Just tested this thread with my HTC 8x. Fonts are fine. Same as main page. Must be a thrown switch in settings. Try the WP central forum!

Long top tubes, short stems.

I wouldn’t let Brant hear about your plans to convert the Ti456e to 650b. His position on the format is quite…well defined let’s say 😆

As for the frame, it’ll grow with your abilities and have you pushing your boundaries with confidence. I’m a significantly more brave and ‘aggressive’ rider on the T456 than my previous bikes. Northwind is right too. The T456e builds into an versatile bike. Lovely to just ride around on, great at climbing and mental down hill.

You kinda have a point there! Personally I absolutely love it but it’s a lonely owner experience with the Ti version 😥

Some ti 456 stuff here, though not much in terms of ride experiences, other than mine I’m afraid. Same frame design as the steel 456 though. There’s a pretty well attended On One forum at mtbr.com. Loads of Evo stuff on there.

456evo thread 01

456evo thread 02

. That stiff rear end means that even standing up you are having to work a lot harder to absorb bumps through your knees and the reluctance of the wheels to leave the ground makes it harder to chuck about.

All the reasons I went back to hardtails as it happens 😉

… for rides that aren’t too technical or include a fair amount of road (or smooth fire road) along with the singletrack it seems ideal.

Ooh….controversial!

Posted this on a Ti thread a couple of days ago, but it’s the latest build for this Ti 456 Evo frame. Massive fun.

Haha!

Aw sweet 😀

I ran a Ritchey WCS for 10 years. A brilliant saddle, but It finally wore though to the foam a month ago. I didn’t think I’d find one that good in terms of comfort, but I replaced it with a leather Spoon with Ti rails. It’s hands down the best saddle I’ve ever used. A revelation. Great support, great suspension and fantastic thigh control. A design classic.

It was the Ti456 Evo or this stunner:

Ritchey 29er

The ride experience I get from the T456E feels like that shown in the video…without the amazing level of skill obviously.

Mangatank, what’s the head angle like on just regular riding about? Notice it particularly much?

looks really slack doesn’t it? In fact the entire bike looks pretty ‘extreme’:sort of jacked up and ramped back. It’s an absolute pleasure to ride anywhere though.

I can drop the forks to 110mmm for flat surfaces and climbs, but even when set to 140mm on climbs, the bike feels great. The most striking feature of the frame is how stable it feels in difficult conditions. It has that famous ‘in the bike’ vibe going on. Despite that rock-solid stability, it’s very nimble; it’s as sharp as a pin in the curves.

Clever bloke that Brant.

I’ve been riding the Ti 456 Evo for a few months now. The picture shows it’s current build, set up for big climbs and fast descents.

It’s one of those bikes that’s a pleasure to ride on any surface. It’s actually a really nice road bike because of the Ti frame. It’s excellent on XC routes and exceptionally good on climbs, outperforming any of my previous frames (including my 2007 Scandal, weirdly).

So as a general do-it-all bike, the Ti456E is ideal. It’s only when you really push it that the frame reveals it’s true colours. I’ve blasted it through boulder fields and berms at Glentress for weeks now, and I’ve yet to find the limit of the frame’s ability. It’s very nimble and above all, planted on the trail surface. I’m hitting rough stuff at a higher speed and with greater success than on my full susser. In fact, I catch and pass full sussers on a regular basis on this frame. I’m also overtaking all comers on the climbs too. I’m fit, but I’m not blessed with much in the way of rad skills, so I’m giving the credit to the frame’s design.

With regards to the ‘magic of Ti’, I find the frame to be very comfortable, with some of the zing of steel, but not the same level of sparkle. It’s light though, and performs better the faster and harder it’s pushed I’d say.

I’ve been riding on these cross country and on red runs. Light, fast, rigid and very pretty. Increadibly easy to use tubeless too. Very cheap at chainreaction.com :

Crank Bros Cobalt 2 Wheelset

They’ve yet to explode and kill by-standers…

God I could do with some of that just now.

Its like all the arcade nerds buying up old sea side amusement stock. Only to realise the games are well and truly dismal but they will swear blind that they secretly dont play COD.

**** nostalgia. Give me my inbred.

Sigh…

Tom Ritchey stuff (WCS anyway) is just brilliant kit. Still my go-to product when I can afford it. And the man was there at the dawn of MTBing…If I didn’t have one of Brant’s Ti Evos, I’d pick one of these up in a blink.

I’m running Velvet DLAs set to 80ish psi. The standard Velvets have a different pressure to DLAs however. I’ve a way to go before I reach the break-in threshold, but right now I’m finding them too ‘divey’ on anything less that 80. Generally good fork when set to 140mm travel though.

On One does a gorgeous CNC’d stem in a range of colours and sizes. I’ve got a couple and they’re beautifully made. Very light too. Highly recommended.

On One CNC stem

I’ve used a Ti-railed Ritchey WCS road saddle off-road for the last 10 years. It’s done a ridiculous amount of stuff and never skipped a beat.

Very hard to beat the Boardman range. There’s nothing worse than seeing a friend riding an expensive sucker starter bike decked out in Alivio.

I’ve junked my Osprey pack because of the bladder. Camelbaks taste foul, but Osprey’s aren’t much better. They’re also very difficult to keep clean thanks to the semi-closed design. Even worse, the packs tend to be designed to specifically fit the bladder.

For me, by far and away the best bladder design is Source’s. It’s a cinch to clean (so important) and is almost completely tasteless. Once you try one you won’t go back. Next day delivery too.

Source Hydration[/url]

If you bear a resemblance to one of the vehicles here:

Aerodynamics[/url]

Then you might be on to something…

Use this as a ref:

XT brake cable removal

Applies to SLX too.

Make use you use a good sharp blade to cut the hose, and make use it’s a clean, even cut.

You don’t need a vice to insert the pin, just use a hard surface to push against.

The olive goes on loose, and is then compressed as you tighten the 8mm bolt back into place.

99% of riders probably come nowhere near the performance edge

Perhaps I should rephrase that to ‘…closer to the edge of the rider’s ability’ then?

Picture of current set-up would be useful; It’s a slightly baffling issue you have there.

For me, returning to LT hardtails was driven by a desire to make the local terrain more challenging (it’s pretty challenging on an FS though, tbh), to simplify the riding experience and to allow me to cover the road miles between off-road sections more efficiently. Hardtails also allow you to experiment with frame materials in a way that’s more significant than FS.

So, moving from a hardtail to FS is often an upgrade experience, while moving from an FS to a hardtail can be more of an…aesthetic choice? 😉

Poped into Cardrona Forest as part of a 20 mile loop. Upon entering the car park I was immediately told to ‘Ride slowly past my horse!!’ by a female loading her nag into it’s box.

😕 Hmm…

You should just learn how to ride a hardtail properly.

That’s a bit harsh 😆

I totally agree with wobbliscot regarding FS. All of that is exactly correct. The enjoyment factor in hardtails comes from their limitations. Remember James may explaining why he thought a Fiat Panda was just as exciting as a supercar? It’s the same with hardtails and FS bikes: When you flog a hardtail, you’re much closer to the edge of it’s performance more of the time. That, for some of us at least, is interesting.

Cane Creek’s bar ends are excellent for alternative hand positions…

Ergo Grip II[/url]

Recently moved back to a hardtail after 3 years on FS. It’s a much more physical, demanding experience, but for me, much more rewarding.

The SLX are far better performers than my Hopes, but I never had a second’s problem with my various Hopes brakes over 10 years of constant use, and they were all gorgeous bike bling too. Weirdly I think the latest SLX look better though. Never thought I’d hear myself saying that.