135mm

Think P-Jay is right. This stuff just wasn’t ready or tested properly before hitting the market.

Myself and others have had the chain come off the lower jockey wheel and get wedged between the cage and jockey multiple times for no reason. Drivetrtain stops dead, mech bent, no longer shifts properly. They now come with a revised jockey wheel design.

At just over 1000miles I had the chain snap, no the links didn’t pull apart, it snapped. Upon closer inspection it was cracked in 2 other places. I’ve never seen anything like that. This is a chain that’s rated to hold up the weight of a Toyota Prius.

Wear in the jockey bearings and mech rivets results in play that causes poor shifting. Never had a Shimano mech develop play in the rivets.

I believe Shimano still have a lot of the patents on shift ramps so the Sram stuff won’t shift as good anyway.

On the whole, fiddly to set up with slow and clunky shifts.

Think that shock is specific to the Jekyll so you’ll need to source a spare or get it serviced if possible. The geometry adjust screwthread on the shock body is what it mounts to so nothing else will work. There’s one on ebay, just note the 2000-02 and 2003-05 models use different size shocks.

I have the OneUp bars. They replaced a set of aluminium 35mm bars and I can feel a difference. But whatever magic they worked with the shape these are still 35mm bars and considerably stiffer than 31.8. The number of pro downhillers using them should give an indication that they’re fairly solidly built. Personally I found the Spank Oozy Vibrocore 31.8 bars made a bigger difference to hand pain.

Not sure where yours is bent but the 12spd Shimano mechs are supposed to have bent/twisted cages. It’s to help the chainline by pointing inwards in a high gear and outwards in a low gear.

Mine is 14.5kg in XL with pedals. I’ve changed a fair few parts, some are lighter, some heavier. It’s closer to 13.8 with light wheels, the stock shock and after loosing the 2.5 Minion DHF up front. Haven’t weighed the frame but it’s solidly made. Pivot forgings and dropouts look built to last, tapping the carbon front triangle even sounds solid, more so than a Santa Cruz for example. On the upside it doesn’t get rattled around on the trail like some lighter bikes and so long as the rotational parts are kept sensible it doesn’t ride heavy. I did swap the stock Whyte bars and in the process note that they could well be responsible for most of the bike’s weight!

Most unusual to see EU money round here! Bit odd they’re doing that section between Slinfold and Rudgwick though, as it’s already one of the better bits. Now the part between Baystone bridge and the A264, that really does need some work! Maybe that’s on the list for next year…

The new reroute at Christ’s Hospital station is good, no more huge muddy off camber bomb hole.