Stop it, you're making me want one… And I've not finished building this one yet!

(opens tab to santacruz website)

Looks lovely. I got one too, had a gravity dropper on it for a bit but got rid due to extreme uglyness. Joplin looks a bit nicer. May be tempted again.

After a zoom in on the iPhone, it looks like a sticker on Peterfile's top tube.

I reckon it'd feel lush with a coil. I used to have an intense 6.6 that started with an RP23 and I changed to a coil and it felt great… super plush and never felt out of control. Heavier, but much better on the bigger stuff.

You could actually do a lot worse than picking up an old twin clicker (Fox Vanilla RC with piggy back) and having it custom tuned… probably better than most off the shelf shocks except stuff like the Cane Creek DB. Also try the Mojo Clearance list for a DHX. You'll want something with a bit of platform damping to help the pedalling ability.

I also used to have a 2001 SC Bullit (6" rear travel) with a twin clicker on it that I had Pro-Pedalled by Mojo – made a huge difference. Just bought another bullit and will be running a PUSHed DHX5 on it.

Slimtubing… tis an odd fork choice, a bit on the light side for the thug like character of the bullit, I'll take your buddies word for it that they work well on it. I'll be going heavier.

Peterfile… That looks like more of a classic Bullit build. Like the green too.

Here's a teaser…. frame and forks.

should be building the rest on the weekend 🙂

Wibble… nice new build bullit. Why you selling ? the new shape frames are mighty purdy, but I have a big soft spot for the brute force look of the old ones.

Dam … all these pics making me super excited about building mine up.

JWR – nice pics and love the "Trail bike Build" … pretty close to what I'll have by next week.

So… almost all my bits together, here's the spec list:

2005 Bullit Frame – choice of Swinger 4way air or DHX5 Coil shocks… DHX will be on it.
RS Lyrik Coil Forks (short steerer bargain, but got round that with a super low stack height stem from BikeHut of all places!)
X9 gearing kit
Juicy 4 brakes (like the 3s, but with a wee thumb adjuster for lever reach) 185 rotors.
Bonty Rhythm Comp wheels. Pretty tough, but not super heavy…. or expensive 😉
Dues Chainset with double and bash… always proved strong enough on other bikes… and I don't drop big stuff these days.
RF Atlas Wiiiiiide bars in my 50mm BikeHut stem.
2.35 Maxxis High Roller R/Minion F tyres… and a set of Kenda Blue Grooves for lighter duties.

Should be a lovely, fun, play bike that'll get me to the top of the hill and be heaps of fun on the downs.

I've a whole heap of Innerleithen DH trails to explore on my doorstep…. I can't live here and not have this bike in my life, it would just be wrong!

Pics of the build coming next week….. stay tuned…..

Those reading that don't own a bullit…. you must be wanting one by now right?

Really nice production on that… agree with folk above, I love the chilled feel of it. Really makes me want to go out and ride my bike.

Conveniently, I am later 🙂

for general XC/Trail riding I'm a 685 easton guy… usually with a 70 or 90mm stem. Currently on 685 Monkey Lites on a 90mm thomson on my Fuel EX. Perfect. Tried wider and narrower and the 685 is just right. Even Goldylocks agrees.

Currently building up a SantaCruz bullit play bike with 160mm forks on it. That'll have a 50mm stem and 685s feel far to narrow on that. Tried my pals Transition Bottlerocket out with his 50mm stem and 750 bars and that was spot on, so going with that on the bullit.

Used to have a singlespeed On-One Inbred too which was built with same 90/685 setup as my trek.

Both fine looking bikes… though extra points to dano for getting a kitchen to match his bike.

Here's mine….

Couple of changes since pic – new red RF Dues Cranks and I've got rid of the gravity drop post in favour of a much less fugly thomson.

Still got the white rims though.

Despite living around the corner… I never made it over to the race today. I did drive past the car park this afternoon … did the course finish in the field up and over to the right ? There seemed to be a bunch going on up there.

I'll need to take a walk up the hill and try and work out the course and give it a run or two this week.

I'm going with a hope clamp myself… always proved reliable for me on all my bikes.

Earl…
Agreed, need more pics of nice Bullits.

Other bullit owners here know what size seatpost and seat clamp they use ?
Think it's 30.9 post and 34.9 clamp ???

Cheers

There's one in Beeswing. My pals stayed there over the weekend and said it was great… and cheap!

Stompy, that looks like a lovely build… Pretty much the sort of thing I'm aiming for.

I may stick a twin ring chain device on too.

2005 frame and Manitou air shock for just over £200. I'd rather have a fox shock, but can't complain at that price. Like you said – going rate is usually around £300.

Woody – so, did you bid on bullit frame too ?

Sorry mate – it's crazy how a higher bid than yours got me the frame… lucky huh… it's almost like they have a system for this… man, imagine if you'd put in a higher bid… maybe I wouldn't have won the auction! wow, that would be crazy

😉

Toys19

Totally with you on the SinglePivot love in…

I've had a couple of VP and Horstlink frames but still love the simplicity of single pivot with a clever shock to sort the pedalling out.

That said though, I've become a big fan of my Trek Fuel EX with it's floating shock, giving great pedalling and loads of small bump sensitivity… it is just a glorified single pivot though really. 🙂

Hora…

Aye – the Battery is a burley 5" travel slopestyle type frame. Designed for big forks. I like the idea, but reckon they're too short for much uphill pedalling for me.

The bullit has an adjustable shock mount that allows you to change the head angle together with BB Height. Nice feature so you can slacken the head angle if you're running shorter forks.

Floating brake kit sounds interesting… don't they do one for the new bullit frames?

Older frames would def benefit from that.

Toys19.

Ahh – all interesting stuff….

Out of curiosity, why the new MC Battery when you've got the small Bullit ? How do they compare? My pal is selling a complete battery build pretty cheap and I considered that instead of the bullit.

Thanks for the info/pics Toys19… two lovely bikes you got there. I have to admit, when I had my old Bullit, I also had a hard tail and found the bullit was so good at everything depending on build, that I longed after two of them built as you've got there.

I've now got a nice light built Trek Fuel EX as my all day XC bike so the Bullit will be pure play machine. Prob build it up similar to your wee one, but with a twin ring setup so I can make it up the hill easy enough. I'm 5'8" so medium is spot on for me.

Still undecided about amount of fork travel I want… I think that will come down to what I can get cheapy second hand though. Thinking of looking for a set of Domains… they look like pretty good value for a 180mm fork!

Two of them !!!

Does Toy19 mean you have 19 toys? Clearly, you have two many!.

like to see the pics though – assume they're different kindsa builds?

tf: Sounds nice man… I was wondering about 180mm forks, but can't see me needing more than 160mm. depends on whether it needs the extra for a slacker head angle. What year is your frame ?

Lovely pics…

(note to self – must arrange to do more riding in the lakes).

thanks Space'

Thanks guys…

Frankers, not sure – I'll check with the missus.

Quite, quite mad…. I love it though, well done.

Don't really think there's any need to open into a discussion as to how good a trail it is….

Thanks for the info!

I'd say a 3-5 ride should definitely help with training for big road rides.

I'm both road and mtb and find that mtbing adds an element to my road riding that pure roadies don't always have….

Mountian biking is generally more effort over the same length time – and certainly the same sort of distance. The big thing is that MTBing demands more "brain" work and upper body movement. You have to concentrate more and long rides off road should make longer road rides feel a lot more relaxed.

MTBing also uses more explosive energy and I find it helps a lot for successive short steep climbs on roads that many of my roady mates don't like…. I find my legs recover quicker after short steep climbs if I've been doing plenty of off road stuff.

Hiya.

I've had it on an external drive in the past… and now store it on a network storage device (NAS) where I store all my media. It's pretty straightforward to setup… but one thing you really need to watch out for is ….

The drive where the library is stored (your ext drive) needs to be mounted before you open itunes. If you start itunes and it can't see the drive, it resets your library location to default (users/music in mac, My Music folder in windows). Once you plug the drive in, it'll play the music ok, but the next time you import a CD or buy something of itunes etc, it'll store it in the default location and not your ext drive… so if you're not careful, you can end up with your collection all over the place and have to do big sort outs… I've been there, not fun.

If you need any help – feel free to drop me and email..

P.S – did you post off my ipod touch yet 🙂

Here's one from a after an attempted ride around glen tress in the snow/ice last winter. Friendly wee fellow.

That's me signed up… quite excited all ready.

just got the puffer under my belt the other week. Planning of lots of long days on the road bike, some bigger back country mountain bike rides, couple of road sportives and a couple of CRC Marathon races too.

Should be a good day.

Dam it – someone beat me to the "sandles" gag

Taklsawa2

Looks like a 16" … I used to ride a 16" with a 90mm stem, I'm 5'8".

Your saddle doesn't look silly high, reckon it's about right but you'd probably get away with one size up if you prefer a shorter stem

Get an IMAP email account (as opposed to POP3) – you can have as many devices/machines syncing with it as you like.

Trek Fuel EX with Revs dialled down to 125mm on the front. Very comfy, light enough, climbs and descends well.

Currently has a 90mm stem and 685mm Easton monkey lites. Felt really good at the puffer last week, though could possibly be a little more stretched. Contemplating 100mm stem and flat bars for more endurance stuff. Also wishing I'd gone for Ergon grips! Will definitely have a set of those on for the next epic ride I do.

Burgtecs. 18 months of pretty heavy abuse in all weathers and they've just needed the bearings replaced.

Nice bits of kit, though not entirely convinced they're worth the extra over hope…. but they are pretty.

Having read the trail reports on the blog – sounds like there's still loads of ice on the lower half (below buzzards nest) and heaps of snow above that. Still sounds like a place to avoide, unless your pretty strong, have snow tyres, and like pushing your bike about in the snow.