Some comments here

and the show me your superlights thread I started here.

Been riding mine for couple months now and love it. Came from a Trek Fuel, and also have a Bullit. Climbs really well, really lively on techy single track and I’ve been pretty impressed at how it handles very steep descents.

Mine’s built with short (80mm) stem, wide bars and 120mm maxle rebas. Would definitely rate going with a bolt through fork for extra stiffness.

My mate road a thudbuster on his HT after braking his back in Whistler… used it for a year till his back was all good again. Really rated it, said it was brilliant.

Haha – Steve is always trying to talk people out of buying stuff. Strange sales tactic. Actually seems to work though.

pro lapsed disc,work ,baby etc but im kickin keen to get back out

Sounds familiar. I slipped a disc when my wee one was 3 months old. Horrible stuff.

She’s coming up for 3 now, and having moved to inners 6 months ago from Edinburgh, I’m trying to grab any spare moment I can out on the trails. Gimmi a shout if you’re up for a pedal sometime.

I actually like that… the yellow stuff works well on the grey, better than against the common black bikes IMHO. Has a bit of a Safety Tape look about it, but I like.

Looks like Steve and Eliot sorted you out a gooden.

Hope to see you/it around Inners… I’m a local boy. Keep an eye out for a minty green SC Superlight… or candy red Bullit, which I’ll be riding the uplift tomorrow on.

Lovely riding in there….

More importantly… Where is that trail? I wanna go ride it right now…

Forget that, I’m off up the hill here in Inners, it’ll have to do…

I wanna ride my bike !

Dancake – that’s some pretty crazy sounding frankenbike you got there… what is it ?

The SL definitely pedals like a hard tail with some cushioning out the back… it’s strange, you hardly notice the suspension is doing anything, till you go back along the same section on a hard tail. It really jumps out the block when you sprint out the saddle.

Fair old rant… as someone who is considering building up an inbred 29er to try out big wheels, and unsure as to whether to go rigid or suss up front… it’s actually quite an informative rant.

AND – I don’t need to bother reading the mag now as you’ve kinda given me the info I was after 🙂

Cheers

Yeah tends to be more common with bikes that you want to track well at speed down hill… but not so fussed about being fast pedalling up hill.

I run my Bullit (about 175mm out back) with a Lyrik on the front. At most that’s 160mm… but I quite often dial it down to 145 for less steep, trail riding.

Mine is basically Robob’s ideal bike 🙂

Here she is:
[/url]
Santa Cruz Superlight[/url] by StoooPotter[/url], on Flickr

Light where it can be, strong where it needs to be. Soon to have slightly wider, tougher rims and I keep bending the 517s – lovely as they are, they’re not as tough as that stiff frame and bolt through fork needs them to be.

Best email CRC and check the info on them… as mentioned, if it’s a tapered steerer, it won’t fit.

They’re usually relatively good at replying to question emails.

Short answer ? ….
YES.

Though not sure I’d agree that you were overbiked really…

Example – you wouldn’t want to take a 8″ freeride/downhill bike around the XC trails of Glen Tress – I know people do… but I’ve dragged my SC Bullit around there and it was hard work to keep up the flow through the pedally sections. I just kept longing after my short travel bike.

However, riding bikes is generally always great IMHO, I’d rather be on one than not and rather be over biked than under.

I fall into the multiple bikes category … and wouldn’t take my Short travel XC bike for a 50mile road ride – I have a skinny road bike for that. But if you’ve only got the one bike, which is usually a do it all trail bike like yours rather than a DH rig or something, then you can make simple easy terrain more interesting by just looking for wee lips on roots and curbs to pop off etc…

generally though – just enjoy riding your bike for what it is… dam good fun.

X-fusion make shocks and soon to make suspension forks… they make the shocks and forks that are branded by Specialized on their bikes. I’d expect their post to be pretty good – similar technology to the new RockShox one, but think it’s still cable remote.

Don’t think it’s out till next year though.

Pure racing do a separate remote lever kit which I think fits all their posts.

Know what you mean about GD – though you can remove the “Boot” which makes them look better, but you’ll need to service it more often. Servicing super easy on them though.

I’ve got a GD on my Bullit and a Joplin on the Superlight.

Joplin is certainly better looking, but has it’s flaws and isn’t as reliable as the simple workings of the GD.

They never did one…

best option are:
[*]Gravity Dropper, guessing you know about those.[/*]
[*]Pure Racing KS i700. (like an i900 but with the internal valving in a piggy back cartridge under the saddle.[/*]
[*]Wait for the new X-Fusion one, which will come in 27.2.[/*]

Sounds a bit much to me… not sure what stack height your stem is, or headset, but as mentioned… you could look to see if you can get lower.

I had similar problem putting an old fork on a new frame that had a longer head tube. I ended up with a Sunline XC stem – the on-one ultralight stem is pretty much the same thing and on offer just now… both are 35mm stack height. I’ve got one of each.

Also – Sunline AM stems are 34mm stack.

Headset wise, crank bros seem to be the lowest without going internal.

Hijack away my good man… certainly worth a link to here from my thread…

From my (very little) research…
The 11 speed looks nice in terms of smaller jumps between gears, but way more expensive. Not worth it for a winter type training bike IMHO.

Best wheel builders I know are Steve at iCycles up the road from me in Innerleithen and Andrew at The Bicycle Works in Edinburgh… both my neck of the woods, might not be yours.

I reckon a well built 32spoke wheel should be pretty tough unless you’re doing serious off road touring on it. (or even on road maybe).

Mine will be Flow rims, which look pretty good for weight/strength and are tubeless compatible. I think I’d go for something tubeless compatible in any case, so you have the option. Heard good stuff about stans rims – Flow or Crest both good I reckon.

Anyway – there’s my 2ps worth.

Would be cool to take to take a look certainly – looks a little on the big side for me, but would nice to try out an alfined up bike, especially one with big wheels.

I’ll be in Inners on Sunday mate… could probably arrange a meetup or something. Sounds good to me though.

bigdugsbaws – might be interested in the cheap ardents if they’re still in OK nic.

Mail address in profile.

Bigdugsbaws – that does indeed look lovely… quite fancy one of those 😉

How you find the alfine ?

Have to admit that I’m on pre-boost RP23s… I do remember speaking to Tim at TF and him saying he’d recommend the old RP23 over the new one too. Certainly worth giving them a shout, they’re super helpful.

Only air shock worth looking at is an RP23 for my money…

However, if you’re doing a lot of techy fast descending then a coil is well worth a look. Van Rs are great, especially if tuned for your bike.

I run an RP23 on my short travel bike (SC Superlight) but a coil on my Bullit… still climbs great, adds weight, but well worth it on the descents.

mboy – cheers… yeah I may want slightly narrower rims on there so I can run narrower CX type tyres next summer for more touring type duties. Prob be running min 2/2.1 tyres for winter MTB stuff though, so should be fine I think.

As you say though – second hand money, prebuilt with Alfine, can’t complain really.

Toying with the idea of rigid forks too…

Love the clean look and simplicity. Those with the alfine will mean there’s really no maintenance to worry about on a week by week basis.

It’ll also be good for some long distance semi off-road touring I plan on trying to use the bike for next summer.

I just wonder if it’s gonna feel too harsh for off roading through the winter.

Lots of interesting points there folks…

OK – background info on why FLOW rims…

Firstly – I found a set second hand at a good price which are built with alfine rear.

But also…
I like pedalling fast, I like climbing, I like racking up the mileage. However, I also live in Innerleithen and have a bit of a hooligan in me on the descents and tend to hit stuff pretty hard and flat out.

I tried running skinny XC rims on my superlight and have near trashed them in 6 months so going back to tough, light, wide rims… like FLOWs.

I may have them rebuilt at some point with slightly skinnier rims, like 719s, but right now it’s about getting the bike built up for sensible money with bits I can find second hand… and I want it to handle any trail I’m likely to find around here. The wide bars will help with that too.

Any views on Conti Race Kings ? Seen them fairly cheap. Fast, but no grip in the mud?

I’m a big fan of RRs and Nobby Nics… run both on my Superlight, sometimes same front and rear sometimes RR on back and NN front. Certainly quick tyres. Nics are bad in mud but not great when it gets real mushy. Might not need that though.

Mud X sound interesting… will look at those.

Mine’s a bit more of the hooligan than your XC looking build…

120mm Reba XX with 20mm bolt through, 80mm stem and wide bars… and a Joplin post. Light enough to kick most folks ass on the climbs and stiff and nimble enough for some lunacy on the descents.

Check you other “Show me….” thread for pics and a link to my old thread asking for pics.

Started a very similar thread a few weeks ago while I was contemplating getting one… here’s the linky

But to wet your appetite, here’s the one I ended up building…

[/url]
Santa Cruz Superlight[/url] by StoooPotter[/url], on Flickr

Loving it so far 🙂

SSStu – I obviously understand that without a fine pilot of clown wheels, such as yourself, aboard… mine won’t handle nearly as fast 😉

I think I’ll be going rigid initially until I can pick up a cheap 29er bouncy fork.

Quite like the idea of keeping it simple though.

thv3 – that could be good mate!

Stu

Hey MBoy

thanks for pointers and the pic 🙂 Looks nice.

Reason I’m thinking 29er is that most of her riding will be on back roads and fire roads … and I’ll be doing a fair bit of that too through the winter. Being a part time roady too, I know bigger wheels make sense for this. Also, I was pretty impressed with how nimble Singlespeedstu’s 29er seemed to handle around Inners singletrack when I road with him last week.

We’re a pretty similar build, I’m a touch longer in the torso, but not much. I tend to like small bikes though, with short stems for handling, so that should suit her too I reckon. We’re both 5’8 or there abouts and I’m looking at the 16inch frame. Should be quite nimble.

Great to meet you folks – happy to show you about my humble local trails…

Sorry I wasn’t up to much after my wee tumble within the first half hour. Turned out to be a severely bruised, suspected cracked coccyx. Oh well… that explains the agony on the way up to minch moor.

I’m sure you’ll be amused to hear that the worst bit since the fall has been trying to take a dump.

Anyway… feel free to give me a shout if you’re up my way again – looks like you had a cracking rest of the week, Monday and Tuesday’s weather looked amazing.

First – It’s like lifting a weight that is sat on a spring.

That’s keeping it brief!
Nice description… I’ll remember that one in future.

PeterPoddy….. < Yep, nice addition… what he said.

(oh, and.. cheers, glad you liked the exp’)

It ‘can’ have a tendency to ‘pull’ the fork travel down a bit if you have a bit more pressure in the negative, as mentioned by PeteG55 above… but shouldn’t. I have seen it start off fine and get gradually worse (no more than 10mm) over a few months. Resetting both pressures usually sorts it.

To be honest though – most folk will run the same pressure in both. In which case it’s just helping get over the seal friction… this is a good thing.

For the record – it shouldn’t reduce the fork travel

OK – I’ll try and keep this brief…

It’s basically to over come the friction in the seals.

Imagine you have a spring, one end against a wall, you’re pushing on the other end. It’s hard to get it to move at first, but once it’s compressed a little, it’s easier to shift…

/////////// < Push here

Now, imagine you have a smaller spring pushed up against the end of it, both springs are compressed against each other a little… now you try and compress the bigger spring… it’s easier because the smaller spring is helping.

Big spring = positive air chamber
Little spring = negative air chamber

/////////// | /////

| < Pushing here

You can also use this neg’ve air spring to tune your suspension. Slightly less air in the Neg’ve will act less on the Pos’ve air spring, so it will be harder to move it initially, for a firmer feel.

Slightly more air in the Neg’ve spring and the main (Pos’ve) spring will be easier to compress, making your suspension much more supple on the small stuff.

No more than 15psi difference between the 2 cambers. I usually run mine with pretty much the same pressure in both, sometimes a tiny bit (5psi) more in the Neg’ve.

Hope that helps.

The MTX29 rims on those are pretty beefy. They’re super strong, but may feel a bit porky on a 4″ bike…

I know Steve and Elliot like their wide rims though, and living in Innerleithen, you can see why… I went against Steve’s advice and went for skinny XC rims on my short travel bike and I’ve put a bunch of dings in them in the last 4 months.

If you can stretch to a set of hopes one a slightly lighter (but still wide) rims, then they’d be spot on I reckon… but the Nukeproofs are great value and will certainly stand up to the kind of lunacy you can get up to around inners trails if you’re local too.