Lapierre Zesty 927 Ultimate

This is my 2015 Lapierre Zesty 927 Ultimate that I just finished this morning. The bike from which the frame derives sold for £5400. I built this for less than £1200 with a mixture of new and used parts. Only been a brief ride and really pleased with it so far. A 34t chainring is woefully small with a wide range cassette and the supplied dropper lever is a bit naff so will be changing to a wolftooth soon.

Frame: Lapierre Zesty 927 with Rockshox Monarch RT3. 150mm travel
Forks: Manitou Mattoc Pro 160mm
Wheels: Fulcrum Red 650b
Tyres: Schwalbe Smart Sam
Brakes: Sram Guide R w/matchmaker clamps
Cranks: Raceface Turbine w/superstar narrow/wide 34t ring
Pedals: DMR V12 (the original design from around 97/9
Seatpost: Brand-X Ascend 120mm drop
Saddle: Unknown, came with a bike I stripped this year but its comfortable
Cables/Hoses: Jagwire Titanium Silver
Drive: Sram GX 11 speed
Bar: Easton Haven 35 Carbon
Stem: Raceface Turbine

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I am surprised you find the 34tooth chain ring too small, especially with 650b wheels. I run 34/44 on my Turner and find it ideal for fast cross country. I certainly wouldn't want bigger to climb the sort of mountain your bike could go down. Mind you I am not especially young, slim or fit lol.

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Took it for a longer ride today and the biggest cog I got upto was the 28. A 38 or 40 ring would make better use of the available range I think

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You are Mark Cavendish and I claim my prize.

I hit my "escape" gear every ride, but I am a Yorkshireman and I want my money's worth out of that rear cassette .

Bear in mind you want as much of your riding as possible in the middle of the cassette as that is the best chainline.

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Yeah the chainline is another problem, needs to moving in 3 to 4mm I think. So I can't really even use the lowest gears at the moment anyway!

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I have set up a Shimano M8000 on two bikes now, I appreciate you are using SRAM, in both instances I had to find a way to get a 49mm chainline. Shimano force you into a 52mm chainline by default which means if you peddle backwards on your lowest gear (big ring) it drops two gears.

Problem is the traditional 52mm chainline is good on 8/9/10 speed cassettes, but 11/12 speed push the low gears inwards towards the spokes. You would think the perfect chainline on an 11 speed would be on gear 6, but it's not as gear 1 is inboard from what we are accustomed to. If you can get a straight chain line on gear 5 you will be good to go.

My Turner has a 68mm BB shell, but I dropped the spacer on the drive side bottom bracket and was fortunate that the none drive side still lined up. Giving me the desired 49mm chainline. So worth the effort, I love 1x11 as the next gear up is never such a jump that you stall, keeping your cadence in its optimal range.

Keep working at it, test rides are the best rides .

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Thats exactly the problem I am having; dropping a couple of cogs when pedalling backwards. I have no spacers with the pressfit bb but when I bought the cranks both rings were mounted inboard of the spider with a plastic spacer between them. I sold the spacer with the rings unfortunately (for the same price I paid for the whole chainset!) So I guess I need equivalent spacers.

On the whole it's all working well so I am happy to just need to do fine tuning

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Looking at your pictures I am guessing you have a 104 BCD on the cranks, or a 94 BCD. Either way you could use chain ring bolt spacers and longer chain ring bolts to get the ideal chain line.

I know it might sound Heath Robinson but once it is all working you won't notice, I do speak from experience , did I mention a sorted 1x11 is cycling joy?