Now Lee has finished his... CROSS DRESSING PICS ADDED

My new Spooky arrived today, to join my other new Spooky (blue anodised Skeletor road frame) that arrived a few weeks ago. It all started a few years ago when my friend on the Isle of Wight started importing the new Spookys. The Supertouch cross bike was the first - and I just couldn't get enough of it. I absolutely love riding that bike.

The newest is a 650b wheeler Darkside. Like Novekili I've decided I'm not going to paint it, but I might give it a polish.

Just built some 650b wheels from second hand Velocity rims and XT hubs from cyfa - see whether I like the wheel size. I think I'm going to - it makes a lot of sense.


Rich

I'm deffo watching this one

*Taps foot impatiently*

Wow, so the one on Frank's blog's yours... He apparently uses the same dropouts as the ones on my 29er....

Well, the Darkside had its first outing today. Trail conditions are grim owing to recent torrential downpours. I don't mind a hose pipe ban as long as my bike doesn't get muddy...

Anyway, bit of an hasty build because I am an impatient man. Comes out about 21lbs despite not being built to be light. I wanted a fast cross country bike that would also be strong - so the wheels are Velocity P35s on bombproof XT hubs and the fork is a Vicious (from Nick).

The only thing I'll be changing for now is the stem. The one on there is a 100mm Cannondale Fire stem (very light and made by Syntace) which I will swap for a 90mm silver Thomson x4. The frame is designed to have an external lower cup on the headset so I might swap over to one at some point - but Hope are out of stock at the moment.

Drivetrain is Middleburn Uno (36) with an XT mech and XT Cassette (11-36) with an XTR shifter.

Brakes are Magura Marta SL Magnesiums with 160mm rear and 180mm front.

I likes my ESI grips.

And my wife demonstrating fine Yetiquette... tending to her gold clad ARC.

Gorgeous, but isn't it a nit stiff? I would't even consider riding my FTW 29er without a front suspension fork....

A lot of nice bikes there! Spooky have my favourite graphics- but your bike looks damn cool withouth the graphics!

Head angle looks a bit steep- is it the photo?

Thanks. I have the stickers - just haven't decided whether to polish it or paint it yet or leave it as it is - because I'm lazy.

The head angle is steep. That's partly made steeper by the fact I've put an internal bottom cup in the headset rather than the external one it's meant to have. Handles nicely though and I'm used to the steepness from riding my old bandwagon.

I reckon leave it as is- looks fantastic.

Wooohooo.
That new bike looks wicked all raw and rigid and sloppy!
You'll have more fun if you increase the fork length. With the external cup and a 4" fork it'll be more playfull and playfull is good.

The build on your CX bike looks pretty fun.
What are the brakes?