Ragley Bagger 2012 build

I know it's not retro, but it's a pretty unique frame, and I thought it might interest a few of you on here that are into your quirky bike/steel hardtails.

For a bit of background, I had a Rocky Mountain Slayer, equipped for everything from XC to downhill, bit of a pain to pedal, but I don't mind putting up with that if I can really go nuts on the descents. Anyway, I got a bit fed up of maintaining two full sus bikes, and it's not easy on the wallet either, being that I'm a student. The geometry wasn't exactly to my liking, so I decided to go back to a hardtail, but one that could take big forks and had slacker, longer geometry. Basically a downhill hardtail. The Bagger seemed perfect on paper, and was cheap on CRC (even cheaper now!!) so I ordered one, and here's the build:









And here's one in it's natural home in the peaks



I only built this up a couple of weeks ago, so I've only been able to ride it a handful of times, but I did get it out to the peaks one day, which was a good test. I kept up with my mate on his full sus cannondale prophet all day on the descents, but was having to work a lot harder at it - I forgot how much you have to work on the descents on a hardtail! I love this bike anyway, it handles the descents beautifully, really stable at speed, was really confidence inspiring on the steep techy bits we rode, was nice and nimble on the faster stuff and manualled and jumped really well. It climbed surprising well for such a slack bike (65 deg static HA) as well, I think due to the steeper seat tube angle, the front end didn't wander at all. and I wasn't shifting my weight about as much in quite the same way as I had to on the slayer. Overall, I really like this bike! It's no lightweight XC hardtail (pretty sure it's +30lbs), but it was never going to be, but it perfectly suits my needs! Now I just need to wait to get back to university in Bangor, slap on some dual ply tyres and razz it down some of the local downhill tracks!

That does look like a barrel of fun Nice one.

That does indeed look like a lot of fun...where abouts in the Peaks s that picture taken? Only ask because it looks like one of my old local spots.

Cheers, it's a fun bike!
And I have no idea, somewhere behind Edale (I don't ride the peaks much, a mate lead us on the ride).

Is that an 18"? Looks great. A lot of seatpost showing though!

Aye 18". I'm 6ft1 and prefer a slightly smaller bike, as I'm going to be chucking it down downhill tracks etc and need to be able to drop the post a fair way, particularly if I take it down some of the silly steep local tracks I ride. To be honest, the cockpit is the perfect length. With the seat up, I don't feel too stretched out or cramped at all, and that's with a 40mm stem as well. I had a 20" On One 456, and it was just too long and big and I just couldn't chuck it about like I'd have wanted to.

Thought I'd update this, got some new tyres, pedals, bars and stem. The tyres are Schwalbe Hans Dampfs, which I love! They really grippy, even on roots and rocks. The pedals really help as well on tricky tech sections if you need to unclip for whatever reason. I quite like the new bars and stem too, the bars are 785mm (old ones were 750), and they feel pretty good.