suburbanreuben
Old School Grand Master
A subtly different title.
Thanks to Adrian for flagging this up. I had a couple of sleepless nights wondering whether I really needed this frame but a couple of bottles convinced me I did. So I bid. And went to bed. And won.
A few days (less than a week) later I went to pick up the parcel from the Force. Thankfully it had had a charmed passage since the contents were floating around a box with the bare minimum of bubbles but no dropout brace, or indeed a geary dropout,...
Never mind, it was here and I had sufficient bits to build it up, mainly plundered from the Dean.
The Dean was going to be a hard act to follow. Beautifully built but with a steep 72deg head tube at 437mm a-c it was the most agile bike I think I've ever ridden,,, yet still totally stable at speed. Could the new arrival match it? It's early days but I think it can. I'm running 120mm Rebas which are a bit fluttery at full extension but I have a hunch the early Implants were built around 100mm travel. I need to try reducing the travel before I splash out on new forks, though I'm liking this long travel lark and may go the whole 130mm hog. Stuff I would previously have wimped out on is now being cleared with ease.
I like this bike!
It's interesting putting the two frames, Dean and Dekerf next to each other; The Dean looks like it needs 20mm more travel than the Implant.,
Maybe it does...
Thanks to Adrian for flagging this up. I had a couple of sleepless nights wondering whether I really needed this frame but a couple of bottles convinced me I did. So I bid. And went to bed. And won.
A few days (less than a week) later I went to pick up the parcel from the Force. Thankfully it had had a charmed passage since the contents were floating around a box with the bare minimum of bubbles but no dropout brace, or indeed a geary dropout,...
Never mind, it was here and I had sufficient bits to build it up, mainly plundered from the Dean.
The Dean was going to be a hard act to follow. Beautifully built but with a steep 72deg head tube at 437mm a-c it was the most agile bike I think I've ever ridden,,, yet still totally stable at speed. Could the new arrival match it? It's early days but I think it can. I'm running 120mm Rebas which are a bit fluttery at full extension but I have a hunch the early Implants were built around 100mm travel. I need to try reducing the travel before I splash out on new forks, though I'm liking this long travel lark and may go the whole 130mm hog. Stuff I would previously have wimped out on is now being cleared with ease.
I like this bike!
It's interesting putting the two frames, Dean and Dekerf next to each other; The Dean looks like it needs 20mm more travel than the Implant.,
Maybe it does...
