the clown was in

hey all, i havent been frequenting this venue for a while, i have been spellbound by bikes with engines......

i have still been cranking on and off, for the most part on. i had a bit of a go in the local woods on a mates 29er a few weeks ago, having only ridden them in a car park before and not taking much notice.

smitten is not the word. why have i been wasting so much time and money on small wheels for so long? i had to have one of these clown bikes. difficult part was to find one that didnt looks stupid and out of proportion. turns out the best i could find was an old school manufacturer, yeti.


i originally wanted a white/turq one, but i did my best to track one down, but failed. had to settle for the modern, and boring black one. couldnt live with the bland tho, so had some decals made to liven it up a bit. started by making patterns in sugar paper:-







took them to the local motocross decal maker, and he produced these:-



and fitted:-





very happy with the results. its not only brightens the frame up, but also offers protection to the paint and frame.

the bottom bracket comes ready to fit a chain device, but as i was going to use a 2x10 setup ultimately, i removed the mount. this left an unsightly void, so i spun up a collar on the lathe to cover this up and had it anodised black.



started to collate parts, and got around to building it a couple of weeks ago. i got the new hope brakes, with the special edition green bore caps, that lets be honest look crap. so swapped the green bits out for blue and balance is restored.





and, once built i commuted on it when the weather wasnt too shabby, and it goes well.



the gears at the moment are 9 sp, and borrowed from a couple of other bikes, and i will get a slightly wider spread of gears when i go 10 sp.

took my first proper ride on thursday off road, and its like a locomotive, so sure and fast.

no going back now!

Lovely frame

cheers, they are nice. i like the details. the headbadge is actually metal, and actually riveted on.



the little hose guides are nice too, glued on but with tiny screws too.

I prefer this frame in black too. Class finish. Lovely touches. Nice attention to detail is always good to see

Looks stunning and not out of proportion at all! good work

That looks really nice. You can hardly tell that it is a big wheeler.

Have you put in much time off road yet?

Cheers guys. I have fitted 203&183mm discs that help with the illusion, as well as the fox 34's.

Only done the one ride off road so far, about 2&half hours total. Wanted to get a ride in this weekend but other things have got in the way.

so, little update. ridden off road now, very stable, very fast, like riding a locomotive. felt big when i was first riding, but now feels normal. i rode with a friend who is a bit taller than me who usually rides a large, so we swapped bikes for a few sections and the biggest thing i noticed was how small his big feels now. so glad i took the plunge and upgraded to 29..

i have swapped out the bars from the renthals which were 740mm, to some bontrager carbon bars that originally were oe fitted to a dh bike. they are 750mm, but importantly have slightly more back sweep than the renthals so they are supremely comfortable.

i have tweaked the bar position to perfection, had a punture, worn out the chain and cassette, tried three different saddles, and finally broke something the other evening......

thursday evening saw the first of the seasons night rides, we set off at 7, and about a half hour into the ride and almost at the top of the first summit there is a massive bang, and freewheel sticks. at the top of the climb, only yards away we discuss our options:

1- roll back down the hill, chainless. boring.

2- carry on, as although the freewheel is sticking i can put power down. could be a very tiring but very rewarding comedy ride.

3- try a trailside fix. the worst thing that can happen is we cant fix it and roll back down chainless.

option three seemed the most appropriate so out came the back wheel for inspection. this is what turned up.



see all those gold bits in my mates hand? they belong to the freehub body on the right. oh dear. luckily(!), one of the four pawls and springs was intact, so we reassembled the wheel and limped on, we didnt do the complete ride, but did the good downhill parts that we had earned and made our way back to the car on the road. there was some interesting noises coming from the back wheel at times, but it made it all of the way back. lucky really.

i am hoping that hope will help with a warranty claim and i hope they still do a steel freehub body as an upgrade like they used to on the xc hubs.

:shock:

that status is in Chepstow?

nice colour scheme, you put the stickers on cock-eyed - other than needing to visit specsavers, was there a reason for that?