AdamR28

What a farce. Again. Mainly the cost cap stuff, but the confusion at the end of the race was a poor show too

Ha, was just thinking that. Must be the XL frame making the wheels look out of proportion! Bike looks ace though and kudos on the colour coordination I've also joined the Santa Cruz club, courtesy of a bargain Tallboy CC frame that had somehow never been built despite being over 4 years old! I'd rather not have bought another frame and built it up as a bitsa from the spares pile, but because CRCs warranty process is rather slow (over 5 weeks now... and they say 2 more weeks until they inspect it... its good to know the score, but it is quite frustrating) and they wanted the full bike back due to a frame defect (facepalm), I thought sod it. Figure I'll not ride whatever replacement gets sorted out because 1) they don't have any more stock of the frame to replace it with, 2) I'd just break it again anyway (cracked within two months of XC riding) even if they did and 3) I don't want to support them or Vitus given this most recent palaver, so time to move on... Fitted a Slack-R today (not in the pic) to give a bit less OTB feeling on the steep stuff, which brings the geo a bit more up to date - now around 66 head angle. The bike pedals incredibly well even when standing up and mashing (set up singlespeed at the moment as some random courier currently has temporary custody of all my 12 speed drivetrain components hanging on aforementioned bike), and it definitely feels like it has more than 110mm of travel which is cool. I love the details such as proper moulded tubes for internal routing and the additional seals on the lower link bearings. Looking forward to getting my 'proper' bits on it! In other big bike news... had a go at the singlespeed UK champs the other weekend. Pretty brutal course, with over 5000ft of climbing in 32 miles, but had a great time anyway despite a pretty big first lap crash oops. Also met @grant wildman who was there with his sweet Stanton, so we spent some time chatting oldskool trials bikes and nerding about tyres! The highlight though was that I ended up finishing 4th (of 123 riders), which I was totally blown away with considering its my first half season of racing and I was on the home made bike! PS: excuse the lycra... The SS race was a couple of weeks after taking on the Deadwater 100, which was shortened to 83 miles (and 13000ft of climbing!) due to the heat that weekend (Garmin clocked 32 degrees at one point). Had a couple of mechanicals that lost me about 10 mins and a finishing place, but still came home in 5th (sounds better than it is as only 32 entered and 11 finished - though perhaps that's an indication of the brutality of the event!). Again, really chuffed with this one as simply completing this event was what I'd been working towards this year, never mind finishing strongly and towards the front of the field. PS: more lycra, sorry And I'll throw in a photo of the bike so you can take the piss out of my 'spokes' and inverted stem... ha. With events over for now, its nice to be back out riding for fun with mates a bit more as opposed to churning out big miles building fitness. First ride this year with lights yesterday though... winter is coming, yuck! Do you guys carry on through the winter evenings, or give it a rest? On another note... would there be any interest in a TF MTB ride sometime? Perhaps a weekend, somewhere central-ish... Cannock Chase?

Appears not in this case glad you are getting sorted out

I've not seen this before - thought a few people might find it interesting! https://www.ibiscycles.com/our-story/history/7-trials

My only direct experience here is making frames for myself, without the use of a proper jig, no fancy tools, and with DIY techniques. I've made 3 now, and number 1 was a bit of a bodge, but none of the dimensions were more than 10mm or 1 degree different to my drawings. The 2nd was better. The 3rd frame is within 2mm and 0.1 degrees. Frame builders can manufacture to superb tolerances and with great consistency, its just the graphic on the frame is "wrong" in this case. Some good info here: https://www.mtbr.com/threads/manufacturing-alignment-tolerance.1207578/#post-15700651

Possible I guess, but very rare to be the cause. Only way to tell is to strip the hoses off and inspect.

Your frame isn't a 'lemon', the geometry is just different to what the manufacturer states. It's pretty common. But yes, I agree it doesn't make sense! It is something Tarty have discussed at length with Christian in the past, but somehow this is not seen as an issue at Crewkerz.

Yep, known "problem" with this frame. Loads of these bikes out there with the headset cups not sitting flush, without issue, so don't worry. Source of knowledge: I built about 300 of these bikes back in 2003-2004 when I was working for Onza... they had a special lower cup made, which of course nearlt 20 years on they won't have available any more. A heads up, I would measure the BB thread diameter before you go any further with the build... some of these frames have oversized BB threads (by accident), for which the solution was to get some oversized BBs made to fit, which again you will struggle to find any more. Plus these special BBs only came in 119mm square taper, not much use nowadays!

Yup... 44mm insertion diameter, cups hidden inside frame, bearings into cups. The photo above shows the frame has been dented (front of head tube), hence the dimension being a bit small. Should be around 33.9mm. In reality, just press the cup in and all will be ok.

From an axle fatigue point of view, nearer the dropout. I think, when considering the hub / rear sprocket, it more depends on the bearing layout and design of the hub. Overall, I tend to let my front sprocket decide where the rear one goes.

My experience is that you'll need a new rotor.

That is pretty normal after wetting the rotor. However, new pads AND rotor required to get the brake working properly again. No exceptions.

Could perhaps have been the tiny pads on the BB5s getting stuck into the huge holes in the previous rotors? Not sure if its still doing the same with the Shimanos... If you can't be arsed lacquering the frame, a wipe down with an oily rag, WD40, etc does a good enough job of keeping rust at bay. I did a full winter of MTB on mine and it came back 'good as new' with a bit of wire wool afterwards. You do lose the nicely coloured heat zones around the welds though. Awesome to see it built fully and I hope you love it, top work!

Looking ace Managed to have a little ride yet? What sort of length chainstay did you end up setting the rear wheel at?

What a beaut

Perhaps a case of mistaken identity at Hope... wouldn't be the first time stuff like this has got mixed up at their place. There's not a lot to differentiate between the two part numbers, especially to a non bike nerd...

Have you tried the Pro axle?

Bummer! It's quite common on kit cars as they often aren't set up properly... there should be a mechanical stop to the pedal itself (a bolt through the firewall is more than adequate) which is found just before or at the same time as the throttle is fully open.

Did you try to add photo there Tom? Or just belatedly very happy for Luke? I've recently gone full XC whippet, bought lycra and everything. This bike is seriously easy to ride very fast. Technology: who knew?

Brake is contaminated, possibly due to the brake cleaner. New pads and rotor required to get it back to full performance, but burning pads and properly cleaning rotor will help. Organic pads work better for trials.

This x100 the little nadgery stuff is the killer until you've ridden a fair bit of natural!

Weird how this has gone under the radar: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-61885899 Or maybe not...

Depends on a lot of things... the best thing to do is push your brake pads all the way back, measure the gap, and subtract 2mm

Tarty have stock now. Lever feel is lovely and light. The whole thing looks smaller in person than on photos, weirdly. Power is going to be a touch more than the Tech 3, with associated reduction in pad / rotor clearance.

Its all good, it'll work just fine.