Madmax1993
Orange 🍊 Fan
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A couple of years ago, I bought a NOS Voodoo Canzo 2010 frame and swapped most of the parts from my hardtail at the time, apart from the fox RP23 shock and a set of 2009 Rockshox Pike 454 U-Turn forks. The following year I used my cycle to work scheme to get an SLX 1x10 groupset including brakes. This being my first full suss frame and not having anything to compare it to, I was pretty happy with it.
Fast forward to a couple of months ago when I came across a 2009 Orange Five Pro frame on gumtree, at a price I couldn't resist. I should point out that as a teenager, I coveted the Five as a dream bike, so this was a dream come true. Being an older frame, it has QR dropouts, and uses an external cup, straight steerer headset, meaning that everything from the Canzo was a straight swap. Having run it for a couple of trips to glentress and the like, I was thrilled, but started getting ideas at the same time.
1. 11-36 is an inadequate ratio for a 1x drivetrain
2. Orange frames need fox forks. My pikes are fine and all, but Orange/fox/hope are meant to go together.
3. Orange frames need Hope brakes/hubs. Same logic as point 2.
4. I've wanted to go tubeless for a while, so why not now?
Rather than spend £50~ on a Shimano cassette, I thought I'd give an eBay special 'zitto' cassette a go: 11-42 ratio, bit on the heavy side, but pretty functional. However, I didn't swP in the longer B screw provided with the cassette, which lead to the tiniest of twigs ruining my rear mech, which in turn meant I had to get a newer slx rear mech before I could continue with the rest of the project.
Next I began shopping around for 140mm fox forks, and realised that ones matching my 20mm thru axle pikes were pretty unusual, so it would be worth procuring some Hope Pro II hubs which are super easy to change between QR, 15mm and 20mm on the front, and between QR, 10mm and 12mm thru axle rear. I chose to set my sights on Pro II as Evos and Pro 4s are just too expensive for me just now.
I found a front Pro II hub laced onto a Stan's rim, set up with my favoured Mountain king tyre, running tubeless on eBay, and bought it. Tubeless was now halfway done, and I was on the hunt for a fork. When researching hope hubs, I came across the 10mm thru axle format, and the idea of using them with a big beefy skewer on QR dropouts seemed like a good way to maximise the capability of my frame, so I picked up a Pro II rear hub laced onto a WTB rim, a 10mm thru axle kit, and a vision 10mm axle skewer, and decided to give 'ghetto' tubeless ago.
I had previously tried ghetto tubeless on my Mavic 321 rim with used Mountain king tyres, but could never get the tyre to seat. I tried home made bottle bombs, schwalbe air shot canisters, compressors, the works, but no joy. This time round was no different, until I swapped out the used tyre for a new one, and it popped into place first go, at a much lower canister pressure than I had been using.
*Conclusion* My old tyres were past it (for tubeless), and way too porous to work. I finished the rear wheel setup with 2/3 of a bottle of sealant, and topped up the front wheel with the other third.
The method I used was gorilla tape on the rim, and a removable core presta valve cut out from a tube, in case anyone else wants to try, or has any questions about the process.
During this time, I picked up a Fox Float 32 RL from Timoth27 on here, who kindly replied to my wanted ad. I got that fitted, and now the bike is done, at least until some more funds have gathered, when I may reconsider the option of Hope brakes. That said, I can't fault my SLX M675s, they've always been excellent and never let me done, so we'll see how we go.
The final spec is as follows
Frame: 18" Orange Five Pro
Headset: onza mongo (red)
Fork: fox float RL 140mm travel, 15mm thru axle, straight steerer
Shock: fox float RP23 boost valve
Seat post: Xfusion 27.2mm dropper
Saddle: charge spoon
Stem: Raceface 60mm long, 31.8mm oversize
Bars: RSP carbon DH riser
Shifter: SLX 10 speed (675?)
Rear mech: SLX 7000 10spd
Chainset: SLX 1X, RSP narrow wide 34t chainring
Brakes: SLX 675, 180mm icetech floating rotors
Hubs: hope Pro II
front rim: Stan's ZTR355 26"
Rear rim: WTB laserdisc 26"
Front tyre: conti MK 26X2.4
Rear tyre: conti MK 26x2.2
2009 may be considered retro by today's standards, but this is way more bike than I strictly need, and I love it. So that's my long winded story to date.
Fast forward to a couple of months ago when I came across a 2009 Orange Five Pro frame on gumtree, at a price I couldn't resist. I should point out that as a teenager, I coveted the Five as a dream bike, so this was a dream come true. Being an older frame, it has QR dropouts, and uses an external cup, straight steerer headset, meaning that everything from the Canzo was a straight swap. Having run it for a couple of trips to glentress and the like, I was thrilled, but started getting ideas at the same time.
1. 11-36 is an inadequate ratio for a 1x drivetrain
2. Orange frames need fox forks. My pikes are fine and all, but Orange/fox/hope are meant to go together.
3. Orange frames need Hope brakes/hubs. Same logic as point 2.
4. I've wanted to go tubeless for a while, so why not now?
Rather than spend £50~ on a Shimano cassette, I thought I'd give an eBay special 'zitto' cassette a go: 11-42 ratio, bit on the heavy side, but pretty functional. However, I didn't swP in the longer B screw provided with the cassette, which lead to the tiniest of twigs ruining my rear mech, which in turn meant I had to get a newer slx rear mech before I could continue with the rest of the project.
Next I began shopping around for 140mm fox forks, and realised that ones matching my 20mm thru axle pikes were pretty unusual, so it would be worth procuring some Hope Pro II hubs which are super easy to change between QR, 15mm and 20mm on the front, and between QR, 10mm and 12mm thru axle rear. I chose to set my sights on Pro II as Evos and Pro 4s are just too expensive for me just now.
I found a front Pro II hub laced onto a Stan's rim, set up with my favoured Mountain king tyre, running tubeless on eBay, and bought it. Tubeless was now halfway done, and I was on the hunt for a fork. When researching hope hubs, I came across the 10mm thru axle format, and the idea of using them with a big beefy skewer on QR dropouts seemed like a good way to maximise the capability of my frame, so I picked up a Pro II rear hub laced onto a WTB rim, a 10mm thru axle kit, and a vision 10mm axle skewer, and decided to give 'ghetto' tubeless ago.
I had previously tried ghetto tubeless on my Mavic 321 rim with used Mountain king tyres, but could never get the tyre to seat. I tried home made bottle bombs, schwalbe air shot canisters, compressors, the works, but no joy. This time round was no different, until I swapped out the used tyre for a new one, and it popped into place first go, at a much lower canister pressure than I had been using.
*Conclusion* My old tyres were past it (for tubeless), and way too porous to work. I finished the rear wheel setup with 2/3 of a bottle of sealant, and topped up the front wheel with the other third.
The method I used was gorilla tape on the rim, and a removable core presta valve cut out from a tube, in case anyone else wants to try, or has any questions about the process.
During this time, I picked up a Fox Float 32 RL from Timoth27 on here, who kindly replied to my wanted ad. I got that fitted, and now the bike is done, at least until some more funds have gathered, when I may reconsider the option of Hope brakes. That said, I can't fault my SLX M675s, they've always been excellent and never let me done, so we'll see how we go.
The final spec is as follows
Frame: 18" Orange Five Pro
Headset: onza mongo (red)
Fork: fox float RL 140mm travel, 15mm thru axle, straight steerer
Shock: fox float RP23 boost valve
Seat post: Xfusion 27.2mm dropper
Saddle: charge spoon
Stem: Raceface 60mm long, 31.8mm oversize
Bars: RSP carbon DH riser
Shifter: SLX 10 speed (675?)
Rear mech: SLX 7000 10spd
Chainset: SLX 1X, RSP narrow wide 34t chainring
Brakes: SLX 675, 180mm icetech floating rotors
Hubs: hope Pro II
front rim: Stan's ZTR355 26"
Rear rim: WTB laserdisc 26"
Front tyre: conti MK 26X2.4
Rear tyre: conti MK 26x2.2
2009 may be considered retro by today's standards, but this is way more bike than I strictly need, and I love it. So that's my long winded story to date.
