robins":4x2vevfe said:
i had a email from him other nite ill tell him his emails are not working when he gets back to me.
That would be great, I am currently trying to price up either a Steve Potts or Kent Eriksen custom 26" wheel MTB, and looking at what else may be available, also having to consider shipping and import tax.
There is no hurry, as I am intending getting back into off road riding on a hardtail, and will have to put a bit more into thinking about newer geometries and fork travel and such.
It was easy in the old days to get custom sizing basics, as I preferred the back end of 17" C-T with long top tube (23") of an 18" C-T mtb, but slightly aggressive geometry such as that on the 1998 Specialized M2 (which seemed as happy with 63mm travel, 80mm travel or 100mm travel up front!).
A late 17" Stumpjumper wouldn't be too bad as a starting ground, though an extra 1cm or so on the top tube, 1cm or so off the seat tube, and a degree slacker on the seat tube with a degree steeper on the head tube may sweeten it up a bit. But where will fork travel end up, 100mm seems very little now, 120mm seems like XC, but seems to be taking hardtail geometry too far,.
Now bikes seem to have shorter top tubes with shorter stems and Ice cream van positioning, with seat tubes seemingly slightly more forward to get more use out of long travel forks, which seems to have no regard to knees and Bottom bracket position. Not to mention what seems to be US specific cable routing and depressing dropouts.
My Marin full sus is a classic example, My first medium mount vision (97 I think) was more like a 19" C-T frame for the correct top tube length, the small felt too cramped, this years small could do with an extra 1 cm on the top tube, but both small and medium feel positioned too far over the BB, and the small has too short a stem, medium stem is too long LOL.
