Re:
Ta for the comments, I was just so pleased with how it looked I had to share it
I have decided to standardize on 29er's (apart from the old Rockhopper)
Prior to 29's I had a Ragley Blue Pig, and loved it, although it was a bit of a drag on the road bits that a ride around here inevitably includes, but I did miss it for North Downs sillyness.
I have a strict one in one out and I had a Giant Hybrid that does very little, set up with lights guards and rack, it was superb on a Dutch Holiday but otherwise mostly sat gathering dust, so that was going to give up it's wheels and groupset.
I have never had this amount of bike swopping in such a short time.
This frame turned up at a very silly price brand new so the build was on.
The forks are from the Orange which is now full rigid (and therefore takes on some of the road use from the Giant), stripped them down and removed the travel stop so they are now a full 120mm, in answer to one of the comments, yes it would make a nice fully rigid but my other 2 29ers are already so no point.
Took the frame to Halfords and got a close match to the paint, then some ebay stickers, lots of clear coat, quiet pleased, and doesn't seem to have knocked the geometry too much, I was a bit sniffy about this fork and only got it as a stopgap as it was cheap, but actually quiet liking it.
Agonized over the headset, wanted an integral lower race but there would have been about 1mm clearance between the adjusters on the forks and the down tube, so conventional lower race, happy I did as I can now put in a tapered fork if I ever swop. Also the front end is still relatively low.
Wheels are deore hubs with rigida rims and gorilla tape tubeless, tyres from Specialized as they work well and a dealer is 5 mins down the road, went very knobbly as this bike won't spend much time on the road.
Initially it will be 1x9 with one of those clever thick thin sprockets but hoping to go 1x10 and some stage with one of those Hope dinner plate cassette sprockets.
Hope mono mini's, although they are never easy to get right and the sliding dropouts may be a step too far!
Bars and stem are from the Ragley, just to get an idea of position, aesthetically may have to be changed eventually tho' the green doesn't really go.
Hopefully will be completed this weekend.