adrick
Devout Dirtbag
Re: Re:
I only put a mud guard and remove the bottlesbishopdante":2etwgikm said:It's an amazing frame, Danish builder called Pronghorn, who build to measure using adjustable rubber formers. Only company that offers a lifetime guarantee, and they supply the Peruvian and Ecuadorian world championship / olympic teams. Tough as can be. They use a very clever and unique fabrication process, build in very small numbers, and use the proper F1 grade fiber stock. Was very lucky to find one that had been stripped for parts in exactly my size, fits me like a glove.
Is the first all-carbon mountain bike I've had and the handling has saved my bacon a few times so far. Drivers on mobile phones can put a person in hospital any day of the week if you don't have the ability to slide both wheels / bunny hop big obstacles.
Wouldn't exactly say it's currently visually beautiful, I've deliberately ratted it up to keep the thieves off with retroreflect offcuts and various bits of fluoro/holographic sticker like camouflage. Still I don't lock it up for more than a few minutes, it's light enough to carry in wherever I am going.
However, the riding characteristic is beautiful. It's a smidge under 9kg (19.5lbs) with a big heavy back tire, and goes like the clappers. Nothing is faster in London; cars, buses, tubes, superbikes, whatever. I've raced everything but helicopters and I'm always waiting for the others to catch up. I reckon it'd beat a helicopter, too, point-to-point. The handling is chalk & cheese compared to a racer, and that's what counts in London. It cracks me up dropping the lycra-mob /fixie suicide-artists up hills. They don't like being severely dropped by a mountain bike. Nor do lambo drivers like being overtaken through corners / in traffic. Lots of fun.
If I find some carbon cranks and drop the front shifter/rings, could take off another half kilo, and could take off another 2/3 of a kilo by using rigid forks. I do love the pace, though, with lockout it's as stiff as any roadie bike I've ridden, was riding one of the "dope fiend" Lance Armstrong Trek Madone bikes for a season, belonged to a friend, and it's the same sort of animal (except without the understeer), can feel every little bit of road texture like you're bolted to the tarmac, but get out of the saddle and flick the lockout off, and it's as plush as you'd ever want on tarmac. Yes it's possible to bottom the 100mm forks out by hitting ramps without being careful about where one puts the weight, but other than that the indicator generally lives a couple of mm off the limit and requires no extra thinking about. Only annoying feature is the pace forks leak oil onto the rotor, but by using a hope M4 caliper, it has so much bite that it doesn't really care about a bit of oil, apart from occasionally emitting a shrieking sound. Feed it pads every few seasons & wipe the forks down before & after riding, and it's no big issue.
Am particularly pleased with my lightweight ghetto mudguards, done with PET plastic bottles, a bit of theatre-stock mirror film, and cross-braced with zipties.
Also, my weight weenie back lights amused me greatly. Just take a cheap chinese light, pull out the guts and stick it in a ziplock bag with a ziptie round it. The other back light you can see strapped to the bottom of the seat came off within a month & exploded on the street, and the plastic mount it came with didn't even make it past a test ride, broke it in half, but the jury-rigged ziplock bag ones are still rocking a year in.
Ghetto to the max.
Probably spent no more than £400-£500 on building it, too, which is not too painful. It sort of grew out of a previous bike, although the only original part left is the top cap and bolt.
