Here are some picks of my build before i get started, for those who haven't seen it yet !
It's a 2012 Ellsworth Moment bought second hand from a works rider.
It's a 160mm travel (6.3) frame and I have married it up with a pair of Bombers 66 Ti sprung with 180mm travel. This is longer than the stock forks but I am hoping this will slacken the head angle a bit more a help me out on the steep bits.
I have gone with the bombers as last year I was a bit disappointed with my Boxxers, they just wrecked my hands on the brake bumps. Pete and I are going to have a go at sorting those with some different oil, but more on that at a later date.
Check out the machining on the rocker arms, Ellsworth went to town on the patterning obviously happy to let the machines work away making pretty shapes.
I bought a new 60mm Nuke Proof warhead stem on sale at Chain Reaction cycles, now thinking about it I may want to go shorter, but will get the bike built first.
Compared to my Rogue this should turn out to be a lot lighter bike.... the 8 inch bike was great last year and got me out of a few scrapes (but not always).
Its never going to be super light but hopefully a lot more manageable. This coming summer its going to be a single crown fork, the boxxer was great for stiffness and the direct mount stem meant the bars were always straight after a stack, but i am not sure this frame will take a triple clamp.
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Snowy Sunday and I decided to finally crack on with the build.
The temperature outside the garage was a toasty -1c and I was interested to see how long I would last. After a while though I got used the cold metal with a bit of music, biscuits and lots and lots of tea!
It was a little sad disassembling the Rogue for parts but I have to say that now I have started I am really excited.
I pulled the hope tech m4 brakes, blackspire bars and shifters over in only an hour. The cranks are playing silly buggers and are going to take a little longer.
I went for an XTR Bottom Bracket, it's only £45 which is only a few quid more than XT. The nukeproof stem has a solid face plate which makes lining the bars up a bit more difficult as you can't see the guide marks on the bars.
There is that great moment when you get the bars on a sling on the wheels and seat and suddenly you can sit on the bike and get an idea of how it feels.
Here it is so far - Bike building tip from my days at the bike shop. Use some folded cardboard or pipe lagging to protect the frame from dropped tools or just the odd accidental knock/slip of a spanner.
The bike definitely isn't going to break any weight records but I can already feel its going to be significantly lighter than the Rogue (42Lbs). The front end does feel heavy but I will weigh it once its all built and then work on shaving off weight here and there.
