More Kool-Aid?

It 'twas a busy day. It all started with a poot ton of repairs at the shop. B asked me to work Saturday (today) to help get bikes assembled. We've sold quite a few so we needed to get the floor stock built back up. We started on finishing the repairs. There was only supposed to be a few but he kept pulling them out of his hat like a magician. I was in a bit of a hurry because the ice storm downed several trees on our campus trails. I was able to get over there and get 90% of the downed tree fall removed with the trusty Husky chainsaw before dark. The trails were very saturated and slipper to hike on. I've posted on Facebox for folks to stay off the trails in East TN so that it doesn't create extra work for all the trail volunteers. There's always an idiot or two that will ride because they don't care or it interferes with their schedule and would inconvenience them. BS!

This is how it all starts........... a trail begins to hold water after this crap.

This one below was a booger. The long part fell out in the road and the root ball was just to the right of the trail. Thank goodness the tree was almost hollowed out or my little caw couldn't have made this cut................. cuttin"

What does MBA have to do with this next part? There's  new flavor of kool-aid out there folks! "Like it or not 27.5 IS changing mountain biking" - MBA Magazine. It's called 27.5,  650B, Tweener or whatever you wish to term it. Well I went out and bought the cheapest, but pretty cool to me, setup to give this an honest shot at impressing me. I could have went with a cheap steel bike with deore or heaven forbid "SRAM" groupset on it but I thought that wouldn't give the 650b a fair shot. So I pulled the trigger on another Ebay Chinarello cheapo. That Ebay Chinarello 29r I got last year impressed the shit out me to be frank! I also got to try out a set of Circus Monkey hubs from Taiwan as well. I've been wanting to try these for a long time but didn't have a good enough excuse, or money, to pull the trigger.

 

Sexy little anodized orange hubs and the weight isn't too shabby either. Weight : F 115g / R 240g

I also got to tr out my new park truing stand when I built these up. The version 2.2 stand doesn't need the 29 extenders! All wheels fit in this with or without tires installed.

This is the almost final picture below. I have carbon bars and stem coming yet. I need to take this to the shop and weigh it. It's lighter than my Ninier Air 9 carbon. If I like this I'm selling it and throwing down for Focus Raven 650. The only reason I pulled the trigger was to see if I'm actaully going to like 1 650b or not. I'll easily get my $$ back if I do decide to sell it and it's a lot cheaper than the Carbon Focus Raven no doubt.

I've built it with Shimano DynaSys XT drivetrain w Sram X9 BB30 cranks, BB7 brakes, Fox 26" fork (it really does work), Stans Flow tubeless w/Circus Monkey hubs laced w/Sapim spokes and Maxxis Crossmarks 2.1 tires. The Flows are a tad heavy but QBP was out of the others and I was impatient. I've got another X-Fusion fork coming for it soon, X-Fusion is legit people and you get the performance of Fox for 1/3rd the price. I told you... this was a budget build with carbon. I cant wait to get this thing on the mountain as soon as the trails dry some.

 

 

 

So....... Who all is on this 650b train? Bikerumor says:

Ahrens Cycles

Carver Bikes

Engin Cycles

Independent Fabrication

Kent Eriksen

Lynskey

Origin 8

Pacenti Cycles

Rawland Cycles

Rivendell

Rock Lobster Cycles

Siren Cycles

Soma

Sycip

Vicious Cycles

ZR Cycles

Tire selection seems to  be slowly coming around as is the same with frame manufacturers listed above. I really want to try a set of Pacenti tires but not if I have to pay retail.

MTBR has many threads that address the fork question: What 26" fork will work with a 650b tire? Most of them (650b tire/wheel) will bolt on and clear the arch of a 26" fork. The problem lies whereas the fork reaches the end of it's travel stroke - the tire rubber hits the fork crown (that's the thing the stanchions are pressed into at the top of the legs for you newbs). The cure looks to be as simple as mounting a 10mm spacer inside the forks internals to restrict the travel that last 10mm. The X-Fusion comes with this spacer and requires you to install it of you're running the 26" fork 650b style.

I'll keep you internets peeps informed after my first ride so all 3 of my readers can get a little free info.





LAter G...........................