New Build, the up’s, downs and downs (a bit long ;)
rikk
Posts: 734
I promised myself that if I was still doing the mtbing after a year I’d treat myself to something nice, 9 months came around and I certainly wasn’t going to be stopping so started looking.
I’d need a frame only solution and build it up from there as my brakes/wheels/bar’s are pretty much top end and needing the Rotor cranks and Gravity dropper meant buying a whole bike and stripping out the bits I already had would be silly, the only other thing was the ability to run wide tyres (2.4’s) with ease in our mud as I like bigger tyres.
My LBS does Orange and Kona so had a good look at those but the Orange full sus bikes I think look awful and the Kona’s where doing nothing for me at all.
After long time looking at looking at just about everything I saw a couple of reviews of the Pace RC405, seemed perfect, everything I wanted takes up to 2.5 tyres, pretty exclusive and rave reviews. I was tempted later on by the Trek EX9 but silly Trek aren’t importing the aluminium version as frame only, also after modelling both suspension geometries I liked the Pace solution much better anyway.
This was where the fun started as all the reviews said the RC405 would be out May/June time. Off I pootled to my LBS who are a Pace dealer to get one ordered, a few calls by them later and they are told only their pro dealers can supply the frames. Hmmm obviously no normal shop can re-label a box and send it on only a Pace Pro shop.....
Annoyed but not deterred I phoned Stiff and ordered an RC405 anodized in medium and sat down to await delivery.
During this time I emailed Pace a few times to ask questions about the frame, their forks and various other stuff all in all the guys at Pace where very helpful. It was in one of these emails they said the frames where to be delivered to themselves by end of Sept for delivery to the shops by mid Oct.......GULP, so where the hell did all the reviews get told May/June delivery :?
Ok, no worries I have other bits to sort out for the bike I can wait.
I loved the pics of the bike on the Pace site with their own forks and decided after a lot of reading around and speaking to Pace again that a pair of RC41 Fighters (150mm) with 20mm through axle would suit me perfectly, especially as they have this funky feature that you press a button and they drop 50mm for climbing then a quick tap of the front end and they pop back up (not being able to do much standing this is ideal for me as it means I can climb steeper grades) I would of loved to have waited for the DT-swiss made version but they will not be available till Feb and the colours look bloody awful.
Let the fun commence....
After a week of trying to hunt down a pair I stumbled on the Winstanleys website which listed QR as out of stock BUT OMG the 20mm’s in stock, woot....so promptly ordered them on Thursday.
Monday comes around and nothing so Tuesday I phone, “we don’t have those in stock and have ordered a pair from Pace”...grrrr
As these are an end of line item I REALLY wanted to know they would receive them so emailed Pace to ask if Winstanleys would receive a pair (as again my LBS had tried to order and been told they are no longer a stock item for Pace), Pace wouldn’t tell me and just pointed me back at Winstanleys, geez all I wanted to know was if they would receive a pair not when or how much, hardly a national secret.
Back to Winstanleys to be told after a lot of chasing I would have them by Oct 10th, fair enough, I waited.
The 8th comes along so I phoned to confirm they would be arriving to get an, oh yes they should be......riiiiight. Got home on fri 12th from working away to find no forks, phoned up Winstanleys to be told they now should be sent off tues/weds, told them I wasn’t pleased and hang up.
Got to the end of the following week and still no forks, nothing from pace and Winstaleys still saying Pace will be sending them any day now so cancelled the order and told them I wasn’t remotely pleased. Oh yes I forgot, they also took my £530 straight away so had that for over a month.
Back to looking at forks then, lots of reading up on forums and reviews to finally settle on a pair of Fox 36 talas rc2’s, I would of prefured the 32’s but the 36’s talas adjustment of 100/130/160 suited me and the bike much, these where ordered from my LBS on Fri and turned up Mon.....yay for the LBS
In the mean time I’d been ordering all the odds and ends and had acquired :-
XTR front mech
This was ordered from Evans who sent a wrongly labeled 970 rather than the 971 I asked for.
X0 rear mech
Carbon fibre frame patches (for cable rubs)
And sitting at the lbs was a new headset, 20mm adapter for the front Hope hub and some other odds n sods.
Woot all ready to go, oh yea no frame yet.
Got a call from Stiff on a Thursday saying the frames where at pace being built and would be with them early next week. They called again the next Tues to say I would receive it on the weds, oh yea now we’re getting somewhere.
I went to Thetford on weds and left someone at home to receive the frame, got back and nothing...grrrr spoke to Stiff who said the couriers where running late but they’d call me on thurs.
Phone rings....errr really sorry but the couriers have lost the frame, but are looking for it AHHHHHHHHHH WTF < wasn’t happy
Another call on fri to say they’ve found it and it’s being delivered now, luckily someone was in or the couriers WOULD have brought it back on sat whether they wanted to or not.
Got home to a big brown box with Pace on the side, hmmm looking a little battered, opened the box up to gaze on the beauty and it was indeed beautiful, till my eye’s got to the mech hanger to see that at some point it had been dropped on it’s arse and it was bent in towards the swingarm. The packaging in the box was truly appalling, some thin foam around the headstock and around the BB with a little bit of bubble wrap around the dropouts. FFS after paying £1300 for a frame I would have expected it to be packed with shaved virgin fairy pubes not the shambles I saw in front of me.
To say I’d really lost my sense of humour by this point would be a MASSIVE understatement especially to then get Stiff just before they left to be told neither they nor Pace had any replacements in stock.
You can just make out the small dent right at the tip of the hanger where it’s had the impact
Here you can see the stress marks at the top of the hanger and also it’s now weird shaped opening
It also chapped my arse a bit to read through the two photocopied pages that constitute the manual to read the section where Pace say that if you want to protect you chain stays in the best way possible why not buy their purpose made one for the RC405, AHHHHHHHH I’ve just spent £1300 on your frame you could at least put the protector in the box as well especially after waiting 3 months for the damn thing.
Anyway.....
Everythings going to the LBS on Mon to be built up, the damage to the mech hanger can be fixed so it at least can be built and ridden until a replacement is sent although it’s a weak spot so I have to be gentle.
I’ll hopefully post soon with some built pics but at the moment I’m fully expecting to either have a crash on the way to LBS or after it’s built they get broken into and it be the only thing stolen.
Wish me luck
I’d need a frame only solution and build it up from there as my brakes/wheels/bar’s are pretty much top end and needing the Rotor cranks and Gravity dropper meant buying a whole bike and stripping out the bits I already had would be silly, the only other thing was the ability to run wide tyres (2.4’s) with ease in our mud as I like bigger tyres.
My LBS does Orange and Kona so had a good look at those but the Orange full sus bikes I think look awful and the Kona’s where doing nothing for me at all.
After long time looking at looking at just about everything I saw a couple of reviews of the Pace RC405, seemed perfect, everything I wanted takes up to 2.5 tyres, pretty exclusive and rave reviews. I was tempted later on by the Trek EX9 but silly Trek aren’t importing the aluminium version as frame only, also after modelling both suspension geometries I liked the Pace solution much better anyway.
This was where the fun started as all the reviews said the RC405 would be out May/June time. Off I pootled to my LBS who are a Pace dealer to get one ordered, a few calls by them later and they are told only their pro dealers can supply the frames. Hmmm obviously no normal shop can re-label a box and send it on only a Pace Pro shop.....
Annoyed but not deterred I phoned Stiff and ordered an RC405 anodized in medium and sat down to await delivery.
During this time I emailed Pace a few times to ask questions about the frame, their forks and various other stuff all in all the guys at Pace where very helpful. It was in one of these emails they said the frames where to be delivered to themselves by end of Sept for delivery to the shops by mid Oct.......GULP, so where the hell did all the reviews get told May/June delivery :?
Ok, no worries I have other bits to sort out for the bike I can wait.
I loved the pics of the bike on the Pace site with their own forks and decided after a lot of reading around and speaking to Pace again that a pair of RC41 Fighters (150mm) with 20mm through axle would suit me perfectly, especially as they have this funky feature that you press a button and they drop 50mm for climbing then a quick tap of the front end and they pop back up (not being able to do much standing this is ideal for me as it means I can climb steeper grades) I would of loved to have waited for the DT-swiss made version but they will not be available till Feb and the colours look bloody awful.
Let the fun commence....
After a week of trying to hunt down a pair I stumbled on the Winstanleys website which listed QR as out of stock BUT OMG the 20mm’s in stock, woot....so promptly ordered them on Thursday.
Monday comes around and nothing so Tuesday I phone, “we don’t have those in stock and have ordered a pair from Pace”...grrrr
As these are an end of line item I REALLY wanted to know they would receive them so emailed Pace to ask if Winstanleys would receive a pair (as again my LBS had tried to order and been told they are no longer a stock item for Pace), Pace wouldn’t tell me and just pointed me back at Winstanleys, geez all I wanted to know was if they would receive a pair not when or how much, hardly a national secret.
Back to Winstanleys to be told after a lot of chasing I would have them by Oct 10th, fair enough, I waited.
The 8th comes along so I phoned to confirm they would be arriving to get an, oh yes they should be......riiiiight. Got home on fri 12th from working away to find no forks, phoned up Winstanleys to be told they now should be sent off tues/weds, told them I wasn’t pleased and hang up.
Got to the end of the following week and still no forks, nothing from pace and Winstaleys still saying Pace will be sending them any day now so cancelled the order and told them I wasn’t remotely pleased. Oh yes I forgot, they also took my £530 straight away so had that for over a month.
Back to looking at forks then, lots of reading up on forums and reviews to finally settle on a pair of Fox 36 talas rc2’s, I would of prefured the 32’s but the 36’s talas adjustment of 100/130/160 suited me and the bike much, these where ordered from my LBS on Fri and turned up Mon.....yay for the LBS
In the mean time I’d been ordering all the odds and ends and had acquired :-
XTR front mech
This was ordered from Evans who sent a wrongly labeled 970 rather than the 971 I asked for.
X0 rear mech
Carbon fibre frame patches (for cable rubs)
And sitting at the lbs was a new headset, 20mm adapter for the front Hope hub and some other odds n sods.
Woot all ready to go, oh yea no frame yet.
Got a call from Stiff on a Thursday saying the frames where at pace being built and would be with them early next week. They called again the next Tues to say I would receive it on the weds, oh yea now we’re getting somewhere.
I went to Thetford on weds and left someone at home to receive the frame, got back and nothing...grrrr spoke to Stiff who said the couriers where running late but they’d call me on thurs.
Phone rings....errr really sorry but the couriers have lost the frame, but are looking for it AHHHHHHHHHH WTF < wasn’t happy
Another call on fri to say they’ve found it and it’s being delivered now, luckily someone was in or the couriers WOULD have brought it back on sat whether they wanted to or not.
Got home to a big brown box with Pace on the side, hmmm looking a little battered, opened the box up to gaze on the beauty and it was indeed beautiful, till my eye’s got to the mech hanger to see that at some point it had been dropped on it’s arse and it was bent in towards the swingarm. The packaging in the box was truly appalling, some thin foam around the headstock and around the BB with a little bit of bubble wrap around the dropouts. FFS after paying £1300 for a frame I would have expected it to be packed with shaved virgin fairy pubes not the shambles I saw in front of me.
To say I’d really lost my sense of humour by this point would be a MASSIVE understatement especially to then get Stiff just before they left to be told neither they nor Pace had any replacements in stock.
You can just make out the small dent right at the tip of the hanger where it’s had the impact
Here you can see the stress marks at the top of the hanger and also it’s now weird shaped opening
It also chapped my arse a bit to read through the two photocopied pages that constitute the manual to read the section where Pace say that if you want to protect you chain stays in the best way possible why not buy their purpose made one for the RC405, AHHHHHHHH I’ve just spent £1300 on your frame you could at least put the protector in the box as well especially after waiting 3 months for the damn thing.
Anyway.....
Everythings going to the LBS on Mon to be built up, the damage to the mech hanger can be fixed so it at least can be built and ridden until a replacement is sent although it’s a weak spot so I have to be gentle.
I’ll hopefully post soon with some built pics but at the moment I’m fully expecting to either have a crash on the way to LBS or after it’s built they get broken into and it be the only thing stolen.
Wish me luck
.........Rikk(http://www.rcphotographic.co.uk)
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Comments
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thats cheating, getting someone else to build it for you0
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omg i almost opted for this frame from stiff. went with a SC superlight in the end.. i feel for you as this is annoying when you're spending a whole bunch of cash and it doesn't arrive for ages and when it does it's wrong/broke ({) think, when it's finally ready to role it's gonna be Christmas and snowing.. so you can't use it0
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harry_jones1984 wrote:think, when it's finally ready to role it's gonna be Christmas and snowing.. so you can't use it
Snow at X Mass, HA HA you are joking arn't you? After our pathetic excuse of a summer it will probably be the warmest winter on record. Anyway, a little bit of snow won't stop me riding through the winter, and after spending that much i would still be out when it is -10.
Good luck RIKK, hope your luck improves,
Andy.0
