Building a hardtail - questions

boogercj

Mmm, well I had a 16" Sunn before and that never felt small...

Seems like most All Mountain/Hard core XC hardtails have fairly short seat tubes nowadays so a 14"er wouldn't necessarily be too small as long as I could find a decent length seatpost.

xtreem

Don't go 14" frame, it's just too low. A mate has 15" frame and it's damn small compared to mine 16".
And if you take 14" frame and buy long seatpost, then you won't be able to lower it
enough, and you'll end up with probably 15/16" height and still not enough height when
raised for XC.

boogercj

Woop! Just bought a frame from a dude on Pinkbike. 16" Trailstar in orange in great condition with horizontal dropouts. £60 posted

I've revised my budget to £650 to allow for a few more new bits. The parts list is looking pretty good though... 8)

elPedro666

Bargain!
Now if you can just keep that standard up...

boogercj

Cheers. Next up I'm gonna get a brand new headset (prolly an FSA The Pig - £15 from merlin) and I've spied some Rockshox Tora 318's on eBay that went for £90.

I think for me the main sticking point is wheels. I want a decent set of wheels, as I weigh 96Kg and I need them to be burly enough to handle the odd 3-4ft drop and some jumps. Was thinking XM719s, DT plain gauge on Deore hubs. Comes in at £140 ish which does strain the budget slightly!

elPedro666

Go for DB spokes - they'll only be a few pennies & will be lighter and stronger.

I weigh *more* than that and my 517s have coped fine with that level of abuse, assuming you can land with a modicum of finesse... :P

boogercj

Sweet. Are those rims Ok with 2.35" Maxxis High Rollers?

elPedro666

Just talking about that:
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... highlight=

8)

boogercj

Right, a while since I've posted but I've been busy buying stuff! So far, I'm still on target for £510 and I reckon I've got a great bike in store. Here's what I've got so far:

Frame: DMR Trailstar in Orange (not sure what age but doesnt have disc mounts) - £60 posted from Pinkbike. Scrappy paint but not bent or broken :?

Stem: Funn Rippa - £8 posted from Pinkbike

Bars: DMR Winbgar Cromo - £23 from CRC

Crankset inc BB: Brand New Deore Hollowtech II, from this forum £45 posted

Wheels: Mavic D521 on Deore Hubs - £58 posted from Pinkbike

Headset: FSA The Pig - £18 from CRC

Seatpost: Azonic HD - £22 from CRC

Brakes: Avid SD 7 V brakes - £22 from eBay for the whole set, front and back

So far I've spent £255 and I reckon I can get away with another £255 for the rest if I buy second hand forks...

What do you reckon eh?

xtreem

As I can see, you're missing tires, fork, derailleurs, shifters, cassete, saddle and grips.
And do you really have V brakes?
That means no to hardcore fork.

Btw, looking good.
Can't wait for pictures.

rowlers

adb1006 wrote:

There's a great feeling of accomplishment and pride when you build something up yourself from scratch (which you'll obviously know all about if you've just done it with a mini!). Not to mention it's also a great learning curve. I'm now totally confident when/if anything breaks that i have the know-how to be able to fix/replace it without having to rely on the monkeys at my LBS - and that is where you'll start to see some £££ savings.

Got to agree here, DO IT, nce the idea is in your head you'll never shake it until you ave a go. I too built my own bike from scratch with help from these guys on here.
Really enjoyable project, and I saved a fortune on RRP. prob approx £600!

boogercj

Xtreem wrote:

As I can see, you're missing tires, fork, derailleurs, shifters, cassete, saddle and grips.
And do you really have V brakes?
That means no to hardcore fork.

Btw, looking good.
Can't wait for pictures.

Cheers, pretty much that's all I'm missing. Although I've just seen I've ordered the wrong fecking size seatpost - 28.6, not 26.8 so I feel a right plum!

I do have V-brakes but this was with a view to go with something like Toras (they have 32mm cro-mo stancions so should be hardcore enough) and upgrade to discs at a later date. At this stage I want to get it built pretty quickly as I'm really missing riding!

elPedro666

Nice work! Good job I didn't notice those Avids though...

Are your hubs disc-ready? Just need forks with bosses & disc mounts then wait for the bargain front brake. Vs will be fine, at least for a while!

boogercj

Nah, hubs aren't disc-ready but I guess I could change the front hub and get the wheel re-built at some stage when I want to convert to discs. I've never actually used discs and I've always found decent V's adequate enough...

Might be sooner than I think as well as I was just having a play with the brakes and it turns out 2 of the arms are seized and 2 have the little posts that keep the arms from twisting round (in one of the 3 little holes in the frame) missing so the actual brakes are next to useless. Bought them on eBay so I have buyer protection. Just goes to show that buying 2nd hand is always a risk. A bit fecked off with that, but "caveat emptor" and all that...

Everything else is sweet though

elPedro666

What a git! You can probably clean up the bushes; just douse them in oil to free things up & then give them a clean, maybe a rub with some fine emery paper to smooth the surfaces, if needed. Trying to think if I've any springs in the big box of random oddities, but I'm fairly sure I don't have - local shop might have some spares sat in a little tub somewhere, if they're friendly...?

Buying off ebay is always a risk, but I've found it much more reliable (touch wood) buying bike stuff on there, as generally bikers aren't looking to rip off bikers! Not in my happy little world anyway...

boogercj

Well, I've bought another full set of V 's now - LX's for £15 and they are perfect, so happy days.

Just had a revelation - I'm going to make this a SS bike usign the Gusset 1-ER 18t :shock:

It's already got horizontal dropouts so should be cheap and easy, and still goodfor a burly do-anything build, no?

elPedro666

Never been a big fan of singlespeeding, except as a city/commuter bike (have to say I really like mine around town though, not that it's a proper singlespeed yet - for the time being I just don't change gear!).

But if you're ever going to try it, now would be the perfect time!

Isn't it about time you rewarded all this excellent sticking-to-budget? Maybe with a pair of DT XMRs...? :twisted:

elPedro666

XMC, XCR, whatever...
:roll:

Dirtydog11

I'm not too bothered if I go £100-150 over budget (to allow for a new set of forks maybe).

See......... you've already gone 150 over and you haven't even started. :roll:

boogercj

Lol @ elPedro! Maybe I'll wait until it's fully built and I bork my D521s!

Nope, at the moment my total build price is a shade under £550, and I've already got the frame, cranks, BB, headset, bars, stem, grips & brakes.

"So far I've spent £255 and I reckon I can get away with another £255 for the rest if I buy second hand forks... 8)
"