Custom painted Torque, 05 boxxers fitted

bluechair84

Completed pics on page 10
Pics with Boxxers on p13

Yes another Canyon!
I've bought the frame in some 'orrid black which I'm hoping to respray in Mitsubishi Electric Blue finished with burnt gold components, white forks and wheels :twisted: I'll be chatting with a few illustrator friends and see if I can work up some custom graphics for the frame, whilst another mate can have them vinyl printed for me... It's not what you know you know!


Some of the build will be moving over from my Ellsworth Moment, whilst the lightweight build on my hardtail will move up to the Elly. The hardtail will then become a mega cheap rigid singlespeed with some spare bits I've floating around:

Fox DHX with a Ti spring (from the Elly)
Suntour RC2 (180mm) / Marz 66RCV Evo / second hand Fox 36 float 180
Initially Avid Ultimates - will upgrade to the XT ICE tech brakes in the future
White Stans Flows on red Superstar EVO - Syntace rear end (from the Elly)
1x9 with chain tensioner
Burnt orange finishing gear - bars, post, chainring
Red Superstar pedals (from the Elly)

I'm aiming to create a lightweight freeride rig that's faster than an Intense Slopestyle downhill. Though, I'm thinking there's going to be a colour clash between my existing red components (hubs n pedals) and the burnt orange bars and chainring I'd like to mate to the blue frame... Might have to rethink the bars and post... or get some new pedals.

Pictures coming soon!

tom_howard

Pfft, everyone knows red bikes are faster than blue ones, even the ones that are trying to be cars!

The Northern Monkey

Nice can't wait to see the final product!!

Re: 66 RC3 Evo.... CRC are really pissing me about with it... not sure if they're even getting them in anymore!

bluechair84

Hmm... I'm feeling my frame and fork budget my be stretched if something doesn't come up. SR are being a pain, the UK distributors don't stock the same forks advertised on the SR website, which aren't the same as the ones selling on CRC, which aren't the ones my LBS can get hold of... if the 66s are a no go I might have to make the Torque a single speed rigid project instead of the hardtail!

The Northern Monkey

Will let you know... Have emailed, tried calling and sent a twitter message since I had a reply Wednesday afternoon but with no luck!

I paid for the feckers over 2 weeks ago and had nothing from CRC to say there are any issues, but I mailed a few days ago with a quick query and got a confusing email back!

bluechair84

sounds odd... CRC are usually pretty good. They're listed as out of stock... hope they arrive!

You ever get to Stile Cop?

jay12

i think this could look nice. we'll see.

whatever you do don't get the suntours, they are very bad forks

bluechair84

Why do you say that? The BR review wasn't great, but I've read stonking reports on other forums, whilst their team riders are doing pretty well on them (the fork placed fourth in the Mega this year).

jay12

bluechair84 wrote:

Why do you say that? The BR review wasn't great, but I've read stonking reports on other forums, whilst their team riders are doing pretty well on them (the fork placed fourth in the Mega this year).

they feel under average and someone i know got them after reading a good review on a forum and they just started getting worse and worse and he regrets buying them now

chez_m356

jay12 wrote:

bluechair84 wrote:

Why do you say that? The BR review wasn't great, but I've read stonking reports on other forums, whilst their team riders are doing pretty well on them (the fork placed fourth in the Mega this year).

they feel under average and someone i know got them after reading a good review on a forum and they just started getting worse and worse and he regrets buying them now

another thing to consider regardless of make, do you really think the forks that are used by racing teams come straight out of the box?

tom_howard

chez_m356 wrote:

jay12 wrote:

bluechair84 wrote:

Why do you say that? The BR review wasn't great, but I've read stonking reports on other forums, whilst their team riders are doing pretty well on them (the fork placed fourth in the Mega this year).

they feel under average and someone i know got them after reading a good review on a forum and they just started getting worse and worse and he regrets buying them now

another thing to consider regardless of make, do you really think the forks that are used by racing teams come straight out of the box?

They do, straight out of the box, into the mechanics workshop. Witchcraft happens then the same fork emerges. (but secretly, dark things have happened.)

That or they rebadge some decent forks...

Bluechair, whats your ETA on finishing?

delcol

good colour choice, when our kid gets home i will post a fe pics up, think you will be impressed...

bluechair84

chez_m356 wrote:

jay12 wrote:

bluechair84 wrote:

Why do you say that? The BR review wasn't great, but I've read stonking reports on other forums, whilst their team riders are doing pretty well on them (the fork placed fourth in the Mega this year).

they feel under average and someone i know got them after reading a good review on a forum and they just started getting worse and worse and he regrets buying them now

another thing to consider regardless of make, do you really think the forks that are used by racing teams come straight out of the box?

Well.. yeah... What can you do to a set of forks? The r&d that goes in prohibits customisation of practically every component - it's either a fork, or change one part and it's a bag of chaff and oil... Change all the parts to stop that happening, you have a different fork... Maybe they change the material from say, cheese metal to shiny titanium but the Suntours are all metal construction, no plastic to go wrong. Of course, the marketing gumpf says the pro riders test ride the forks to give them feedback on the products. I seriously doubt there's some consipracy that pro riders have got alien technology being held back from us mere plebs.

Tom - ETA a month?

MountainMonster

The pros test it one season, and then a few seasons later your seeing any advancements in products hitting the markets.

delcol

not quite the same shade of blue but still to give you an idea..
our kids new bike in may,





even if he did only have it 5 days..

MountainMonster

delcol wrote:

not quite the same shade of blue but still to give you an idea..
our kids new bike in may,





even if he did only have it 5 days..

That's a seriously lovely bike, did it get nicked or something?

delcol

nah it a long story but the gist of it ,

shock kept making funny noises. it wnet into the shop 3 times first they greased the bolts 2nd they changed the mounting hardware, 3rd time our guide jamie had noticed the rocker link was not central so we pointed this out to them,
it ended up being a duff frame miss weld and the seattube was adrift. it was well out. should be 5cm each side but this was 2cm and 4cm the other..
knolly had been having trouble with their north american frame builder so ended there contract and moved production out to aisia, this cost them nearly 12 month of production..

we left the frame with them the shop in may to get it warrenty replaced ,, we returned in september and hoped to get a new warrenty frame..
how ever with the issues they had with there manufacter the new production line was not yet running (asian one) so they knolly had no frames availabe to offer up as a replacement, and will not have any deliriums till 2013 as they decided to reredesign it..
they did offer him a used ex demo bike as a replacement but we turned it down, as they offered us no cash back with the frame. and he had paid $3000 for a new frame not a second hand one..
so he was left with out a bike all summer may to sept then offered a sh1tty secondhand used bike as a replacement.
we ended up getting a full refund,, so the blue beast is nomore.

tom_howard

bluechair84 wrote:

Well.. yeah... What can you do to a set of forks? The r&d that goes in prohibits customisation of practically every component - it's either a fork, or change one part and it's a bag of chaff and oil... Change all the parts to stop that happening, you have a different fork... Maybe they change the material from say, cheese metal to shiny titanium but the Suntours are all metal construction, no plastic to go wrong. Of course, the marketing gumpf says the pro riders test ride the forks to give them feedback on the products. I seriously doubt there's some consipracy that pro riders have got alien technology being held back from us mere plebs.

Tom - ETA a month?

Yep, thats exactly what you have! RS/Sram have blackbox, Shimano has its SkunkWorks, all of which makes sooperspeshul shiny bits for its racers that mortals wont see for a few years.

a month you say? race you...

jay12

delcol wrote:

nah it a long story but the gist of it ,

shock kept making funny noises. it wnet into the shop 3 times first they greased the bolts 2nd they changed the mounting hardware, 3rd time our guide jamie had noticed the rocker link was not central so we pointed this out to them,
it ended up being a duff frame miss weld and the seattube was adrift. it was well out. should be 5cm each side but this was 2cm and 4cm the other..
knolly had been having trouble with their north american frame builder so ended there contract and moved production out to aisia, this cost them nearly 12 month of production..

we left the frame with them the shop in may to get it warrenty replaced ,, we returned in september and hoped to get a new warrenty frame..
how ever with the issues they had with there manufacter the new production line was not yet running (asian one) so they knolly had no frames availabe to offer up as a replacement, and will not have any deliriums till 2013 as they decided to reredesign it..
they did offer him a used ex demo bike as a replacement but we turned it down, as they offered us no cash back with the frame. and he had paid $3000 for a new frame not a second hand one..
so he was left with out a bike all summer may to sept then offered a sh1tty secondhand used bike as a replacement.
we ended up getting a full refund,, so the blue beast is nomore.

thats a shame because i really like their bikes. ride great and look very nice

MountainMonster

delcol wrote:

nah it a long story but the gist of it ,

shock kept making funny noises. it wnet into the shop 3 times first they greased the bolts 2nd they changed the mounting hardware, 3rd time our guide jamie had noticed the rocker link was not central so we pointed this out to them,
it ended up being a duff frame miss weld and the seattube was adrift. it was well out. should be 5cm each side but this was 2cm and 4cm the other..
knolly had been having trouble with their north american frame builder so ended there contract and moved production out to aisia, this cost them nearly 12 month of production..

we left the frame with them the shop in may to get it warrenty replaced ,, we returned in september and hoped to get a new warrenty frame..
how ever with the issues they had with there manufacter the new production line was not yet running (asian one) so they knolly had no frames availabe to offer up as a replacement, and will not have any deliriums till 2013 as they decided to reredesign it..
they did offer him a used ex demo bike as a replacement but we turned it down, as they offered us no cash back with the frame. and he had paid $3000 for a new frame not a second hand one..
so he was left with out a bike all summer may to sept then offered a sh1tty secondhand used bike as a replacement.
we ended up getting a full refund,, so the blue beast is nomore.

Dude that is depressing story. From what I had heard Knollys were very reliable and good build.

delcol

yeah the old knolly dt he got was faultless, and knolly were a decent company.

thing seem to of gone bad for them this year, it started with the new bike the chilcotin as they were ready to go into production alot of the prototypes started cracking, as did the early production frames, this highlighted the problem with the us frame builder,
knolly were concentrating on sorting the new chilcotin frames out as they had loads of orders,, then our kid got the delirum frame and built it up.. but as mentioned it was a shonky frame,, he loved it though while he had it...
i guess it was just tough luck,,,
been looking at a transition tr250 as a delirium replacement..

bluechair84

I've tried posting back to this twice now... let's see if it's third time lucky...
Agree with all above about pros being testers for latest technology, may have misread Chez and Tom thinking they were on about 'rebranding others forks for their own benefit' - essnetially they're the same forks we ride but before they're available to us.
Delcol - real shame about such a nice bike! It's looking very similar to the colour scheme I'm after, and I like it

delcol

and I like it

i knew you would hence why i posted the pics,, for some inspiration for you...

The Northern Monkey

dude - CRC have the Domain RC (with Motion control IS) for £375.. I've changed my 66 order to these now and got them for £350 (I originally paid with a £25 off voucher).

They're actually a bit lighter than the 66 too, and I've had Domains before... great fork!

bluechair84

Got back from Thailand to find a lovely large box waiting for me... guess what it was...

tom_howard

That. Is. Lovely.

The carpet I mean.... Spose the bike looks ok....

bluechair84

We couldn't afford a new carpet so we just recycled some used toilet tissue...

Em has doodled some scribbles that caught my eye, I can see something like this over the top / down tube junction.

The Northern Monkey

Is that an older one then?

170mm rear travel, maxle dropouts, diferent seat tube/top tube bracing?

bluechair84

Yeah I've purchased second hand, not new.

*Edit - I've taken the plunge and gone for the Suntour Durlox 180mm.

The Northern Monkey

Ahh yeah I knew it was 2nd hand, but didn't realise it was the older one.. looks good though! I wanted black originally

where did you get the fork from in the end? and how much?!

bluechair84

350 from CRC. It's not the new cartridge but the UK distros aren't getting those until April at the earliest. So, I'm taking the plunge and, as the new one is 50 quid more, I could probably afford to buy the new cartridge when it comes out if this one is springy.