Santa Cruz Nomad 650b build

Dick Scruttock

Shinny Helmet:


And some goggles:

Proutster

Rick Draper wrote:

Shinny Helmet:


And some goggles:

Are they for Antur Stiniog or for Snowdon?

granny_ring

Wow very nice build

Dick Scruttock

Proutster wrote:

Are they for Antur Stiniog or for Snowdon?

Snowdon! Even bought some 5Tens and some Burgtec's after trying Ducks 5Tens on a ride to the booze, gripper than cheese on toast!. I'm at the footy on Saturday so will join you all getting smashed on Saturday night!

Cqc

Rick Draper wrote:

Proutster wrote:

Are they for Antur Stiniog or for Snowdon?

Snowdon! Even bought some 5Tens and some Burgtec's after trying Ducks 5Tens on a ride to the booze, gripper than cheese on toast!. I'm at the footy on Saturday so will join you all getting smashed on Saturday night!

Are you going to be doing the ranger's path or rhy. Ddu? I'd be interested to see what you think of either as I'm interested in going up there sometime....

trail muncher

WOW really nice, I'm looking a nomad frame how do you rate it as a do everything bike from local xc to dh runs stuff

rockmonkeysc

Do you ride bikes or just assemble the most expensive components to build a bike to look at?

Dick Scruttock

RockmonkeySC wrote:

Do you ride bikes or just assemble the most expensive components to build a bike to look at?

What difference does it make to you what I spend on my bikes or how I choose to use them?

Dick Scruttock

So yesterday I went up Snowdon, the weather was terrible with about 70mph gusts of wind at the top and driving rain. I only took two photos all day!

BloggingFit

How are you finding the brake set up now? Are you running trail XTR levers with 2 stage bite or single bite race levers?

Dick Scruttock

BloggingFit wrote:

How are you finding the brake set up now? Are you running trail XTR levers with 2 stage bite or single bite race levers?

They are brilliant, really happy with them now. I keep messing with them, just moved the levers in a bit as after yesterdays ride I was getting pain in my fingers that I put down to the levers been a bit too far out, feel nice now though so I'm looking forward to trying them out again. I am running XTR M987 race levers, they have no servo wave function so the brake feel is nicer imho.

Still looking for the elusive suspension sweet spot. Will get there eventually!

BloggingFit

I tried a set of saints recently and while they were powerful I didn't like the lever action much. I like tight levers so will be going for the race option.

Did you swap the Monarch back in to sort out the 36?

Dick Scruttock

BloggingFit wrote:

Did you swap the Monarch back in to sort out the 36?

Nar I have lent the Monarch out while I repair someones buggered CTD evolution shock! It has cracked the shim stack :? apparently its a pretty common failure.

AndrewBikeGuide

@Rick Draper: Nice bike, like the way you are willing to experiment. For info the M70/30 are nicer feeling than the previous generation rims.

My Nomad built in Stealth (well semi stealth) - not a thread hi-jack as I am also finding that the Monarch is good for 90% of the riding but considering the following options:

BOS Kirk: pros: light, awesome, tune to match frame, air can, HSC & LSC & RB; cons: BOS Customer Service, air, I'll want the Deville front = more $$$$.

EXT Storia: pros: tuned for bike & rider, could be awesome, 2 springs one for dry, one for wet, HSC & LSC & RB; cons: very specific, distance to UK for re-tune and service if not spot on first time, cost!!! and extra weight.

CCDBA with CS: pros: tuneable, climb mode works, reasonable price & support; cons: lose the very supple low end

I understand the Nomad shock profile and realise that I am not the racer that is going to regularly use that last 10mm of frame travel, however if I can get my V-10.5C, on Idylle RaRe and Void, to run perfectly on air then it should be theoretically possible to get my Nomad running perfectly on air.

I am a bigger rider (215 lbs with gear) and I do ride reasonably hard in the slow and middle speed range so I want a shock that stays high in its travel for that element of riding (which is 90% of every trail). I would like, however, to actually use the last 8% of travel without resorting to having to run the Monarch at lower pressure and using the middle compression position for most of my riding except for the tech/ steep/ hairy descents.

Frustrating as the Pike is spot on: one token, 60 psi, 8 clicks rebound, 4 clicks LSC.
I just feel that the Monarch would be a better shock if it was built with LSC and HSC as well as the climb switch.

Thoughts?

BloggingFit

Rick Draper wrote:

Nar I have lent the Monarch out while I repair someones buggered CTD evolution shock! It has cracked the shim stack :? apparently its a pretty common failure.

Fox dropped the ball with Evolution Series.

Rode a friends Remedy 9 for a bit with the new 34 ad while it is an improvement we both agreed it's not up with the Pike. I was however very impressed with the Re:Aktiv shock and it's ability to be stable under hard pedalling when fully open. They could really be on to a winner as far as trail bikes go.

@lexD

Rick Draper wrote:

BloggingFit wrote:

Did you swap the Monarch back in to sort out the 36?

Nar I have lent the Monarch out while I repair someones buggered CTD evolution shock! It has cracked the shim stack :? apparently its a pretty common failure.

Rick What's the symptoms? I have a ctd kash which holds air but has no rebound adjust and no diference between the modes

Dick Scruttock

@lexD wrote:

Rick Draper wrote:

BloggingFit wrote:

Did you swap the Monarch back in to sort out the 36?

Nar I have lent the Monarch out while I repair someones buggered CTD evolution shock! It has cracked the shim stack :? apparently its a pretty common failure.

Rick What's the symptoms? I have a ctd kash which holds air but has no rebound adjust and no diference between the modes

This one was basically like a pogo stick in trail and descend. When I opened it up two of the shims had cracked clean through. Did some investigation and its a common fault on the Evolution shocks. Sounds like yours has probably cavitated I think.

Here are the photos of the evolution shock, its basically a recycled triad.

Dick Scruttock

AndrewBikeGuide wrote:

BOS Kirk: pros: light, awesome, tune to match frame, air can, HSC & LSC & RB; cons: BOS Customer Service, air, I'll want the Deville front = more $$$$.

EXT Storia: pros: tuned for bike & rider, could be awesome, 2 springs one for dry, one for wet, HSC & LSC & RB; cons: very specific, distance to UK for re-tune and service if not spot on first time, cost!!! and extra weight.

CCDBA with CS: pros: tuneable, climb mode works, reasonable price & support; cons: lose the very supple low end

I like the Cane Creek, don't be fooled though its easy to go down a blind alley with the settings and then have to back track.

I think the new Fox Float X looks very nice with the new XXV aircan. No idea when it will be out though, or even if the version seen on some bikes will ever be sold.

A friend has a Capra with full BOS suspension and thats a bloody nice bike but the suspension architecture is totally different to a Nomad and I'm not sure it would be right.

I have seen Noah Sears of MRP raving about their coil shock on it, that might be the perfect match if you wanted to take that route.

PS nice bike

AndrewBikeGuide

BOS say that they have a tune for the Nomad and BOS North America list about seven different tunes for the Kirk, so there must be something close. Dealing with BOS can be a pain although they have that new Welsh dude working for them in France so maybe they have lifted their game as far as customer service goes.

At least one can speak with Dave Garland about the Storia but £600 is a lot of a rear shock.

How are you finding your DDBA?

AndrewBikeGuide

Rick Draper wrote:

Sadly I let my mate set my tyre pressures the other day as they were a bit low and I never checked, front is considerably harder than i'd usually ride. Both are at 35psi, I'm usually use 25ish front 30 rear.

I have just dropped mine from 28 rear/ 25 front to 23 rear/ 20 front. That said it is very wet at the moment so not really going fast enough to worry about banging the rim too hard (local black trails: Comfortably Numb & Young Lust). Burped about 1 psi per end out progressively until it stopped pushing on steep wet roots. Seriously impressed at how low I have been able to take the tyre pressures and was quite surprised at the final figure when I got home and checked them with a gauge. Conti Mountain King II Protection 2.4" (to save you checking the photo again).

Dick Scruttock

AndrewBikeGuide wrote:

BOS say that they have a tune for the Nomad and BOS North America list about seven different tunes for the Kirk, so there must be something close. Dealing with BOS can be a pain although they have that new Welsh dude working for them in France so maybe they have lifted their game as far as customer service goes.

At least one can speak with Dave Garland about the Storia but £600 is a lot of a rear shock.

How are you finding your DDBA?

Yes that part of BOS would worry me, its a lot to drop on a shock with a company thats backup has been pretty flakey to say the least!

What about X Fusion? Based down the road from Santa Cruz IIRC and been reading a lot of there guys run Santa Cruz bikes so I'm sure they must have a good idea of a tune for a Vector Air?

Cane Creek is nice but I'm still fiddling trying to find the sweet spot, the same with the 36.

Dick Scruttock

Got a XTR M9000 setup on the way to try. Firstly I will try the mech and the shifter and hope it works with the XX1 cassette and work from there. Seen on MTBR people have ran it like this with no issues so fingers crossed.

peter_booker2003

Looks awesome Rick.

I've just put the new XTR on my Enduro! Had x01 before.

Shifts great, albeit a little clunkier than the sram but shifts fantastically.

BloggingFit

Be interesting to how that works out given the increased range and weight saving of the SRAM cassette.

Lewis A

And price.

tatankainlondon

Rick Draper wrote:

Got a XTR M9000 setup on the way to try. Firstly I will try the mech and the shifter and hope it works with the XX1 cassette and work from there. Seen on MTBR people have ran it like this with no issues so fingers crossed.

Oh, this should be interesting!
Great bike btw.

Dick Scruttock

XTR M9000:


Got a cassette just in case it did not work on the XX1 cassette.
Here are the two important parts:

It works spot on, shift is great and positive and no downsides of running the XX1 cassette and the XTR mech and shifter. Will be sending the XTR cassette back as I don't need it.

tatankainlondon

Rick,
Perhaps this is off-topic (and I do not want to hijack your tread) but I would like to ask whether you have considered other frames before settling for SC Nomad?
If so, what have you taken into consideration when choosing this one?

Dick Scruttock

tatankainlondon wrote:

Rick,
Perhaps this is off-topic (and I do not want to hijack your tread) but I would like to ask whether you have considered other frames before settling for SC Nomad?
If so, what have you taken into consideration when choosing this one?

Nope, only considered the Nomad as I was coming off a Bronson carbon. If I was to buy again I would probably buy a YT Industries Capra Pro and strip off the BOS suspension and Mavic wheels or a Canyon Strive frame and build both to the same spec as this.

BloggingFit

New mech hanger for clearance with the XTR?