Newbie building an xc bike

njee20

Colour scheme?! It's like a blind person threw a paint palette at it!

Black forks will be infinitely better!

Qui3tman

Cqc

I'd get better forks. You've got a very high spec build there, and to ruin it with the cheapest rock shox fork out there seems like a bit of a waste...

Lewis A

Is that a 29er fork on a 26" wheel? Those frames look a bargain!

Briggo

Not surprised the steerer is short, that headtube looks about 10 miles long.

Interesting colour scheme, not my cuppa tea.

Jeffchiz

the head tube is very long, and the yes they are 29" forks - read back

regards to the colours... its a good thing its my bike then lol

and ive said they are being replaced by black ones soooooo thats an end to that

I am still buying the black versions, cheap they may be but they are what i want for the short term, 100mm with a lockout perfectly fine for me, and as said they are cheap enough to replace in the future when i feel the need

Jeffchiz

new forks arrived today so chucked them on in my lunch break, i fitted about 30mm of spacers so i can adjust it to suit later on, if i end up keeping them then ill get some nicer looking ones
then after work i chucked my brakes on along with my shifter got them set at a comfortable angle but then i could only find one grip! god knows where my other one is :S Tomorrow you never know i might get around to fitting some gearing!

paul.skibum

For what its worth the black fork looks considerably less horrific! But I imagine you will find its limits on the trail pretty quick.

njee20

Yep, sorry, daft choice of fork. You've gone for a relative tough, burly rim and combined it with the cheapest XC fork they make?

The black looks infinitely better though, if you just stick to a few blue accents this could still work.

*AJ*

That fork looks so wrong on that bike with the rest of the quality parts!

I'm pretty sure it'll ruin the ride too! such a shame.

Lewis A

It's looking good, but trust me, those forks are dire. The complete lack of small bump response will have your hands screaming...

Jeffchiz

The forks are there merely to bolt the bike together and get it useable safely, thats it... I dont know how many more times i can say this. they cost £56 ffs im not expecting anything good to come out of them lol its either that or have a pile of parts lying around because i cant afford better forks at the moment, ive jsut spent £700 on this, also got 2 car projects on the go with bills to pay the forks are as good as its gonna get for the short term

I put all the gearing on today and dropped it off at one of our shops so they can set it all up properly for me sorry i forgot to take pics!

njee20

I'd have a pile of bits and wait until you could afford something worthwhile. As long as you're happy though.

The Rookie

For £56 you can get some pretty handy used forks, we have 2 sets of Manitous and a set of RS revs that all cost less than £60 and some Maguras that were £102 (all including delivery).

Jeffchiz

The Rookie wrote:

For £56 you can get some pretty handy used forks, we have 2 sets of Manitous and a set of RS revs that all cost less than £60 and some Maguras that were £102 (all including delivery).

Just sold my orange xc28's so the total cost of me buying the black xc28's is now a measly £32, i wanted the forks asap, i ordered them one day next day they were on my desk at work, no delivery charge, only wanted to build the bike up with new parts, didnt have to worry about the steer tube being too short for £32 im very happy

A pair of the silver DMR VAULT pedals came over for a web order from one of our shops with no packaging or spare studs or allan key basically nothing bar the pedals so we decided to not send them out in that state lol So this left them open for me to buy, it would've been too much hassle to list them on ebay or even transfer them back to a shop so I offered £50 and finally they said yea, rrp is £100, we sell them for £75 and my discounted price is £68-9 for them and in the end because of the missing items i got them for less than cost price of £53, very nice pair of pedals! unfortunately i cant afford them until pay day

Jeffchiz

My bike was brought back to me today via the van driver on his rounds, its complete now bar that pesky missing grip, its payday tomorrow so ill pay for the pedals and forks and ill try and find some suitable grips so i can finally bring her home.

I weighed it today and it came in at 11.75kg or 26lbs. and should go down with the purchase of better forks. Think ive decided i want the shimano zee brakes mainly for shallow stupid reasons, like the idea of 4 pots, they look nice and they will match my gearing lol also i read the calipers are exactly the same as the saint calipers its just the levers that are different and i will have to sort out some better headset spacers probably get a hope space doctor in red, or just wait until i get better forks.

The green is so much more vibrant in real life the pics make it looked washed out

declan1

Hope, Chris King and Thomson kit but XC28 forks - why?

Jeffchiz

declan1 wrote:

Hope, Chris King and Thomson kit but XC28 forks - why?

have you read the thread or even my last post?

declan1

Jeffchiz wrote:

declan1 wrote:

Hope, Chris King and Thomson kit but XC28 forks - why?

have you read the thread or even my last post?

I hadn't, but why didn't you get some second hand forks as suggested above? They would be considerably better (as I have found out myself).

Jeffchiz

again i explained why i bought these forks, i didnt want second hand parts or have the trouble of a steer tube that was too short again considering how large the head tube is on this bike, i wanted them asap i ordered them direct form rockshox and they were on my desk the next working day without a delivery charge, it was just the easiest, cheapest least time consuming way of getting a set of forks and to top it off from selling my old ones and buying these they cost me a grand total of about £34

The forks will be the first thing i purchase then upgrade the brakes (if i do feel that these aren't up to the job), i wanted the bike built so i can get out and about asap and not have a pile of parts lying around were only talking a matter of a couple months, then ill probably still sell them on for more than i paid for them so im not loosing out

Lewis A

Moving on from the forks thing, I really don't think you'll need zee brakes for a 100mm xc hardtail, unless your rather portly. They're designed for downhill. Bikes looking pretty nice though!

njee20

The brakes you've got will be more than adequate, but Shimanos are just nicer to use than Avids IMO. I'd get XT or XTR rather than Zee myself on that bike. YMMV.

dirkpitt74

That looks really nice.
How much did it cost you in the end?

Jeffchiz

the bike has cost me £698.64 iirc however im going to have to purchase new grips as i still cant find my lost one, ive got a set of black and green cube lock on grips set aside at work for me along with a black cage and transparent/green camelbak podium chill bottle

Jeffchiz

Finally bought my lock on grips, cage and bottle i also got helmet which i think looks pretty awesome took it for its first ride around the block, i love it! so smooth, rear hub sounds awesome, pedals are nice and gripy, hopefully get out on it at the weekend for its first proper ride








next purchases will be a lock and some lights

Cqc

Jeffchiz wrote:

the bike has cost me £698.64 iirc however im going to have to purchase new grips as i still cant find my lost one, ive got a set of black and green cube lock on grips set aside at work for me along with a black cage and transparent/green camelbak podium chill bottle

that's an outrageous price!

peter413

I quite like that, the colours work nicely although I liked the brightness of the orange forks it has to be said. It was so hideous it looked good.

Couple of things though. There is no way you need Zee's on that bike. I'm no lightweight at over 100kg and I used Deore's with a 140mm rotor on the back and a 160mm on the front on my Kinesis (pretty similar bike to yours) and they were more than enough. I never once wished for more power and the smaller rotors gave great modulation, especially with the less grippy tyres. If you want flashy then get yourself some XTR's, the Trail's are a work of art in my eyes and have the best feeling lever blade I have ever used. They're not really any more powerful than the Deore's though and the newest Deore's are actually fairly light, there's less than 50g a brake between the XTR and Deore IIRC.

I wouldn't have put up the prices you paid. Some people can get pretty pissed at seeing cost prices and then go into bike shops and cause issues because of it. Fair enough say it's cheaper than cost or trade or whatever but don't put the actual prices. It's severely frowned upon on some other forums. You've got some proper bargains though.

I completely understand why you've got the cheap forks but if it was me I'd have bought some rigids for the same price. They're far lighter and riding rigid forks is damn good fun so even when you buy yourself a nice suspension fork you can still keep it and swap it on from time to time.

njee20

If he wants to post what he paid of course he can. He could post up copies of trade price lists too if he wants, they're not secret. As is he has indeed paid far less than trade so it is completely irrelevant

ilovedirt

njee20 wrote:

If he wants to post what he paid of course he can. He could post up copies of trade price lists too if he wants, they're not secret. As is he has indeed paid far less than trade so it is completely irrelevant

This, it's perks of the trade, everyone knows this, and anyone can go onto the distributer's website and find out what he paid anyway, it's not rocket science.

The Rookie

Typical mark ups are 25% at wholesale and 33% retail (all readily findable info), the fact that most shops operate an overall profit margin of circa 5-8% tells you that they are not exactly profiteering!