Intense Spider - First Ride

While the rocker issue on the Jet 9 is truly frustrating, I've decided to take the opportunity to get to know one of the other bikes we sell, the Intense Spider. These bikes are similar in that they are both geared towards XC riding and racing, so the comparison should provide some interesting results.

This bike is one of our demo bikes. It is a large frame, with a Fox RP23 rear shock and F29 100mm fork, SRAM X9 shifters and derailleur, an old but perfectly good set of XTR M960 cranks, a sweet looking set of Bike 29 Royale wheels (pewter hubs, black spokes, red nips on Arch rims), Easton EA 70 stem, Monkey Lite carbon bars and EC90 seatpost, and a white WTB Deva saddle. I originally had the white Juicy Ultimates on the Jet, but since it is grounded, I pulled them off to replace the Juicy 7s I had on the Spider. The bike has a lot of white on it, which I hear is the new black, so I have decided to name it "The White Shadow".

This weekend's weather was perfect for staying indoors next to an air conditioner, high 80s, and the air so thick you could eat it with a spoon. I'd been as sick as I've been in a long time all week, and I was certainly not in the mood to push it. It seemed as the most logical choice would be to head to Stowe Town Loops, which is ironic, as this is typically my new bike proving ground.

So how does it ride?
I will preface this by saying I am not really in any condition to "push" a bike to it's limits, but I was able to get a good measure of the bike's qualities, based on my familiarity with the terrain.
The ride starts with a gradual climb that will make you suck wind if you are out of shape, so I spun up in an easy gear. The hot muggy air didn't help either. I did all of the sustained climbing with the ProPedal on, and was rewarded with a firm ride that moved on only the biggest obstacles. I rode a the medium Spider way back in 06, which was definitely too small for me, but I was impressed back then at the climbing prowess of this bike. Perhaps there is something in the name...?

Once the hill crests, the trail rolls down some rocky double track, before turning into rooty rocky single track through a pine stand. This is where it gets fun. It's relatively flat, but still rolly, you can really milk your momentum. There are some large decomposing shale outcroppings to negotiate your way up, which can end up in disaster it you fall the wrong way.
Ont the right, there are hard rocks and tree roots, on the left, about a 70 tumble down a steep ravine into the Little River. Well, I did not make the first big outcropping. I had to put a foot down about halfway up. I attributed this to the back end being too firm.m I used this opportunity to turn the ProPedal off, and ran the shock wide open for the rest of the ride (with the exception of the last climb out).

That was much better. The biggest thing I noticed, is the the bike took on a slightly different personality. With the ProPedal off, the bike sank a little deeper into it's travel. It pedalled very well in the rough stuff, bumps large and small disappeared and the bike seemed to levitate over the trail. I was expecting a fair amount of feedback from the ground, but was pleasantly surprised to find it was minimal. The VPP suspension design does a very good job of soaking it all up, and the F29 was dialed in. Not once did I feel a hard bottom out, despite how deep into the travel I was sitting.

Climbing with the ProPedal off was no problem, the back wheel stayed on the ground for the short techy climbs that are sprinkled throughout the ride. This was a relief, as I seldom have the presence of mind to flip the switch when I need to. As we climb up to the "upper" Town Loop, there are a series of bridges that take you over some very mucky ground, and the terrain becomes a little more difficult as the root and rock population increases.

It was here that I found the single thing that I found to be a negative on the bike. Pedal strike. While not a persistent problem, it is enough to get your attention, and on one instance I came right out of my right pedal at a time that was less than convenient. As I spend more time on the bike, I will likely adjust my riding style by timing my pedal strokes a little better. Like I said before, I was definitely not on my game, so some of it could have been attributed to that.
With my one gripe out of the way, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

The suspension is very plush, and handling is very predictable. It almost has a playful feel to it. While last minute course corrections are a snap, it isn't quite as fractious as the Jet. This was appreciated, as I was on the edge of control on the fast single track descents.

The crucial piece of hardware I attribute the playful handling to, is the Chris King Tall Baseplate. It adds 5mm to the axle to crown height, thus slackening the head angle by about a degree. The Spider is renowned for it's aggressive 74° head angle, which some find too twitchy. This baseplate and correct sag on the rear shock makes the bike very manageable.

All in all, I'd say that if you were in the market for an XC bike you can race or ride all day, this bike would certainly get the job done, and is well worth a good look.

My first Ti or the Lynskey Review

I'm not afraid to admit, I've never ridden a titanium bike before.
I've always wanted to give it a try though so I was very stoked when George said that we'd be building up the small Lynskey Pro29 in my size. And if it wasn't enough that I'd get to test out this cool new bike, George also got it into his head that this would be a Ridiculight build. What started as a straight part swap from my Niner EMD to the Pro29 - became an exercise in shaving grams.

He weighed every Schwalbe Racing Ralph in stock to find the lightest pair in stock. The front was a not very heavy 551g, the rear 547g. All in the pursuit of Ridiculight.

The Mother's Day Royale wheels were deconstructed and rebuilt to go tubeless using the 355 rim.

Every part was carefully considered for it's weight contribution. Of course, in order to have it ready to roll up at the Kingdom Trails over the weekend, we had to make a concession or two. For example, the new Easton bars and stem didn't arrive in time to make the initial build.

Completely built, with Speedplay Frogs but without a water bottle cage, the bike weighs a respectable 22.6 pounds.

But how does it ride?

Fantastic.

It's light and zippy. Very responsive - but not twitchy in any way. It handles like a dream on singletrack. I was very pleased with it's ability to scale technical steep sections, and since it hardly weighs anything, you feel like you're just flying up the hill.

The curved top tube offers a lot of standover - I've said it before, although 5'6" isn't that short, I have short legs. This frame has plenty of standover and could definitely accommodate a much shorter rider than myself.

The Ti frame is stiff, but soaks up a lot of the trail chatter, making this bike inherently more smooth and pleasant than aluminum hardtails that I've ridden recently.

The only negative for me is occasional toe overlap with the front wheel. This is probably peculiar to the small frame, and happened only randomly on tight switchbacks, but nonetheless it was a little disappointing for a fame of this calibre.

Other than that, this bike is fast and solid. It would be a fantastic choice for racing and I hope to be able to test it out at some off-road tris, one of these days.

Where did all This Stuff Come From?

In know where it came from, but it's still amazing to see it all in one place. In a previous post's comment, Racin' Rick (or Negative Rick as I now call him) said it would come to this. At the moment, he is absolutely right, but this is just a temporary thing.

I brought over all the bikes with the help of Nat and his almighty Tundra. It took 2 trips. (I soooo want one!) Right now everything is stuffed into the shop while we get the retail floor (or "ska" floor, as I like to call it) up and running. It's a good thing I have 30 hooks now! The rack stayed up overnight too, so it has been adequately field tested.

The wheel building station has been getting a lot of action lately too. I 'm really glad to have it. Because it is in it's own area, it is isolated from a majority of the chaos. I'm getting 2 sets of Royales a day out the door.


My slatwall showed up on the truck yesterday completely destroyed. A quick phone call ensured that another shipment was going to be headed my way immediately, but it still screws things up. The new counters are done, we'll just need to jimmy them in to place tomorrow afternoon, and finish them. The slatwall will just have to be addressed later.


Another item showed up yesterday that many of us were waiting for. Big B's RIP9 frame. Bruno rode the crap out of his RIP9 last year. It is now getting a full overhaul. Step 1 was to strip the frame down in it's entirety, including the bearings and head badge. I sent it off to Spectrum Powder Works for some paint. The original frame was Hi Ho Silver, but the big boy's sweat was so caustic, it made the clear ano run. Maybe lay off the canolis B?

Anyway, this sort of thing is not uncommon. I play guitar, and destroy strings and bridge saddles in a similar fashion. Especially when I am rocking extra hard. B rode this thing every day from May to October, so I'd say this amount of wear and tear is pretty normal. I mean, he turned a Rampage into a semi-slick. That's some miles.


So the front and rear triangle are adorned in a beautiful pearl white powder coat. I'll document the rebuild process over the next week. I so want a pearl white Niner...

The Spider

Here it is, finally finished. Now if we could just get rid of some of this snow!
This bike will be one of the many new ponies in our stable for folks to try out this summer. I've always felt that "try before you buy" is the way to go when it comes to high end mountain bikes. Not too many shops up our way would have something like this to actually ride in the woods while trying to decide if it's your thing or not.

I like to think we are the exception.
I'll be rolling out the new demo fleet as it gets completed over the next few weeks.

This Spider is a size large, and features the new Fox F29 100mm fork. I put the King 5mm headset baseplate on it to add to the axle to crown measurement. Despite the added A-C length, the 44mm offset of the fork will ensure a quick handling ride. And most importantly, if nothing else, the bike looks very cool. My philosophy on this subject, is that if it looks cool, you'll enjoy riding it more. BMW M3s look cool, therefore, they ought to be pretty fun to drive right?
The color pallette is white (duh), ano red, ano silver and ano black.

The components are typical to many of the builds we do here, Royale wheelset, set up tubeless, X9 drivetrain, Juicy brakes. I had a perfectly good XTR crank sitting around, so I decided it was time for it to get some use.

All told, the bike weighs in at 27.55lbs without pedals. Not too bad when you consider we weren't trying to make it ridiculite or anything. I think a race build would easily be 2-4lbs lighter, depending on how far down that path you wanted to go.

We have a trip south planned in 2 weekends, down to the Leghigh Valley to visit family. This will most certainly be one of the bikes I bring. And when I say "one of", I plan on bringing two bikes. Not quite sure what the other one will be just yet... you'll just have to wait and see.

The Spider Crawls Along...

So the next big decision to make was what fork to put on the bike. With everything out there, I had a hard time figuring out which way I wanted to go. In my mind, the Spider is a racy kind of bike, and needed some racy features. There are 3 forks that come to mind.

1. The ubiquitous Reba Race. The new updated Push-loc feature is really nice, and gives you that ability to lock the fork out for a hard slog out of the saddle without having to reach down.

2. The new kid on the block, the Fox F-29. It has a lockout, but it is a manual lock out, meaning you have to take your right hand off the handlebar to activate/deactivate it. But it does have some nifty features that make this totally OK.

3. The White Magic 110. White continues to improve the damper, and deliver it in a beautiful, clean package. The Magic uses a magnetic valve that negates the need for any type of lockout by determining where the force is coming from. Bumps from above (i.e.you) are ignored, while bumps from the ground are devoured. I own one of these forks, and love it.

These are 3 very legit choices for anyone who wants a trail bike they can also race. That is the prime directive of this build. It has to be able to handle it all.

Now, here is where it gets fun. Intense designed the Spider with a 73° head angle. For those that don't know, that is steep. Like a road bike steep. Steep = fast handling. There have been a lot of nay sayers about this number, in that fast handling = twitchy, but everyone that has ridden one of these bikes on trail agrees, it flys through the trees with the greatest of ease. I'm really sorry if you don't get to ride your bike through trees. It is fast handling though, but not twitchy.
You'll recall my experience on the 5.5 Proto, similar angles, similar kind of ride.

The really important number is the offset of the forks.
Offset is the perpendicular distance the axle sits in front of the center of steering axis (headtube line), while trail is the horizontal distance on the ground of the center of the tire's contact patch to where the center line of the steering axis hits the ground. Trail effectively is measured backwards because the axle's position over the ground "trails" the center line of the steering axis. Offset is the distance forward of the steering axis but on a different plane. As offset increases, trail decreases and handling becomes more responsive.

The Spider was designed with the Reba in mind, as Rock Shox was the only real 4" fork on the market for the longest time. The Reba has a 38mm offset. The new generation of forks (White, Fox and Manitou) live around 44mm. Quicker steering forks.

I'm not going to get into a diatribe about which is better, that's not what this post is about.

Let's think about the fork for a bit, while we move on...

Wheels.


Every once in a while, you find something that works. When that happens, I run with it. A prime example is the Royale wheelset. I put a LOT of these wheels under a lot of people, and not one person has been disappointed. While they aren't the ultra-lightest (around 1800g a set) they are durable, customizable, and made from the best stuff around. It's the very same wheelset I use, and if a 230lb guy like myself can't beat 'em up (and I try!), well...
So, yeah, Royales with the Arch rims.


Another component of this build, is that I would be "re-introducing" some components back into the wild where they belong. I have a pile of tires that would make you sick. But hey, if you were to call and ask me what I thought about any tire that's out there, I'd be able to answer you. Truthfully too.
My favorite all-rounder is the Bontrager Jones ACX TLR. I had a set laying about, so that's what I mounted. And I'll add that they aired up first time, and have not lost even 1 psi since Saturday.
How about that?

OK back to the fork.

I went with the Fox F-29, for 2 reasons (not really in order)
1. Cosmetic. It looks cool. I don't care who you are, if you were spending your hard earned dough on a bike, you'd want it to look cool.
2. Performance. I know from experience that the Fox is a stiffer platform than the Reba. The offset question was giving me some headaches, so I decided to add King's 5mm baseplate to the King headset (like you thought I'd put something else on there). This effectively slackens the head tube angle, or slows down the steering. We'll see how it rides soon.

While the White fork is the one I'd go with on my own personal bike, it is a little too tech for the average Joe to easily set up and enjoy properly, and as this is ultimately a demo bike, I want it to be as user friendly as possible. I'll be doing a shootout between the afore mentioned forks in the not too distant future, where I can really get into the nuts and bolts of these cool devices.


Up next, the components!

It's Spiderific!

Just to satiate my curiosity, I decided to build up one of the Spiders.
The build is fairly typical for a trail bike, Reba fork, Royale wheels, SRAM X9 drivetrain, Easton bars and Magura Marta SL brakes. I really dig the blue on blue color combo


The total package is 27.3 lbs, and is priced at $4699. It seems spendy, but consider that this frame is made in house at Intense's manufacturing facility in Temecula CA. A premium is to be paid for US craftsmanship.

Look for a more "racey" version to be built in the coming weeks.

Epic

Epics are one of those funny things that can be really good, or really bad, or have elements of either. Epics can take a very long time.
The good version could be that epic day long mountain bike ride with friends where everything was perfect, or something like Iron Maiden's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (March 14th!!!!!!).
A bad example would be something like the 45 mile ride that ended around midnight in Santa Cruz one summer (the last 3 hours were in pitch black).


In a true and classical sense just about sums up the completion of this bike.
8 weeks ago, it seemed that this should have been a snap. It's not exactly like we don't build these kinds of bikes all the time. Who could have foreseen the almost perfect storm that grew overhead as the build progressed?

First, the frames were not available.
Then the hubs.
Then the lost week of Interbike ensued.
Then the forks were delayed.
Then the forks were delayed again.
Then, the rear brake refused to cooperate.
Then the second replacement brake decided it was going to be a problem, but after many expletives and "one last try" , the nonsense suddenly stopped. Amazingly enough, I managed to keep my nerve through the whole mess.

Holy Cow!

But look at it! This is the first Atomic Blue RIP adorned with red bits. Coincidentally, the Easton logos on the handlebars are the same colors as the flames on the Terry saddle.
Pretty sharp.

Congrats Judy, and I'm really sorry it took so long.





Conditions at Stowe, not that epic.
Not quite yet...

Bike of the Week

It's no secret I am a big fan of the Niner RIP9. It's always great when someone comes into the store, looking for a high end full suspension trail bike, and I can point them immediately to the RIP.

You may notice a pattern to the builds too. Most of the bikes I put out feature a Bike 29 RoyaleWheelset with Stan's rims, SRAM drivetrain components, and Easton bars. It's a combination of products I've used on my own bikes for the last few years that I have found to be very durable and reliable. If I had chosen the Hi Ho Silver colorway for my bike, this is probably how it would have turned out. The red accents really flash.

As I spend a majority of the day fixing other people's jalopies, I have little time left to work on my own bike, and when it's time for me to ride, about the only thing I have bandwidth for, is lubing the chain. It's really important for my equipment to be working properly at all times.

Today is our big trail day, which I will update on later this evening.

Blog updates this week will include some new bikes that will arrive tomorrow, a new fork, and a ride review of the Slingshot Farmboy.

Have a great Sunday!

Irish Eyes are Smiling

Here we have yet another Bandersnatch, built to the hilt in all the right places. This bike belongs to one of our own, "E-Dog". It's his very first 29er.






I am proud to say that the Dog gave up a big flat screen TV for this bike. Good choice!







The Bandersnatch is the best bikes out there for the money. Nothing rides like one, maybe with the exception of a geared Jabberwocky.


Speaking of....
Something wicked this way comes....

Synopsis of Color

One of my most recent projects has been a Vassago Bandesnatch partial build. While it left the building today, it will always stick in my mind as one of the most vibrant builds I have done.

We didn't break the bank, rather, we spent money where it needed to be spent, and left the rest for future upgrades far down the road. We came out with a pretty nice bike with one of the coolest color schemes I've seen in a long time.

While avoiding high dollar drivetrain and brake components, we did manage to embellish a little. One of the beautiful things about the Royale Wheelset, is that you can either blow it up, or go totally stealth. We went big, and carried the theme over the entire bike.






And you know what? It works. My philosophy of bike building is, if you are going to be spending a chunk of your hard earned cash, have fun with it. Sure, all black looks as cool as Darth Vader's suit, but color is good too. Do things you wouldn't normally do. It's not like you are getting 3 brand new multi-grillion dollar bikes every summer.
Mix it up.
Live a little.
Do what makes you happy. We are here to help and expedite, not judge.

Have fun with it. It's a bike. It's made for fun. It's your bike.