Project: Mid-Life Crisis. Fuck It, You Can’t Take It With You
Let’s build a dream bike. No, not your usual Fox-Factory clad Santa Cruz or Yeti or whatever. A Dangerholm style ultimate bike. Bougie hand-made components, custom modifications and slick integrations. The ultimate flow machine for a middle aged, newly-minted dad. And Dad wants to murder fast flow trails in comfort and style.
What does that mean? Well we don’t need frivolous amounts of suspension to eat up rock gardens at eye-watering speeds. We flowin not racing. But we do want to plenty of comfort, cushy landings, and margin for error. We want the rider to feel young and keep the effort minimal when yanking the wheels into the air. Light bikes are fun and easy; let’s make it light. Can we get away with adding some uphill assist to the mix? I think we can in 2024. So we are looking for somthing in the aggressive trail / all-mountain / light enduro category. With a motor so dad can drop in thrice in his singular hour of ride time between child-care duties. Can it still be ~35 lbs and durable?
Frame
Ari Nebo Peak Frameset
Without a sponsorship of any kind, frame selection is rather limited for a build like this if you are allergic to laboriously selling take-offs as this rider is.
There are only two mid-power light emtb framesets available that I’m aware of**; the Mondraker Dune and the chosen Ari Nebo Peak. We don’t need a smash-happy 165mm rear travel for this build so we can take advantage of the cheaper($4999 vs $6799) and more nimble platform of the Ari. Short 433mm chainstays make for a bike adapt at changing direction and getting the front wheel pointed skyward. The Fazua Ride 60 is light, silent, efficient and powerful providing the next tier of grunt above the TQ50 and Specialized 1.2 powered offerings. It feels like a full powered emtb from 2018-2020, plenty for the mission at hand. It’s main downside is the flimsy and cheap feeling ring controller but that will be addressed with some custom clickers from Zirbel (as one does when building a danger-bike). Other highlights include a 140mm of progressive travel with carbon links, lifetime transferable warranty, included carbon cranks, XX chainring, Cane Creek headset, and slick White Gold colorway.
Customizations: Powder coated link
Almost: Mondraker Neat
Maybe the best looking ebike currently available with lines sleak and slim enough to make some unassisted bikes jealous. Weak TQ motor, small battery, too-loud MONDRAKER branding on the downtube and headset cable routing kept this from being the frame of choice even if selling take-offs was no issue.
Suspension
Intend Hero / Hover Opt
The latest from Mr. Kapfinger is no surprise if you are familiar with this genre of super boutique builds. Handmade German craftsmanship at it’s finest, they are their own thing entirely if you are comparing against the mainstream options. They make different trade-offs in stiffness. Incredibly easy to work on: the fork’s travel can be adjusted in 1mm increments between 140 and 170mm of travel without dissambling the fork at all. Simply remove the front wheel, attach a shock pump and rotate the air-side stanchion one full turn per 1mm of travel change desired. Incredible flexibility. It goes without saying they are very light, at 1950g for the fork and 422 for the shock.
Custom: Powder coated upper tubes / CSU on fork and end caps on shock
Wheels
Berd + Onyx + Mullet
I’ve been blown away by the Berd Hawk27s on my Switch9er TI hardtail. I do regret the swarm-of-bees I9 Hydra hubs though. Let’s go with 30mm width and some silence.
In the rear a Berd TR30 rim sized in 27.5 is stiff and durable with Berd spokes and Onyx Vesper hook-flange hubs keeping things silent. Out front is Berd’s compliant 29-inch Hawk30, likewise with Berd spokes and Onyx hub. So much weight savings. Awesome vibration dampening. Instant engagement. Silence.
Continental Kryptotal
Enduro Soft Front and Rear this should be plenty of casing and grip for the mission.
Brakes
Trickstuff Piccola HD Carbon w/ Dachle rotors
These unobtainium brakes need little introduction. More boutique German bike jewelry. Combining the feather-weight lever/cylinder of the XC-focused Piccolas with the 4-piston C42 calipers of the Dirretessimas you end up with the best of both and the single lightest 4-piston brakes in the world. The rotors are light and stiff too. 180 R / 200 F.
Almost: Intend Trinity
Heavier but more powerful and probably better. These newer boutique brakes are by all accounts worthy of stealing Trickstuff’s crown in terms of absolute performance but would carry a 60-70g weight penalty compared to the Piccolas. Still lighter than most others though.
Drivetrain
SRAM Transmission Mix and Match
Precise and adjustment-free shifting is the only way to go on a build like this. We can remove the remember-to-charge headache by integrating into the main battery so there is little downside.
XXSL Derailer, XX Cassette, XX Chain, XX Chainring, and included 160mm Praxis Carbon cranks. Sram Blips have been disassembled, wired to a Zirbel WE1 and crammed inside the handlebars to elegantly handle shifting duties and backbone the clean cockpit. A Sram Power Extender wires the derailer into the main battery to prevent separate charging.
Cockpit
Hands: Gemeni Kastor + ODI Vapor
Ass: Bjorn 3d saddle + super custom OneUp dropper V3
The pièce de résistance. The one area the student has surpassed the master. Despite Dangerholm’s love of clean cockpits, he has usually used the ageing, heavy, and low-travel AXS Reverb. Not good enough for this bike.
We start with a OneUp Dropper V3 in 180mm which has incredible superlatives as it comes. Now let’s get rid of the boring black coloring and make it match the gold and champagne of the fork. Next let’s completely replace the actuation mechanism with a light, low-profile solenoid from Ledex. A 3d-printed housing lets it screw into the bottom of the dropper as if it was factory made. Wiring into the main battery and the left thumb swith on the Zirbel complete the coolest dropper I know of. Like the derailer, no separate battery to charge, and only 30g heavier than stock + cables and perfectly clean intergration. It smokes a 170mm Reverb AXS on every measurable!