bryanus

OK, I think I have a sickness. I’m addicted to bikes! The Carbine SL was always at the top of my list, but the price was just outrageous. $2800 for the frame alone. That’s just crazy talk! But when I heard that Intense was closing them out at $1599, well, I had to consider it.

Even though I just bought the Felt Virtue LTD in May, and was relatively happy with, I knew deep down that I had to have this frame. Fast-forward a few weeks later and here it is.

It’s a pretty sweet frame indeed. The matte carbon finish looks really stealth and the red accents are a nice touch. I added in the bling red Chris King Inset headset to top it off. The cockpit carried over from the Virtue, but along the way I upgraded to these superlight, but supertough Ritchey Superlogic carbon hoops with DT240s hubs. I also managed to find the Dual Position version of the Revelation World Cup fork, in Keronite grey no less. The “2P-Air” allows on-the-fly travel adjustment from 120/150mm; great for dropping the front end on climbs.

The best part? I dropped over a pound vs. the Virtue with the same build. Total build weight is just under 23lbs! With pedals! 22.96 to be exact. Woot!

This is my first experience riding the VPP suspension design. Honestly, it looks a lot like DW-Link and even Felt’s Equilink to me. But right away I noticed the rear was much more plush, similar to how Trek’s ABP felt to me. With Felt’s Equilink, I left the platform full open all the time and never fiddled with changing it for climbs. With VPP I’m back to flipping the platform to “Trail” or “Climb” settings. Not a huge issue, but I can tell that the design isn’t as well-suited to climbs when compared to Felt’s Equilink.

Overall, though, the plushness makes for a better ride than the Virtue. I feel like the trail seems smoother and quieter. The Carbine seems to just float over the bumps. With the Virtue, the rear was so stiff that it felt like the platform was always set to firm. And by stiff I mean that it didn’t feel very active, especially on the smaller hits.

Anyway, only 2 rides on this bad boy so far and I’m digging it. But one other bike is also on the radar: The SL’s bigger brother, the Carbine (non-SL).

The standard Carbine has a different rear triangle than the SL, and it features the ability to swap the rear dropouts to accommodate the latest craze: 27.5″ wheels!

It also adds about half a pound frame weight, but when the bike is only 23lbs to begin with, what’s half a pound? I must say my eyes are open for one of those to come up at the right price…

I had one of these on my eBay watch list for years now and I don’t think I’ve seen more than one come up if that. This one was in my size and the price was right: only $600 for a complete bike.

The bike was very well used indeed and it shows. The frame’s paint is chipped and flaked off in many places. The bike included a nice Chris King classic wheelset (but hurting for a cleaning/rebuild!), a much-too-long 120mm Marzocchi Bomber ETA Pro fork, Chris King headset, and XT/XTR 8spd drivetrain. Do the math and this BuyItNow was a no brainer.

Before:

Anyway, I sold off the parts I didn’t want or need and actually made a small profit, ending up with the frame and a few other parts for free. Heh. I then swapped parts over from my (now sold) Bonty and here’s what we have now:

Being a 2000 yr frame, the geometry is capable of taking a 100mm fork. The fork is from the Xizang build and I took the spacer out to bring it back out to 100mm travel. I’m considering sending it back to Dekerf for a repaint and to also have disc tabs/routing added to the frame. The barrier is the cost: with cross-border fees and duties on top of the labor, it may be upwards of $600 or more! Is it worth it? Dekerf’s Team SST frameset goes for $2100, and that’s basically the same frame in every way. So for $600 or so I could have essentially a brand-spankin’ new Dekerf frame with new paint and decals and the modern luxuries of disc brakes.

Hmm, I think I’ve already made my decision… 😉

A new bike…

The flavor of the month is this sweet Felt Virtue LTD, Medium 17.5″ with full XTR Trail package.

Currently, I’m trying to downsize my bike collection a bit and having sold off the Trek and the Xizang frame, this popped up and it looked like a good buy. I’d been eyeing these bikes for a few years, ever since they redesigned their frames back in ‘09 I believe.

Anyway, the “LTD” (Limited) is their top offering, with an MSRP of, get this, $9999 (Are you out of your mind??!!). Of course I didn’t pay that much; let’s just say that the sale of the Trek and the Xizang more than covered this one.

The thing that sealed the deal for me was the fact that it was brand new, never ridden, plus it had a full XTR trail spec including wheels. I figured it was worth more in parts alone considering the price I paid.

I took it on its first ride last weekend, after a near 3-month hiatus from riding thanks to devbootcamp and various injuries. That ride was relatively painful and I was only able to hobble along for half the loop. Sucks. But it was still great to get out and I’m looking forward to getting back into a routine again.

The bike performed well. I wish I was in better shape to be able to have a better comparison against the Fuel’s ABP design, but one thing I noticed was that the LTD was much quieter on the rough stuff and the rear felt nearly locked out on the climbs. Felt likes to hype their equilink suspension, but I could care less as long as it works.

Update: Sold(!) Again! I am now on a quest to thin the herd and sold the frame and am now parting out the rest of the build…I wanted to sell it as a complete, but got a very persuasive offer at $1200(!), so I couldn’t pass it up. I need to get rid of these parts before…before…something else pops up!

…

Never say never. After selling my pristine ‘97 Xizang a few months ago, I came across another one on ebay and decided to toss in a winning bid. These frames are always in high demand, so I see it as an investment (my wife would flatly disagree with me of course).

It was a bare frame, and while in good shape, it had lost much of its shine. I read several tips online about polishing it back up, and after a few hours with 2000 grit wet sandpaper, ultra-fine steel wool, numerous metal polishes and finally an orbital polisher, this Xizang got its mojo back.

Most of the cockpit was swapped from my Bontrager for now. I also swapped out the black lowers of the ‘09 32mm SID Race with a NOS White set. ‘09 lowers with the v-brake bosses are not easy to find these days!

Speaking of v-brakes, one issue I hadn’t anticipated for was the cable routing for the rear brake. Since this is a ‘93 model, it was never designed for v-brakes, and thus does not have the cable stop in the normal v-brake place (the ‘97 model has a stop just before the seat stay tubes vs. in the middle of the triple-triangle of this ‘93 model).

Because of this, I couldn’t get the routing to work very well. Some other owners say to just use full length housing and zip-tie it to the frame, or get a bolt-on cable stop, neither of which I wanted to do.

The solution? Using a normal cable end doesn’t fit into the existing stop, so to get around this, you have to slightly squish the stop (I used a bench vise) to be more ovalized just in the front portion of the cable end, then use a small drill bit to make the now-squished cable hole larger and round again to allow the cable to pass through freely without any binding. This allows the cable housing to seat in the end normally, while the front of the cable end can fit into the frame stop. I should probably take a picture of this to illustrate, huh?…

Now, along with a slightly steeper 110-degree (135?) brake noodle (vs. normal 90-degree one), the routing is perfect and without any friction whatsoever.

Next up, the XTR crankset was set up for 1×9 duty using a Paul Chainkeeper and e13 32t Guide Ring (super nice quality ring!). It looks trick.

The decals were custom-made…by me. I was never a fan of the elongated “GT” logo, so I decided to try and make my own design in the same spirit of the original Xizang decals. They’re just vinyl decals layered on top of each other to achieve the dual color effect.

Future planned upgrades include a matching Red Chris King headset, lighter tires, and perhaps a matching WCS White stem.

21.50lbs including pedals.

I don’t know why, but the first time I saw this bike in Specialized’s catalog, I wanted one. I thought it’s be a cool “city” bike for commuting or whatnot.

I don’t think they sold very many of them, as they killed the design/model after just one year. I think it was Specialized’s reaction to the success of Cannondale’s Bad Boy series of urban bikes.

I got this one off of craigslist a few years ago, and proceeded to swap out the parts as I do with all of my bikes it seems.

Now, the only stock parts left are the headset and brakes! Also, it was originally a 26er…turns out 29″/700c wheels fit just fine with lower-volume tires..

I would say this bike (like the Bad Boy) was actually designed to handle both wheel sizes, as the geometry seems largely unaffected by the increase in wheel size.

• Chris King 29er ISO disc wheelset, with Stans 355 rims and Specialized 25c Rouxbaix rubber
• Specialized low-riser bar and seatpost, with Format SL saddle
• Ritchey WCS stem
• Truvativ FireX crankset
• 21.2lbs with pedals

Lastest updates:

• Shimano hydraulic disc brakeset/levers
• DiamondBack OEM 29er wheelset (sold the Chris Kings)
• KS Supernatural Dropper Post with Joplin remote (the 29er wheels make it a bit too tall to put my feet on the ground when stopped; the dropper is a sweet solution!)
• Kickstand!

Future updates?:

• I’d like to find an internally geared hub and turn it into a 7 or 8-spd bike. Or maybe find a compatible derailleur hanger, but I don’t think one exists for this frame.

Latest build 06/17:

The Centrum has become my ‘city’ bike and sits in my office for occasional lunchtime runs, etc. The LEV was pretty unreliable, so I got rid of it and put on a Specialized Command Post instead. I’ve had a couple of those posts and they have never given me any issues.

The bars were swapped out with some FSA Metropolis mustache bars. And for grips I used some old bar tape.

Seems I lost a part of this post with a recent server migration, but I ended up selling the CK wheelset and setting it up with a set of Shimano 650b wheels, which lowers the bike back down a bit.

Update 07/23/2018:

Latest build/changes:

• new rubber! Panaracer Parimoto 650b x 42c tires w/ Gravel King casing (made in Japan!) – Waaay wider and makes it feel more like a cruiser than a hybrid.
• Origin8 Bat Wing bars
• Fox Transfer Performance 125mm dropper w/Specialized SRL lever
• XTR 180/160mm Freeza centerlock rotors (spares from my MTB)
• Thomson seatpost collar
• Spurcycle bell
• Looks Legit!

Even Moar updates! 05/05/2019:

• Changed grips to ODI Vans waffle lock-ons
• Swapped the Fox Transfer external dropper for an INTERNALLY-routed Reverb Stealth 150mm! I ordered some frame plugs off of eBay and decided to go for it. Not the best work I’ve done, but it works and looks trick! Hardest part was getting the plugs into the holes as I undersized them to make sure they would fit tightly. Pretty sure my Centrum is unique with the internal routing! Lovin’ it!

In retrospect, I think I should have put the routing holes on the non-drive side as the housing could potentially rub the chainring/front derailleur if I had a multi-ring crankset (which I’m not really planning on adding, but you never know!). I originally wanted to route the holes in the center of the tubes, so just beneath the water bottle cage and back into the seattube where the sticker is. But the problem with that is I wouldn’t be able to fit my drill in such a tight space. I’m glad I thought about that before I started drilling!

Latest updates! 10/12/2019

The frame plugs from eBay (China) were total shite. They were too brittle and cracked into pieces. I decided to order some rubber frame plugs made by Giant. They were only $1.50 each and I needed 3 of them.

I had to dremel/file the holes to be larger, but the plugs are soo much nicer. They are flexible and fit snugly and the cable housing is held securely.

I also changed out the Reverb for a OneUp 150mm dropper. Oneup is my new favorite dropper post. It’s super smooth and much easier to deal with than the Reverb. The lever action is also considerably lighter to depress than the Reverb remote.

One change that isn’t in these photos is a fork swap to a 2009 RockShox SID Race. Although it was a 26″ fork, it fit my 650b wheels just fine with plenty of clearance. It’s also very easy to reduce the travel in those forks, so I dropped it down to 60mm. I rode it this way for a few months, but ultimately sold off the fork since it was relatively rare with it’s v-brake lowers. It was sort of an interesting experiment, and it made the bike feel more like a proper gravel bike, akin to having a Fox AX gravel fork but with 60mm of travel on it. Another small fitting change was to swap out the 90mm Specialized stem for a Syntace 60mm one.

• 

• 

• 

• 

•