Tijmen's Bikes and Related Projects

Due to space restrictions I want to have one bike on which I can ride on trail, gravel, and road. For this I have bought a Van Nicholas Amazon Cross. I'd been wanting a titanium bike ever since I bought my first serious bike, and when this came up I couldn't help myself:

As the post wasn't long enough I replaced it with a Niner RDO, which has an unstiff carbon lay-up which means it should make for a more comfortable ride. And I topped it off with my saddle of choice, a (Chinese) Selle SMP Composit.

I've done a couple of rides on it in this guise, but plan on some more changes. Short term changes are:

1. Replace Rival rear derailleur with a long cage X0 derailleur. Both for a clutch mech and to allow for a bigger cassette, because: Done.
   
2. Dial in second wheelset. 650b with tubeless 2.0" RaceKing tyres and an 11-36 cassette. Done.
   
3. While doing this I'll also replace the rear rotor with a 160mm rotor, because I couldn't stand non-matching rotors. On the 650b wheelset the rotors seem to be slightly more outboard, I plan to re-adjust the calipers for this rotor position and use washers to shim out the rotors on the 700c wheelset to match. Should work, right? And adjust the reach / lever position while I'm doing this. Half done.
   
4. Get rid of the front derailleur and install a 42t narrow wide ring. Gear ranges seem to be quite okay for both wheelsets. Done.
   
5. Take better pictures.
   
6. Install bottom bracket.
   
7. Replace tyres with 30mm G-Ones?
   
   

I already have most of these parts, just need to make time to install everything. Quite a bit of time went into getting the tubeless set-up to work, but they're holding air now and the bead seems to be seated properly. Clearances are quite tight, especially between the chainstays where the little hairs just about hit the stays, but I think it should work.

Once the above is done I want to ride it for a while before further upgrading / changing things. But long term plans for when I run into some money to blow are:

1. Different bars, I don't have a comfortable position in the drops in which I'm also able to apply serious braking force. Might be sorted by reach adjustment, in that case I'd still do it because I prefer the look of compact drops.
   
2. Nicer cranks, I have a bit of a thing for Rotors and I think they'd look very nice on this.
   
3. Better calipers. Currently it has Hayes CX-5 calipers which are much better than the cantis I'm used to, but I think there's still lots of room for improvement. I'm thinking compressionless outers / TRP Spyres / hydraulic (but would need to sort out shifting).