The World's Fattest Man with no bike! aka - find hippy a new bike aka - Just get ( fill in blank )

It's not? Why are all my bikes 26ers then?

I'll send you some 2002 mtb components if you can send me my 2002 fitness level

I already have 2002 MTB components scattered across 3 or 4 countries and no EPO supplier.

Maybe I'll just rattle can the SIDs gold?

Don't forget to paint the stanchions

Kashimaxedoutmycreditcard coating

I've been riding XTR on the loaner bike for 6 months and only today (since the shifter felt a bit far away) do I find out you can shift up by thumb pushing as well as the older trigger style!

It looks fucking huge to me but once you're on it, it feels really good.

Smart. Shame about the clashing blues, new fork time.

Rockshox reckon I need 109psi and -4 clicks rebound, whatever the fuck that means. Might drop the dropper post a little more. Might rotate the levers a little more - I'm used to them being in line with my forearms although TR podcast guy mentioned he prefers them a bit more straightened out so all the bar pressure isn't just on your thumbs, it's more on your hands.

I'll lean it against the Mason and the Kona and it'll be fine since it's then a blue spectrum.

Cool, just needs crashing now

See you at Mountain Mayhem next year ;-)

Looks nice

Is that the 24hr I may have dropped some comments about earlier in my life? I could do that.
I've raced a couple of mtb 24hrs as a team and I still want to check a solo one off, but not that nonsense in Scotland. I didn't wait 2 months for this paint to dry to grind it all off with mud.
Annoying thing is, I'll be doing fuck all riding on this until after August. First target is the Nat 12 300mi+ and 2 weeks after that is Transiberica, so I'm not going to do much at all in terms of dirt riding for next couple of months. I thought I'd have this frame a month ago but I'm pretty happy that my spreadsheet and this thread got all the parts required with no last minute issues. Shop had the brake adapter and had to borrow a chainring lockring tool but that was pretty much it. Everything else just went together. Oh, the grips I bought, because I have the remote lockout, weren't necessary.

Now I need to tweak the fit, maybe get some coaching so I'm not such a pussy and then SEND IT (for a given value of sending).

Yeah, it's the one I attempted in 2019 ( though only about 12 hours of actual riding ). I've got to try and sort my back out first, but would maybe like to give it another go and learn from my mistakes made the first time round

but not that nonsense in Scotland

Nah this was only about an hour from London and dry & dusty at the end of June

Could work. I've done 12hrs on the borrowed bike and I was in better shape than doing whatever laps we were doing over 24hrs in 4-man teams. I think because bikes now have low enough gears for people my size (ok, so maybe riding rigid SS wasn't the smartest idea) to actually ride without putting huge strains on stabilising muscles. That and disc brakes and fatter tyres means in theory I should crash less (also being old and crashtastic helps temper the race stupidity)

this looks good fun, the clash sells it, should get a different colour blue grips when you inevitably wear through these due to actually riding your bike

I think I had grey grips, simply because they were in stock and black wasn't. But I didn't know the fork came with grips so, bonus, I guess.
Fork also came with the little fender, so I'm glad these were out of stock when I tried to buy one too!
I've seen some bigger, spongier grips I'd like to try so I might ditch the SID remote lockout (although it IS a neat function) and go to normal lock-ons.

Other stuff to consider is bikepacking kit. I can get my Tangle in there but if I go for TD one day I'll likely go custom full frame bag again. Not sure about dropper-specific saddle bags. I could probably just use my Viscacha since I'm not likely getting super gnar any time in my remaining years so I won't need full drop. Certainly not while loaded up, unless @skinny talks me into HT550 nonsense :D

I need to find a way to scratch it without breaking any of my bones...

I think the frame colour would look nice with the forks painted in the same gold as the Rockshox Mag 21's from BITD.

Looks good & so much better without the decals. Forks do clash a bit, but could get lowers resprayed to match?

so maybe riding rigid SS wasn't the smartest idea) to actually ride without putting huge strains on stabilising muscles. That and disc brakes and fatter tyres means in theory I should crash less

The thing that eventually got me was my concentration slipping, so that after falling off the side of a hill about 2am ( going up it ) I lost my confidence in anything technical and decided to stop for a bit. Cue falling asleep, waking up really cold and struggling to get going again.

I'd use a sus fork if riding it again. Not so much for comfort, but more so I could relax and recover on the downhills, rather than having to concentrate so hard ALL the time

I need to find a way to scratch it without breaking any of my bones...

Bike pile

a normcore MTB, @hippy whats trendy about this? explain yourself