650B Elephant National Forest Explorer

Ed you've smashed it!
Not just a favourite forum bike, but one of my all time favourites.
Excellent work.

You could of had a little tab brazed onto the underside of the dt to fit a wheel stabiliser - missed a trick there scobes..

Amazing bike , sun block will be a must for the trip.

May I suggest avoiding the N20 going up to Andorra,
it's packed year round with booze and tobacco adddicts .
You will see them 3 in a row on the first icy incline in winter trying to fit chains on used up summer tyres wearing fancy light trainers in deep snow.
Oblivious of the road closed signs.

The climb to Andorra, however busy with traffic, is a nice one IMO. Long and not mild and actually allows one to rest a bit during the ride. But, Ed knows these roads.

Must say that my jealousy-o-meter is peaks when looking at your bike. Well done!

Midi very kindly send me a detailed email about this, I'm aware the route to Andorra isn't nice which is why I avoid it last time.

Still going through my route.

Ed saw your pic on instagram! Looks good!

I see you've a selle smp saddle. How do you find it? I'm thinking of trying one to relieve pressure.

Deserves embedding. Lovely bike and as @skinny said would like to hear about Selle SMP experience

I see you've a selle smp saddle. How do you find it? I'm thinking of trying one to relieve pressure.

I've been experimenting various saddle in the last couple months, the one prior to the SMP was the Fizik Versus saddle, which at first try, was amazingly comfortable due to it's massive channel in the middle.

It made a difference, also made me realised just how much pressure my perineum is under, it was less obvious with the rubber/leather saddle that provide a soft cushion instead of a hard shell, the Fizik Versus basically tried to removed all pressure from the perineum.

However this wasn't enough, the disadvantage is that it's a traditional saddle that relied on your sitbones, the fact it got padding mean it doesn't quite hold you up, incidentally it was comfortable because I was not sitting with my sitbones, until 3-4 hours later when the saddle depressed enough.

I also learnt that there's no link between your sitbones width and the saddle width, it make no difference, according to the Specialized Body Geometry Fit chart, I have an extremely wide sitbones that suppase the widest of Brooks saddle, yet, I'm still perfectly fine with normal/narrow saddle.

I start to think how I am sitting and since it wasn't the sitbones, it's more on the middle of the saddle where the bones on between the perineum is at, least that what it felt like.

I'm still experimenting with the position of the SMP as you have to throw away what you know about positioning your normal saddle, the SMP need to be set further forward, positioned accordingly that you "rest" on the middle of the channel.

The one I have on the bike is the Composit which is very narrow but surprisingly enough, held me well, I'm still a novice with the SMP position as it's not quite right yet (the more I ride them, the more I kept moving it forward), thought I'm slowly getting there, it make sense, just feel very awkward as you feel pressure on areas you never knew exist, but not the bad kind of pressure, just different.

@scherrit stock SMP I think, and he know a fair amount of fitting them properly, I should go back to him soon to get some idea of how to properly fit it, I own him some money I kept forgetting to pay back, oop.

Steve Hogg has a very good piece on his blog about fitting them.

You're in the right path, level or negative and forwad...

Yes know he stocks them, very expensive though!

Bike looks mint!

Are you using the super c front bags? How are they?

If you're used to the Arione, but find you got too much pressure in the middle, the Versus might be the ticket, abet cost nearly as much as an SMP.

Scherrit can lend you the saddle to try out (with deposit) so you won't have to dive into the deep end, I can't remember what model he gave me but sufficient to said I didn't give it much try which is a shame.

Super C are great bags for the money, I usually use a combination of cotton bag and drybag, the drybag make it easier to grab the right stuff to pitch up, and keep thing organised.

Oh yeah, it now got 10 speed Dura Ace shifter with 105 derailleur and Tiagra cassette (12-28), need to change the cassette for an XT 11-32 as it digging into my alu freehub.

Also interested in the Selle. I found with my Antares VS, the cutout collapsed because it's not a physical cutout as you say.

However, the physical cutout on my Romin is great. I really, really rate the Romin.

Hope you're enjoying the bike, Ed. Still super jelly. Are there any OTP low trail disc frames available? I'm guessing no, hence why you got this.

@edscoble

This thread is lacking a picture of it full loaded up for your tour! Hope to see one when you're back.

@skinny I though my bike was front heavy after the bikepacking tour, until I stumble upon several others cycle tourists whose bikes were laden to the tits, especially the elderly couple on front sus hybrid BSO.

Now I feel good at my "lightweight" set-up as one remarked upon first glance.

1 Attachment

Looks like a steep climb there.

How come you went for 10speed in the end? And when you're not using the front panniers are you tempted to remove the low riders to give you some more comfort?

Which zipp bars are these ed, want to try them.

Looking for some new bars.

a couple of questions:

1. how did the interview go (although feel free not to answer that)
   
2. what stops the xt cassette from digging the freehub?
   
3. how does the smp compare to the brooks c17 saddle?
   

Which zipp bars are these ed, want to try them.

Zipp SL-88, 88 refer to the reach at 88mm long providing a nice platform to rest my hand on, I prefer the longer reach bar for one reason - a bigger range of position from riding upright on the flat to comfortably stretch on the hood.

You might find a long reach bar to be useful when using aerobar, allow the aerobar to be set further back.

The drop section is exceedingly long, really nice to shift your hand back and move your body forward.

@user48109

Not quite sure which interview you refer to, I have lost count of them.

The XT cassette have an aluminum cog carrier that allow a much more evenly spread load, and preserved the aluminum freehubs, this picture should sufficent;

Now look inside a Tiagra cassette, all of them are bolted together, and have a much smaller footprint for the load, this is why you often see freehubs with mark on them due to this;

SMP is the finest saddle I've ever ridden on, I sit completely differently on it, instead of sitting on the sitbones, I sit on the bones where the soft tissues is in between, and surprisingly, it felt much more cushiony than the Brooks.

The Brooks, like most saddle put too much pressure on the soft tissues, despite most of it are on the sit bones, even with a large cut-out, the soft tissues still get pressured due to the soft hammock feel of the Brooks.

SMP is the stiffest saddle ever, and I got an even more comfortable carbon one that take the royal biscuit, yet the stiff saddle prevent it from sagging and changing shape.

cheers, great looking bike. Glad mine is black as well lol

@edscoble Yeah was looking at that, but prefer the look of the bend on teh SL-80. Don't really like traditional bend bars.
Will see if I can try a sl-88 or 80.

It's really is a personal preference, there are some long reach bar with a graduate curve (rather than a short 90 degrees cut) to the brake hood.

The SL-88 have a better interference with the hood levers that it doesn't feel like an awkward gap, the other you could look at is the Fizik R3 in the Chameleon option, 85mm reach and 135mm drop, yet maintain the compact drop shape, Zipp is 128mm drop and 85mm reach.

Hi Amey, You must know Ed. He's the only NFE owner I know of in England. Cost of the stock bike is much less than Ed's. You can thank him for that - his was one of a handful of disc NFE projects that pushed us into making a stock frame set.

#buyer

innit; also what did you pay for shipping and customs (if any)? John cant remember ..

Can't remember the shipping, I think it's like $300, and if you got caught, you might need to pay £200 for them to release the frame.