Bombtrack Hook EXT-C

I guess I should do a current projects for this as it's sort of a forum bike.

Despite my reservations about being fashionable, I've been keen to build up some sort of mixed terrain bike for a while. I've always liked exploring unsuitable bridlepath detours on my audax bike with 30c tyres and have mostly got away with it. But after doing Torino-Nice rally last year on a borrowed bike and then a lot of rides that were 50% off-road in Scotland while on holiday this summer, I decided life was too short to put off adding yet another unnecessary bike to my collection.

When Amey's super-commuter bike came up for sale here I spent a while agonising over whether I should buy it, despite it possibly being a little small and carbon seeming like a ridiculous material for an offroad bike. Let alone having di2. I agonised for too long and missed out. So when it came up for sale again I decided to go for it. I removed the fancy carbon mudguards before I could break them and tried out a test ride with my daughter, which convinced me that it was a good purchase.

Feeling justified in spending some more money, I swapped out the tyres for some Byways, and acquired some cheap Ritchey gravel bars, then set out an extended test ride to try and prove to myself that I shouldn't have just got a hardtail. Without loading the bike into the car, any offroad ride from Brixton is going to involve at least an hour on-road via West Wickham, etc. So a bike that is reasonably tolerable on-road seems a good idea. It was great, best ride from home I've done in a while. Autumn colours, discovering new bridlepaths that link up a lot of the road routes I know, the envy of other riders with their sensible non-plastic, non electrically geared bikes, etc.

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The next ride I did was a little less successful in that it poured with rain and turned Kent's offroad routes into rivers. Byways turn out to have very little grip in thick mud. Who'd have guessed...
But it was still fun.

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Despite being very pleased with the bike, there were a few problems with the frame. Before TNR I'd bought some 2.1 Schwalbe tyres and a bunch of cargo cages. None of these would fit due to lack of clearance and mounting points. I want to do some multi-day rides in the style of TNR and the ability to carry more stuff (I'm terrible at packing light) seemed important. The frame was also a bit low for me at the front - tolerable, but in a way that would probably become uncomfortable over several days.
About this point the opportunity to get a Bombtrack Hook frame for a good price came up. In a lot of respects this is much the same frame as the Carbonda, but with more mounts, bigger tyre clearance and a fork that hadn't been cut down. Could I justify this despite a greatly reduced income and already owning more nice bikes than anyone deserves to?

Obviously I could.

There's not a lot of exciting build photos because I forgot to take them. Have discovered I quite enjoy routing di2 cables and am particularly pleased that I managed to route the dynamo cable up round the top of the fork and out with the front brake line. Will probably revert to Byways once weather improves, but for the moment it's got bigger tyres on. Plus I bought some overpriced pipe lagging/tyre inserts in the hope that I won't destroy the carbon rims on a rock. I'm slightly unconvinced about the flared bars - on the one hand I like the extra hand positions, on the other they seem to put the shifters exactly where they'll get damaged in a crash, which seems unwise for a bike that's likely to get crashed. But will keep them for the moment.
Better photos to follow once I've actually taken it for a proper ride. Plus done a bit more tidying of cables and so on.

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Sweet paintjob on the 2021 frame! Let us know how it rides.

It's interesting that the Ext-C previously didnt look like any other carbon gravel frame but for 2021 they decided to use a frame which very much looks like (and probably is) the Carbonda CFR696, just like the Vitus CRX, On-One Freeranger, Ocoee, Ridley Kanzo Adeventure etc.

It is remarkably similar to the CFR696. I did consider just getting that. There are some minor differences (like the BB) so I'm still unsure if it's a copy or the same one slightly modified.

Off to collect the kids from school on it which probably won't test out its capabilities very much.

wahoo position is frightening, it MUST be perfectly in line in front of the stem, bike looks fun tho!

There was some sort of cable routing reason, I can't, remember exactly why. It bothered me too.

Update... still great. Has been pretty much only bike I've ridden lately. Partly because I got a drone which I've been teaching myself to use by putting it in the bar bag and riding out to less populated areas. Still not convinced on handlebars, so may swap them out at some point (plus I need to adjust the angle a bit looking at these photos). Am going to put a dropper post on it next to make it even more annoying to the 'just get a mountain bike' people.
In theory am meant to be doing Roam Scotland Rally on it in May, but who knows if that will go ahead.

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What's the frame in the first pic plz?

A Talbot audax frame which i don't think I ever did a current projects for. It's still great, but am increasingly enjoying being off road so hasn't seen as much use lately.

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Well if I wasn't jealous of your bike collection earlier, I am now.

What bike did you use for the TNR out of interest?

Yes, I'm not quite sure how I ended up with so many nice bikes. In my defence I'm old and also friends with a framebuilder which helps a lot.
I borrowed an Isen GOAT for TNR, which was great and I contemplated something like that instead of the Bombtrack, but as long as I'm living in London, at least 50% of rides are still going to be on the road so makes sense to have something more all-round. But the Bombtrack has been built with the intention of it being perfect for things like TNR.

Update - now has cheap dropper post and managed to re-purpose an Old Man Mountain pannier rack I had from years ago which conveniently allows me to run its QR lever through the rear thru-axe meaning I can take it on or off by just undoing a couple of allen bolts. Used this setup to do South Downs Way at the weekend.
Next job is to get some plain bar tape and double wrap over the top of the existing ugly bar tape.

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Hi @ad441, I know this is an old post but just came across one of the photos and wondered if you could share some more detail about it. It's the 2nd photo in the initial post of the black bike with tan wall tires and mudguards. I am loving the look of this and am wondering what mudguards these are and the size of the tires.
Cheers

That was @amey 's setup - can't remember what those guards were. Think I sold them to someone on here. Sure Amey will remember now i've summoned him.

Amey must get tagged so often he can't keep up.
But I found his original for sale thread
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/347476/
And think they're these on 47c tyres.
https://www.veloduo.co.uk/products/carbon-fibre-mudguards-700c-x-35-40-50mm
Still can't remember what I did with them but assume i must have sold them on or given them away.

exactly those !

Awesome, thanks guys!