A Town Called ALICE

Last year's load

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Thanks for all the bar suggestions - a lot more choice than I realised.

I've certainly been considering the Stooge Moto bars before, until this build I did have a bike to justify buying them.

Need to up my bike packing game, I only have the one bag...

Took the ALICE to Kinlochleven, might add a dropper to it.

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Still no dropper but I did change the saddle for a less creaky one.

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Looking great @2slices!

Here’s the spiritual (and far less versatile) descendant of my old Alice:

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Cheers @mf - your stooge looks good fun. What version is it?

I periodically wish the ALICE had a more relaxed geometry - kind of like a rigid mtb - but then I have to remind myself that if it did I probably wouldn't have ridden it as far as I have.

It continues to be the most versatile bike I've ever had.

@mf it's probably a riff on: All-Purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment, or ALICE clips; what the US used as load bearing military belts/harnesses in the 70s thru the aughts.

sorry for the 10 month old reply.

You ever do a build thread on that? It’s…chunky

I didn’t, no - most of the parts were ported over from my old hardtail with a few exceptions. It is certainly chunky - will run 29+ at full fill, but I have it 27.5+ because that’s what I had.

Now has an Enve layback seat post instead of the dropper and a shorter Burgtec stem. Will be using it for endurance racing next season.

What frame bag is that you have @2slices

Alice in the wild from last winter.

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Those photos are ace, I hope we get snow like that this winter!

The frame bag is made by Straight Cut Designs - https://www.straightcutdesign.com/

I bought it 2nd hand from @mf who had it on his old Alice. Not sure if it was designed for the bike but it fits perfectly.

It was actually bought to fit my Pugsley - it was an off the shelf one as opposed to custom but it was exactly the right measurements.

I had a full custom frame bag and top tube bag set on my ALICE by Ross at Straight Cut and was mighty impressed. Lovely bloke too.

Obviously happy accident that the one from the Pugs was also a perfect fit for a medium ALICE too!

Lovely builds. Bit of a dredge here but... I'm looking at one of these at the moment.

How do they ride? Are they 'fun' enough unladen? Or more of a solid, dependable kind of thing?

Loved mine - obviously.

It's not a bike for a weight weenie (especially with the steel fork), I'd say 'solid, dependable' are both excellent words to describe it. There's a large F&F on Pinkbike and STW at the moment.

I had great fun on mine, but it's no road race bike. Gravel, singletrack and light trails were the happy ground for me personally, though I did do a (slow) road century on it too.

Nice one, thought as much.

I did in fact nab that frame (without the fork) just now. Its so replace a kona sutra so I don't imagine it'll be any slower.

I had been eyeing it up too, but I was on a medium and it was definitely on the long side for me so couldn't stretch to a large!

Any thoughts on build plans yet?

Yea, the geo is within a few mm of my Sutra so I'm probably going to go for a similar build, just for cost reasons really. I'll basically harvest what I can from the remains of that bike - 1x10, drop bar, bar-end shifter, 29x 2.2, dynamo etc.

Forks-wise, Pipedream said they can supply a steel one but I'm talking with Stayer about something nicer :) then possible powder coat, but I'll see how I get on with it first.

What's the advantage of the Pipedream over the Sutra? I've got the previous model of ALICE but Sutra looks pretty good to me

Probably not much, except the Sutra got hit by a car

Oh dang, yeah, I forgot about those pictures! Hope you're healing up!

Cheers!

here's my go

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Does anyone know who produces the new carbon fork on the current gen Alice?
The old fork was made by Carbonda but I can’t find much info about the new fork.

No idea, looks weird/incongruous though

weird/incongruous

Haha! Yeah that’s kinda what I like about it. I like the sharp lines.
Pipedream did seem to briefly have the fork for sale on the website, my pal managed to buy one, but they now only sell it with the frameset for some reason.