Brother Big Bro

So i ended up buying a brother big bro to replace my surly km. Went for a full build as it was on offer and the parts were good (1st full build bike i bought since my holy communion)

Went of the yellow colour, brown was out of stock and im not a fan of the cobalt blue

Was quite annoyed as there were issues with it.

The wheels that came on it were 27.5" not 29" as advertised. Brakes were not bled properly and hoses were a bit too short. There was a big scratch on the derailleur and the saddle and a scratch on the seat post

Anyway the bike shop sorted it all out for me fairly quickly, but I probably won't be buying a full build bike again for a while

I've lost all pictures when i moved to a new phone as they didn't back up properly. Only got one pic of it build up out of the box

Changed some parts over already, but theres more to come

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Changes so far:

Pedals: Gusset s2
Brakeset: Hope Tech 4 x2 brakeset
Wheelset: Hope pro 5 / fortus wheelset
Tires: Vittoria Mezcal tires 29x2.35"
Bars: Surly Sunrise
Chainring: Shimano XT 36t

Changed the shifter from slx to xt, didn't like the feel of it

Main reason of getting rid of the KM was max chainring size. Would spin out quite often when riding/commuting on the road

Slx brakes had to go as the added rise from the bars made these way too short. Was going to change them down the line anyway so there was no point in getting new hoses

Quite happy with the pedals so far, they are fully rebuildable and the service kit is cheap - was going to get hope f22 pedals but the pins were too long on them so would have to change the pins to shorter ones

Ended up using the same bike shop. One of the tires had a slit in the sidewall, so i had to wait for a replacement and some more sealant. Think all black tires would of been a better choice looking at it now

Changed the black spacers to silver

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Next on the list

Pro 5 shimano hg freehub + ss kit - going to make this single speed for the winter. Will probably get the steel version as the alu one is made of cheese

New seat clamp in silver - quite limited on choices due to the diameter

Possibly a saddle - kind of got used to the c17 but i still dont find it very comfortable

Mudguards

Dynamo front wheel + light - some suggestions would be appreciated, will most probably want it to be 15×110, but 15×100 with converters would work also

Frame bag

Maybe a top load bmx stem, not a fan of the 31.8mm thomson with the shims

Not a fan of the tanwalls with the yellow frame but nice bike

Got it for a good price. The bits that are staying are the bits i would of bought for it most probably

The person who was interested in buying my old frameset ended up buying the full bike - only cost me couple of hundred extra to get a brand new build so why not

But if i knew there would be this much drama like wrong wheel size etc i would of just bought the frame

There was limited stock of the big bro framesets also at the time of purchase

Edit: ive replied to your comment before you edited it - and yeah i agree with you, black or even the grey wall would of looked better - gonna wait till these die

Nah the tan walls look fun!
Nice bike

Fair enough! Sorry for the ninja edit;) i read the answer in your first post already

I agree it looks like it’s going out to cause mayhem.

That looks fab and I do like the yellow. I took delivery of a cobalt blue big bro Frameset last month. Looking forward to building it up over the winter.

Thanks all! @skullandbiscuits ive almost bought a full build in blue off ebay but seller decided to split it instead

Wish they did the forest green or the 10 year anniversary colour still

missing my Big Bro since i sold it.

Supplying completely different wheel sizes to what you specced seems like a pretty big mistake, no? The Keep Pedalling insta is good Big Bro build inspiration. I reckon a SP dynamo in boost would be pretty cool, plus affordable B&M lighting. Super commuter vibes?

Yeah it was. They offered to replace them for 29er ones but i just sold them - had a spare pro 5 wheelset. They ended up giving me some money back for the mess up

They also didn't send chain tensioners 😂, was fuming at the time.... then only one arrived - probably last full build bike i ever buy new

i did look at the sp dynamo hubs cheap and have fairly decent reviews

The sonder juice hub looks nice but reviews are not the best

What annoys me is most of them are not "user servicable". So im thinking it may be better to invest in a son hub as at least they do 5 year warranty

Haven't really done much research into the subject yet to be honest - going to make it single speed first i think

I just put a Kasai boost dynamo on my Spa Rove.

I've had a few dynamo hubs over the years, never done any maintenance on any of them so user servicability doesn't worry me too much!

Suspect the Kasai and the Sonder are exactly the same hub, wouldn't be surprised if the only differences to the SP were cosmetic too.

Thats a good shout. Just had a look and i like it, also apparently easy to service

It does looks similar to the sonder one, but i prefer the plain look of the kasai

Thanks!

Did you end up using the dmr bolt i sold you a while back for anything?

It does looks similar to the sonder one, but i prefer the plain look of the kasai

Thanks!

Did you end up using the dmr bolt i sold you a while back for anything?

Yeah I like that it’s just completely plain black.

Not yet, but I will. I was after it for the bb shell, bearings and the bit of the swings that wraps around that stuff to make the pivot so I have harvested that out of it and I think I’m going to build a full sus bmx with it. Getting a suitable fork is proving difficult though.

I'm with @M_V on the serviceability thing. Functionally speaking it really shouldn't matter. My old SP hub is seized but I abused that thing, didn't wash it and left it wet etc. New one is going on for 10,000+km with no problems.
Then again it does end up covered in muck every week so it's probably only a matter of time.
The dynamo hubs thread is useful, but honestly an SP hub will be great 99% of the time.

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ill drop you a pm

Lovely stuff thank you :-)