AMB Crew Bike Check: Hayden's Hardtail Hack

Words: Hayden Wright

For the past 18 months, the Forbidden Dreadnought has been my long term test bike / parts mule. I consider myself very lucky to have it sitting pride of place in my workshop, and it continues to blow me away every time I ride it. Compared to the first enduro bike I owned a decade ago, it is so ridiculously reliable and capable that I find myself incessantly hunting out the most challenging trails I can find in the search for my next thrill. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I do find myself occasionally feeling burnt out from the three step process my rides had routinely formed – grind up a steep fire road, catch my breath, and then hurl myself back down some steep technical piece of singletrack.

I began to yearn for a change. I wanted to cover ground more rapidly, flow through some smoother blue and green trails, and dare I say it – do some XC riding? My mind began to wonder, with many late nights spent on the internet researching short travel trail bikes. I already had a parts bin with most of what I needed, excluding a frame, bar, dropper, and set of brakes. To keep both purchase and maintenance costs low on this N+1 ride I settled on a Ragley Big Al frame, which was purchased late at night after a few too many adult beverages. Over the coming month I pieced together this patchwork quilt of a bike, which is now enjoying more time in the sun than any other in my fleet.

Frame and Geometry

This aluminium frame ticks all the boxes I had laid out when trying to decide how to spend my hard earned money. It has a tapered head tube, boost rear end, ISCG tabs, external cable routing, threaded BB, and geometry numbers which help realise the ride quality I was aiming for while also maintaining componentry compatibility with the Dreadnought. The 480mm reach is around 20mm shorter then what I would prefer, however when combined with the 435mm chainstays what you get is a super zippy and responsive ride. By speccing the bike with a 130mm fork rather than the recommended 140mm, I did grow that effective reach number a touch while also steepening the STA and HTA – something I did to help sharpen the handling and make the seating position a little more upright.

Suspension

The defining factor of my decision to build up a bike rather than buying complete was that I had an overflowing parts bin, most notably including this DVO Onyx fork. During 2020 I was doing some prototype durability testing for DVO with this fork being one of my test units.

While originally set to 170mm, I had it lowered to 130mm for this build. It is no secret that some DVO products had reliability issues during the time of their OEM experiment with Giant, however this fork has seen over 300 hours of use at time of writing and outside of regular maintenance has never missed a beat. The combination of a 36mm chassis and short offset suit the frame well, and although I would love something a little lighter like a RS Pike or Fox 34, it just isn’t a logical spend in my mind. I have been toying with the idea of upgrading the damper cartridge to DVO’s D1 level component, to allow for some external tuning of the low speed compression to allow for less of the “stapler” effect when pumping through smooth trails. Maybe if I am lucky santa will bring one this Christmas.

Cockpit & Seat

Renthal’s bar geometry has always felt like home to me, and was an easy decision on this build. I decided to go with their 31.8mm Ø LITE offering to save a few grams and also get some extra bump compliance from the front end. As with all my bikes they’re cut down to 760mm and have as much rise as possible, 40mm in this case.

To keep things looking factory, I paired it with a 50mm Apex stem. Grips are something I am fairly picky with, and no matter what I try I always end up back with the ODI Elite Pro mounted up to my bar. I love that there is no external lock ring, and the combination of a convex profile and waffle pattern is the most comfortable I’ve used.

Like grips, I am also very picky with saddles – but more so form than function. I feel the seat and stem really set the visual tone of a bike, so it’s something I put more thought into than I should. This Chinese carbon Specialized ripoff is insanely light at 119g and in my mind looks awesome, but I would expect to have something else on there by Christmas time.

It is mounted atop a OneUp Dropper V2, with 210mm of travel. I first tested this product a bit over a year ago and was impressed with the performance on offer given the price. It goes up and down, is affordable, and easily serviceable – what more can you want from a dropper?

Brakes

Shimano’s SLX brakes fit this build well, with their 4 piston callipers providing plenty of power and their reach-adjust levers feeling very comfortable in hand. While there are many other options out there that are more powerful, better looking, or lighter, the cost to reliability ratio here is unbeaten in my mind.

I have them paired with a set of XT 6 bolt rotors, 180mm front and 160mm rear which are rubbing against Galfer purple pads. I’ve found these to be harder wearing than their Shimano sintered equivalent while still providing comparable braking performance.

Drivetrain

This area of the components spec is another where the parts bin really paid dividends. The crank is a set of 170mm XT arms with a 32t ring, which are on their second life after having the drive side pedal thread completely stripped at Thredbo right before a Cannonball Festival race run. In the heat of the moment, I shelled out for a brand new crankset to ensure I could complete my race weekend, leaving these cranks dead in the water.

Once a new use case was defined, I popped down to my LBS and got a helicoil installed leading me to having a tidy crankset for little outlay. Shimano’s Zee 10 speed derailleur and shifter are in my mind the best value MTB component ever made, with this particular set now on their fourth bike. They’re robust, reliable and provide endless smooth shifts when combined with a 10-36t shimano cassette. I would like to have a smaller gear for steep climbs, but a little hard work and standing up never hurt anyone.

Wheels and Tyres

When looking for a well-priced, reliable set of hoops it’s hard to go past anything from DT Swiss. This M1700 wheelset started life on my wife’s race bike, eventually being relegated to storage and replaced with something much lighter. Their make up of a 350 hub and 25mm ID rim is tried and tested, and has proved to be as worry free as I had hoped.

While I did shell out for a 54t ratchet upgrade (marketplace!), I feel this is money well spent as it really helps liven up a bike, particularly on pedally trails. A mix of different tyres have been cycled on and off, with the current setup of Maxxis Forecaster and Ardent giving me a good mix of rolling speed and just enough lean angle traction to ensure I don’t get into too much trouble.

I’ve got a Tubolight HD insert in the rear to help with vibration damping and also ensure I can pedal the 2km road back home if I get a flat – no I don’t ride with spares.