Cannondale Trigger 29er - Now with XX1!

[cameron_15]

Going to work to build this up this afternoon

Just had to wait for the guys at gripsport to do some trickery with forks, for a new brake from monza and for some missing bits that should have come with the frame.

Will report back this weekend after it's first ride... or maybe tonight. Not sure.

 

[FatMuz]

Judging by the parts you're selling... it's a Cannondale Trigger 29er 2. Do I win the prize?

Cheers
Muz

 

[donthucktoflat]

Kona honzo. Trail geo, shortest stays out fun bike...

 

[cameron_15]

You guys have waited long enough. It's a 2013 Cannondale Trigger 29er. As cool as the lefty supermax is, I opted for the Trigger 2 as I already had an XTR/Sram S2200 drivetrain and brakes as well as a bunch of other parts lying around from previous bikes (Truvativ bars, Fizik seat, pedals etc). I Picked up the wheels and forks cheap on runout so that kept the cost of the build down too.

I had the tapered steerer swapped out for a 1.5" straight steerer to keep stiffness to a maximum. I also opted for a 20mm through axle up front too. These things compliment the frame really nicely. The frame has through axles that link all the pivots together, as well as double stacked bearings for extra stiffness. Makes for an unbelievable ride that goes exactly where you point it. It weighs in at just over 13kg's with pedals, tubes, 2.35" tyres and an uncut steerer.

I took it for its first ride today (and my first XC ride in a couple of months), and initial impressions are very positive. I got a couple of personal bests and top 10 times on some segments (on the descents) at the local XC trails, all whilst being...err ... not so fit, to put it nicely.

The forks are exceptional. So much more lively and responsive when compared to the Fox Float/Talas kashima forks I've been running for the passed few years. In fairness though, I haven't ridden a CTD fox fork, and I really did take advantage of the 3 position lockout of the revelations today.

The brakes were also excellent with consistent power, feel and modulation for the ride, which featured some pretty steep brake burning descents. In the passed I've used Formula R1's, which were excellent light and powerful brakes, however the assurance of the 4 piston calliper meant I was always well within the brakes capabilities and could brake later and less into corners. I also like the avid lever design alot, just feels right to me.

The pull shock is great too, letting me get away with the extra travel of the bike without suffering on the flat and uphill sections. Most of the time I use the short and progressive 90mm setting, and let it go to 130mm for rougher descents and trails. It's great being able to have two different rebound speeds too. Setting it up a bit faster on the short travel mode and much slower in long travel. Once set up properly, I have't encountered a single issue with the shocks, I've been using one on my previous bike, a jekyll, since January. Also, CSG have tons of spares should you need them, and they're only a couple of days away from your lbs too.

In general, the handling was pretty good, certainly not as manouverable as the jekyll, but I was still able to negotiate the tight and twisty climbs. Was also absolutely fine in the air and on the way down.


Here's a crappy phone pic, I think you guys have waited long enough for this.




Full Specs

Frame: 2013 Cannondale trigger 29er - 130mm/80mm Rear suspension
Fork: Rock shox revelation 29er - RCT3 - Dual position air - 20mm/1.5" Steerer
Shock: Fox Dyad RT2, independant short/long travel rebound adjustment and two different compression tunes
Rims: Stans ZTR crest
Hubs: Hope pro 2 Evo
Brakes: Avid X0 World cup levers to Code calipers
Rotors: Magura storm 180/160
Shifters: Shimano XTR 2 x 10
Rear Deraileur: Shimano XTR Clutch
Front Deraileur: Sram X7 direct mount
Cranks: Sram S2210 carbon, 38/26 tooth
Chain: KMC X10
Cassette: Sram Pg1070
Tyres: Shwalbe Hans Damppf 29x2.35 trailstar compound
Pedals: Shimano M520
Handlebars: Truvativ Noir carbon
Stem: Cannondale C2 50mm
Seatpost: Cannondale C2
Seat: Fizik Gobi XM



Big thanks to Adrian at CSG, Andrew at gripsport, Monza imports for the forks/brake parts and of course my boss Andrew for helping to get this together.

Judging by the parts you're selling... it's a Cannondale Trigger 29er 2. Do I win the prize?

Cheers
Muz

Excellent detective work. 10 internet points to you :first:

 

[crim 87]

looks tough man well done

 

[MrZ32]

got to admit, i am a fan of the pull shock... as am currently running a modified jekyll 2 carbon.

if you dont mind me asking, why the change to the trigger?

 

[FatMuz]

Excellent detective work. 10 internet points to you :first:

I kinda cheated. I had insider knowledge as I was looking at buying the same bike but opted for the Trigger 29er 1. I think the Trigger 29er 2 is awesome value for money and was tempted to go that way. In the end though I couldn't resist that damn sexy SuperMax Lefty. I would love to compare notes sometime as I too am making some changes to running gear.

I'm running eThirteen TRS+ wheels as the Crests were just not suitable for my 92kg body... had to strip the crest front wheel as I couldn't source a Supermax Lefty hub anywhere. Next mod will be a change to a 1X drivetrain.

Ride impressions so far. This bike flatters me. I have never ridden rocky, technical, intimidating terrain, up or down as well or as fast on any other bike. Holds a line through just about anything. Rear suspension looks weird... but works exactly as it says it does. Annoyances so far... I have some sort of creak somewhere, either bottom bracket/crank or pivot points... need to investigate further. LBS set up the bike terribly even routing hoses and cables incorrectly. I also had to wait nearly 2 weeks to get the supplied shock pump (600psi pump). Cannondale support was quite good... LBS not so.

Cheers

 

[cameron_15]

got to admit, i am a fan of the pull shock... as am currently running a modified jekyll 2 carbon.

if you dont mind me asking, why the change to the trigger?

I had the Jekyll for 6 months and loved it. It was a fantastic bike that was a blast to ride. I rode it heaps up at Buller, and in the high country over summer, it did everything from the gravity 12 hour at bright to some of the Elevation all mountain races and it was competitive at both extremes. Away from the high country, where I do the vast majority of my riding, all i ride are the local XC trails, for which the jekyll was just a bit overkill. I also had an XL frame, which was probably too long in hindsight (although it was rad going down and at the elevation series), it had a longer wheelbase than my DH bike... I also downgraded a little with the trigger (No fancy mavic wheels, kashima forks, dropper post etc) and made a little cash out of the swap, which I need at the moment, being a uni student working part time at a bike shop.

So in the end it came down to wanting to be a bit faster/more comfortable on the local trails and not having a super high end bike that was just a little too big for me.

I kinda cheated. I had insider knowledge as I was looking at buying the same bike but opted for the Trigger 29er 1. I think the Trigger 29er 2 is awesome value for money and was tempted to go that way. In the end though I couldn't resist that damn sexy SuperMax Lefty. I would love to compare notes sometime as I too am making some changes to running gear.

I'm running eThirteen TRS+ wheels as the Crests were just not suitable for my 92kg body... had to strip the crest front wheel as I couldn't source a Supermax Lefty hub anywhere. Next mod will be a change to a 1X drivetrain.

Ride impressions so far. This bike flatters me. I have never ridden rocky, technical, intimidating terrain, up or down as well or as fast on any other bike. Holds a line through just about anything. Rear suspension looks weird... but works exactly as it says it does. Annoyances so far... I have some sort of creak somewhere, either bottom bracket/crank or pivot points... need to investigate further. LBS set up the bike terribly even routing hoses and cables incorrectly. I also had to wait nearly 2 weeks to get the supplied shock pump (600psi pump). Cannondale support was quite good... LBS not so.

Cheers

I've got the bottom bracket creak too. It's pretty common with the BB30 bottom brackets. It's a quick fix, just take the crankarms off and apply some grease to the bearings, spindle and the interface between the drive side crank and spindle.

I also didn't get the shock pump/remote lever with mine, although it arrived 2 days later after a quick phone call to CSG. Apparently they rushed to get the bikes shipped to Australia and forgot to put them in the box. Anyway, CSG are aware of this now and are sending them out with the bikes.

That's pretty average on the shop's part with the cable routing. It does take a few minutes to get things set up right, but you'd expect that they'd go to that level of detail on a high end bike. Just out of curiosity, how is your shock cable routed? I've got mine going under the BB, then wrapping around it before entering the shock, it was the best way I could think of...

 

[MrZ32]

I was wandering what that creaking was. .. time to grease up those bearing mounts

 

[cameron_15]

Thought it was about time I brought this back up. After some long-term niggling issues I was running the bike 1x10 with a 24t front chainring to get by. I had 2 small issues which unfortunately ruined the ride for quite a while. First, the chainline was way off, despite being correctly spaced according to sram/cannondale specifications. Second, the maximum chainring the Front mech is compatible with is 36t, and I was running a 38t big ring.

Togethor, this caused serious issues, and I wanted to go 1x10 with a narrow-wide ring but, given the chainline issues, never went ahead with it.

Anyway, I got keen to ride cross country properly (ie with a real sized chainring) and went to Mt Buller a few months. Whilst there, the rear hub imploded and chewed itself out spectacularly. I fired off a few emails (not expecting warranty, just wanted to know some part numbers) to Hope and they said they would replace it all for me, I just had to send the damaged wheel to Wiggle. It took about a month all up for warranty, but the end result was a new wheel, with upgraded steel freehub body (at my request) at no cost to me as Wiggle refunded my return shipping costs.

After this, I set about fixing the chainline. I got some extra BB30 spacers off some roadies and shifted the cranks across 5mm to the non-drive side, fixing the chainline. I then got a smaller 36 tooth chainring off a member on here (Thanks Ozdavo!) and put the bike back togethor properly for the first time in... ever.

I reset the rear shock and spent some time setting it up perfectly, which made a massive difference to how the bike rides. After a full service and some new rotors, the bike was finally 100% after sitting around in a half-usable state for a few months.

Finnally, I went back out to the local singletrack and went for a ride! Set a personal record on the longest climb and the longest descent of my loop, and had an awesome time riding trails again.

I did get a double pinch flat on the last creek crossing (~300meters from the carpark, so no big deal) from being too keen and charging into it at mach-10.

Surprisingly, the Crest rims haven't folded under my 100kg's yet. (I got them very cheap off Wiggle with the intention of changing the rims when the crest's died)

 

[Klips]

Soooooo..... what's the go with the tyres?

 

[cameron_15]

Soooooo..... what's the go with the tyres?

They're my summer tyres (lightweight XC things with less rolling resistance) and I was running them at low pressure with tubes. I Got two pinch flats at the end of a 30km ride.

I'll be chucking the Hans Dampf tyres back on soon enough though.

 

[cameron_15]

It's probably time I posted some proper pictures of this bike!

I recently cleaned it up for sale but decided I'd keep it. Here it is with the forks extended and the big tyres fitted.



...and with the forks in short travel and summer/XC tyres fitted.



My plan at the moment is to convert it to 1x10 in the near future, then get some carbon/stronger rims at a later stage. Going to 1x10 will allow me to run the rear shock lever on the under side of the bars in a much ore ergonomic position, as well as shed some weight, which is always a bonus. I bought the Hope/Crests with the intention of changing the rims, but so far the crests have held up fine under my 100kg's and with the riding I do 95% of the time they haven't been out of their depth. I'll probably trim the steer down as well, as it's quite ugly and I'll never be raising it given the height of the 29" wheels and 140mm forks.

 

[clockworked]

I converted my wife's trigger over to 1x10. Its heaps better in a lot of ways, her derailleur was always a very heavy pull to change, but it did take a lot of mucking around with spacers to get even a passable chain line. I'd still like it more inboard, but it'll do. It'd be easy as piss if the spacers that came stock on the bike were narrower and could be switched either side, but hers came with one very wide spacer that just wasn't workable, which lead to a lot of dicking about manufacturing/scrounging up new spacers to work

edit: whoops, just read earlier in the thread that you've been through this with the spacers already!

 

[cameron_15]

I converted my wife's trigger over to 1x10. Its heaps better in a lot of ways, her derailleur was always a very heavy pull to change, but it did take a lot of mucking around with spacers to get even a passable chain line. I'd still like it more inboard, but it'll do. It'd be easy as piss if the spacers that came stock on the bike were narrower and could be switched either side, but hers came with one very wide spacer that just wasn't workable, which lead to a lot of dicking about manufacturing/scrounging up new spacers to work

edit: whoops, just read earlier in the thread that you've been through this with the spacers already!

Yep, I'm not sure what the go is, but I'd prefer a threaded BB as that is what I know!

With the original spacers the small chainring had a dead straight chain line, so the chainline for the big ring was virtually unusable in the 4/5 bigger cassette cogs. I ended up buying the smaller BB30 spacer (9mm instead of 16) and sourced a couple of smaller spacers from a roadie. In all I've shifter the chainline accross about 5mm and all seems well. Although now I'm not sure which direct mount chainring I need to buy!

In any case, it's interesting that you've had the same experience with me regarding the chainline.

 

[cameron_15]

One less cable up front now



Can now run the Shock remote lever tucked under on the left hand side. Still need to trim the cables, but it looks a whole lot neater and more accessible already. Will try and track down a RHS matchmaker bolt for the shifter to further tidy things up.

 

[cameron_15]

Received a Race Face direct mount chainring and Sram XD driver in the mail to go with the XX1 groupset I traded my XTR gear for. Ditching the Front mech, shifter, spider/rings, steel hub body and heavy SLX cassette has saved a fair chunk of weight... not that I've weighed it.

I also took it up to Mt Buller late last year and rode the epic trail and a bunch of other singletrack up there. In the end it was probably the best day of trail riding I've had in a long while. Everything felt great and with some extra fitness I was able to ride all the climbs faster than I have before and ride the descents and flowy trails aggressively without running out of juice until the final stretch back to the shuttle pick up.

I'm happy with pretty much everything for the moment, I'll replace the rims at some stage, but for now they're doing fine.