iron horse sunday mod

[tatems]

no intent of sarcasim of anything here but how am i "a little bitch"
i asked what i thought was a genuine question

 

[udi]

Not sure your being all that fair UDI. this isnt Ride Monkey forum, we dont all spend all our spare time trolling every bike forum out their. It is a fair question.

He asked on there himself, and got a detailed answer straight from the horse's mouth - chose to ignore it and spam the same question here. I understand we are all looking for second opinions (which is fair), but there are a finite amount of those given I've only ever seen four frames with these cutouts (not drillings) - one of which is mine.

The remaining three are owned by - Sam Hill, Bismo (on here) and -C- (on RM).
I don't think anyone apart from Hill has run the frame for an extended period of time in that state (and even Hill would have been off the bike pretty soon after '08 worlds due to Specialized sponsorship).

See below for further details.

Sam had the mod (holes in the gusset) when he crashed at Val di Sol in 2008. That same year Brendan didn't have the mod...

That's because the mod would have been done as a one-off - these frames were never produced in this guise. Brendan got on the team fairly late and got a fairly off-shelf frame (with or without custom geometry I don't know), whereas the cut frame was made for Hill (as a favourite to win the 08 worlds), and it had numerous other features including custom geometry and all-alloy upper-link hardware from an MKIII.

For what it's worth, I disagree with what you said too. I've run the frame in this guise for almost a year of chairlift riding in the Swiss/French Alps - including many runs of the Champery worldcup track and similar, and the cutouts have been there for over two years. It's absolutely fine. The metal in that area is very thin and IMO cutting it out isn't likely to cause any negative effects, and for the same reason actually offers very little weight saving or tangible benefit apart from looks (which I explained quite clearly to "tatems" when he originally asked the question).

In short - yes it will most likely hold up fine, no it provides no real benefit apart from looking cool (if you want to stop mud, cut out a mudguard for the swingarm) - and finally / most importantly - if you have to ask repetitive questions about this sort of thing, then you probably shouldn't even consider doing it in the first place. If you can't judge this kind of thing for yourself, you're probably also in the 5% of people who are going to bodge it up and wreck your frame. They work great as they are, just ride the thing.

 

[MARKL]

Hi Udi, I didn't realise the bike in the photo was yours - being a Sunday tragic I just remember the mod from Sam's bike that year amongst the other mods to his bike. Happy to hear it hasn't had any negative effect on your frame - I always thought the mod would make bugger all difference to the weight cause as you have said the metal is thin there.

 

[fleshbone]

Just throwing it in. Ben Reid did it too.

 

[Calvin M]

I have done the same mod as Udi not for looks or weight but to make it easy to get a shock pump onto the RC4. I was happy to try it and if the frame cracks ill wear it on the chin. But like has been said if you have worries about the mod dont do it. By the way these frames are so good.