Firstly, all these recent posts and build have been amazing. Lots of great hard tails out there yet I rarely see any on the trails!
Warning! Long story. TL;DR I built my wife a sweet hard tail.
Here's my newest project- my wife's Ragley mmmbop.
My wife you ask? Grab a cuppa and I'll tell you the story.
Some of you may have seen my Cotic 26" BFe's on here. The second frame I had, the "2016 revised edition" was awesome- it was my pride and joy but once I got back on a dually again (2017 trance advanced) with its longer reach and wheelbase, riding the BFe felt small, even though I stepped up to a large frame.
Now to my wife. She was a fairly competent rider many years ago but had pretty much 4 years away from the bike from 2 kids, the weight gain that comes along with 2 kids and moving to self employment. Now the kids are at a better age and she lost a heap of weight- something I'm super proud of so I figured I'd sell the 26" BFe and put that money towards her own bike so she can go enjoy what I've been doing myself for so long. What a hero huh?
I started looking at sub 2k hard tails and found very, very little that I wanted to throw my money at, especially when that money was coming from a bike I enjoyed so much. The spec was usually entry level (like deore groupset and something like a Rockshox sektor fork) and the geometry was mostly too cramped and racey xc style. Great for going up but too far forward on the bike for heading downward. My wife is the same height as me so I was really critical of the next bikes geometry to make sure it had plenty of reach and a slack head angle to make it a confident bike to ride on any tricky terrain- nice and stable!
Basically I wanted A bike that I would be happy to ride and not a cheap spec compromise. The challenge was getting the bike I wanted in geometry and spec but with a strict 2K or less budget.
Plenty of good options on CRC for AM frames. Staying with my thrifty attitude this mmmbop frame is identical to the classic blue pig frame but aluminium instead of steel so I sold my soul, went to the dark side of Ali and saved a heap of cash. It's about half the price of the blue pig but has all the boxes ticked: 64 degree HA, 650mm reach, internal dropper routing and although it's not boost, it's 142x12 rear axle.
SLX 1x11 full groupset with brakes on CRC for $580 is a goddamn bargain.
Fox 160mm fork- snagged a bargain on NSW MTB trading post on Facebook and even had room in the budget to give it a full service.
Stans rims on XT hubs found by a riding buddy and fellow hard tail enthusiast, dirt cheap through his mate. Almost new and threw in rotors and tyres!
Ragley brand stem and 770mm bars
Everything you see here plus parts to service fork and taking to my LBS to do the shifter cable and trim brake lines was probably $1900. So much bang for buck!!
Personally, I've only had a quick car park spin but it feels fantastic. I have no doubts that I'll ride this thing a bit in the future but at this stage I'm happy to have built up such a wicked bike for my wife to get back into the sport. She has labelled it "Frankenbike" due to her original disapproval of having a "built up" bike over a "ready from the shop" model she was originally content with owning. Her first small ride was last weekend and the bike bug has bitten her again which is the most important thing. No concerns about going OTB and was digging the 27.5 wheels haha.
