Ripmo AF

hellmansam

hellmansam

Likes Bikes and Dirt
:D me new Ripmo AF was waiting at the shop, albeit in kit form. As I dozed off on the plane travelling home from FIFO on Friday I had delusions of having it ready to ride by COB. Got to the shop early arvo and opened the boxes, I see an X01 crankset box. Huh ? I ordered the Deore version....turns out Rowney Sports recycle the packaging. The brake set was in that box, and the rest of the bits were mostly individually wrapped in brown paper and sticky tape. It was a bit of an effort to be patient and careful not to lose any small parts as I went through the treasure hunt checking all the right bits were there.

Feeling pretty fatigued after a week of nightshifts and not sleeping that day I realised that I wasn't going to be riding it for a few days at least. At least having the bare frame would make it easy to apply some frame protection.

I was happy enough with unwrapping all the bits, and checking out the beefy DVO forks. Was a bit of a WTF moment seeing that they were covered in oil but worked out that the burp valve/s must have been pressed at some point due to the way they were packed. A teaspoon of light oil goes a long way when it escapes !

Took the frame home to stick some Altrex Skinz on for scuff protection and softening the noise of stones hitting the downtube. The local Supercheap had run out of the large packs so I'm waiting on the Mrs to get back from a Perth trip with a Click + Collect detour for me.

Initial impressions: Sexy and beefy at the same time, would have gone for a higher level of Shimano stuff if it was on offer. Rear end and linkages/pivots look stronger/stiffer than the Fuel EX I had before this.
Rims are very nicely taped, centre bead channel is quite narrow which should make for easy seating. Need a session in the truing stand as they are a bit lumpy, left to right is OK though.

Am tempted to upgrade some stuff, sell the take-off parts unused and build a wheel set with Light Bicycle rims and some nice hubs. That would delay getting to ride it though. Apart from the bars and stem, the OEM stuff feels a bit tinny.
Fork steerer is uncut, had to fit the BB and headset cups which is fine as I'd rather put it all together myself.

More pics to come.

378301
Frame - Yes
Rear shock - DVO Topaz
Front shock/fork - DVO Onyx 160 mm
Handlebars - Ibis 31.8mm
Stem - Ibis 40mm
Headset - Cane Creek Forty series
Grips - Ibis
Saddle - Ibis
Seatpost - KS Lev 170mm
Brakes - Shimano SLX levers, Zee front XT single piston rear 180/203 rotors
Cranks - Deore
Chainguide - not yet, has removable ISCG05 mount
Chain - Shimano 6100
Pedals - OneUp composite
Rear derailleur - Deore 12spd
Rear shifter - Deore 12spd
Cassette - Deore 12spd 10 - 51t
Front hub -Ibis
Rear hub - Ibis
Rims - Ibis
Spokes - black
Nipples - black
Tyres - Assegai 2.5 F, Dissector 2.4 R
Total weight - TBA
 
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hellmansam

hellmansam

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Build is well under way. Had a stressful arvo yesterday when the left BB cup galled in the frame ! It screwed in by hand up until the thread lock compound and then it got a bit tight so I grabbed a ratchet handle and wound it in a few turns, started to feel a bit too tight so went to back out and WTF FFS it’s tight AF ! noooooooooo….there was a little bit of movement in reverse, closing time for the shop so I came back to it this morning with a can of freeze spray and some penetrating lube. It wound out ok to my great relief.
I dug up a steel BB cup and made it into an emergency thread chasing die (pic to come) which cleaned the BB thread nicely. A little bit of damage to the first couple of turns in the frame which suggests it was caused by the thread lock compound, maybe too much of it. Grabbed another BB and it went in nicely.
Then got on with feeding cables and hose through the frame, pretty easy as far as internal cables go despite only having ports for in and out. Got cables and hose trimmed to length then ran out of time but not much left to do, true wheels, bleed brakes. And adjust gears. Oh and do the tyres but that should be a piece of piss 378374hi
 
ozzybmx

ozzybmx

taking a shit with my boobs out
hellmansam said:
:D me new Ripmo AF

Rear shock - DVO Topaz
Front shock/fork - DVO Onyx 160 mm
Click to expand...
Nice mate... a great choice and an honest choice as a lot of people (including myself) go big travel bikes when we only need them 10% of the time.

I am so happy with my DVO Topaz and Onyx at 160mm on my Highlander, same as your set up. Shits all over Fox Factory.

Will say that that genuine 10% is a quality 10%, unable to be replicated on a shorter travel bike.
 
hellmansam

hellmansam

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Taking damo666’s advice, I did some anti rattle stuff to the cables and hose in the down tube. Used a draft seal product from Bunnings, looks like
it’ll do the trick. With a bit of silicon spray lube it fed along the cables and through the ports fairly easily


378406378407378408.
 
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yuley95

yuley95

soft-arse Yuley is on the lifts again
hellmansam said:
Build is well under way. Had a stressful arvo yesterday when the left BB cup galled in the frame ! It screwed in by hand up until the thread lock compound and then it got a bit tight so I grabbed a ratchet handle and wound it in a few turns, started to feel a bit too tight so went to back out and WTF FFS it’s tight AF ! noooooooooo….there was a little bit of movement in reverse, closing time for the shop so I came back to it this morning with a can of freeze spray and some penetrating lube. It wound out ok to my great relief.
I dug up a steel BB cup and made it into an emergency thread chasing die (pic to come) which cleaned the BB thread nicely. A little bit of damage to the first couple of turns in the frame which suggests it was caused by the thread lock compound, maybe too much of it. Grabbed another BB and it went in nicely.
Then got on with feeding cables and hose through the frame, pretty easy as far as internal cables go despite only having ports for in and out. Got cables and hose trimmed to length then ran out of time but not much left to do, true wheels, bleed brakes. And adjust gears. Oh and do the tyres but that should be a piece of piss View attachment 378374hi
Click to expand...
I got the cold sweats just reading about the bottom bracket. I HATE that feeling of crossing the threads and having to clean it up and go again
 
hellmansam

hellmansam

Likes Bikes and Dirt
johnny said:
Does anyone else read it as Ripmo As Fuck, by way of reflex?
Click to expand...
Yep !

Finished farting around this morning, haven't had a proper ride yet, had a migraine today which was crap because the weather was great. Still need sealant in tyres before I hit the trails but they are both holding pressure 2 days later with no sealant.
Various pics
378491378492

SLX levers with Zee/XT calipers. A piece of Altrex Skinz (Supercheap Auto) for protection from heel scuff marks.
378493378498

There's something about a proper head tube badge

378495

Close fitting DVO mudguard might not last long in our gravelly environment when it's cleaning stones out of the tyre
378496

Will play around with stem height and trim steerer if necessary. Cable routing is pretty good but didn't accommodate rear brake hose the way I would like, the port on the RHS only fits one cable
378497

I haven't tried my OneUp EDC pump bracket but it looks like it may not fit here
378500
 

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