SummitFever
Eats Squid
Frame - Trance X 29er Large (probably part of a run of frames made in 2015 for warranty replacement)
Rear shock - Monarch RT custom valving, normal air can, no volume spacers.
Front shock/fork - Reba 2019 120mm with RCT3 damper from RS SID and revised rebound/mid-valve shim stack (still a work in progress). 2 volume spacers.
Handlebars - Ritchey carbon flatbar 680mm wide.
Stem - Syntace 109 in 60mm, ti bolts.
Headset - Stock Giant headset
Grips - Lizard skins
Saddle - San Marco Aspide Super Leggerra Carbon
Seatpost - custom carbon post.
Front brake - XTR M9000 race brakes
Rear brake - XTR M9000 race brakes
Cranks - Cannondale Hollowgram SiSL
Chain - KMC X11SL
Pedals - Xpedo XMF08TT
Front derailleur - N/A (for the moment)
Rear derailleur - Shimano XTR M9000 medium cage
Front shifter - N/A
Rear shifter - Shimano XTR M9000 rear shifter
Cassette - Garbaruk 11-48 11 speed
Front hub - Tune King 15mm non-boost 32h
Rear hub - Tune Kong 135mm non-boost 32h
Front rim - Stans NoTubes Crest Mk3 29er 32h
Rear rim - Stans NoTubes Crest Mk3 29er 32h
Spokes - DT Swiss Revolution
Nipples - DT Swiss 12mm
Tyres - Continental X-King 2.4 Racesport front and Continental Race King 2.2 Protection rear.
Tubes - Tubeless with homemade sealant
Total weight - 10.1kg excluding saddle bag and water bottle.
My eyes, my eyes
These frames are ugly. When I first saw a Trance 29er on the trail in 2013 or thereabouts I think I threw up in my mouth a little. It was like the designer had lost their ruler and could only find a set of bezier curves to draw the thing up. It also looked like the head angle and seat tube angle got sort of mixed up along the way too. There are uglier frames out there for sure, but not by much...
Why the Trance X 29er?
I had a fairly specific list of wants before going down this path:
- 29" wheels;
- 120mm travel (or thereabouts);
- quality rear travel that doesn't rely on shock valving to try to correct BS suspension designs;
- ability to use lots of my existing trick stuff (Tune hubs, seatposts, fork internals, cranks etc);
- lightweight;
- good warranty.
When a deal on the frame came up it ticked alot of the right boxes. My second choice was an Intense Primer (120mm trail version) but they were taking forever to release it as frame only.
Budget
I wanted to go sub 10kg for sub $3000 but didn't manage to achieve either of those things. The 1x experiment blew the budget by about $400 as I tried various cassettes and then I ended up having to buy an 11 speed rear derailleur (the 10 speed I'd built did not clear the 48t on the Garbaruk cassette). Lighter tyres will easily get it sub 10kg but I couldn't see myself ever riding it with less tyre.
Also, there were several things that I wasn't prepared to go second hand on. The frame, fork, shock and handlebars needed to be new so some $$$ were required.
How's it ride?
It's a lot fun to ride. The extra rear travel compared to my Anthem X 26er makes for a bit more fun on the downs and combined with the bigger wheels makes things a little more forgiving. I don't notice much difference in handling compared to the Anthem X in the slow stuff but for high speed changes in direction the extra inertia in the wheels and longer wheelbase (perhaps longer seatstays) require a bit more rider input. None of this is noticeable in tight, twisty techo singletrack.
Suspension tweaking
I'm getting close to having the suspension dialed. This began with revalving a new 2018 Monarch RT to suit the maestro suspension. I've modified the compression, rebound and threshold valving. Dropping the threshold to the barest minimum that will prevent pedal induced bob has also allowed me to drop the IFP pressure. Keeping this as low as practicable is key to getting the best suspension performance out of the little Monarchs.
The fork is still a work in progress. Maybe it needs more kms to break in, but it's no where near as plush as I was able to get my 26" 120mm SIDs and I'm running the identically valved comp damper and very similar rebound valving. I think the fork needs more negative air spring volume. Bloody solo air...
Rear shock - Monarch RT custom valving, normal air can, no volume spacers.
Front shock/fork - Reba 2019 120mm with RCT3 damper from RS SID and revised rebound/mid-valve shim stack (still a work in progress). 2 volume spacers.
Handlebars - Ritchey carbon flatbar 680mm wide.
Stem - Syntace 109 in 60mm, ti bolts.
Headset - Stock Giant headset
Grips - Lizard skins
Saddle - San Marco Aspide Super Leggerra Carbon
Seatpost - custom carbon post.
Front brake - XTR M9000 race brakes
Rear brake - XTR M9000 race brakes
Cranks - Cannondale Hollowgram SiSL
Chain - KMC X11SL
Pedals - Xpedo XMF08TT
Front derailleur - N/A (for the moment)
Rear derailleur - Shimano XTR M9000 medium cage
Front shifter - N/A
Rear shifter - Shimano XTR M9000 rear shifter
Cassette - Garbaruk 11-48 11 speed
Front hub - Tune King 15mm non-boost 32h
Rear hub - Tune Kong 135mm non-boost 32h
Front rim - Stans NoTubes Crest Mk3 29er 32h
Rear rim - Stans NoTubes Crest Mk3 29er 32h
Spokes - DT Swiss Revolution
Nipples - DT Swiss 12mm
Tyres - Continental X-King 2.4 Racesport front and Continental Race King 2.2 Protection rear.
Tubes - Tubeless with homemade sealant
Total weight - 10.1kg excluding saddle bag and water bottle.
My eyes, my eyes
These frames are ugly. When I first saw a Trance 29er on the trail in 2013 or thereabouts I think I threw up in my mouth a little. It was like the designer had lost their ruler and could only find a set of bezier curves to draw the thing up. It also looked like the head angle and seat tube angle got sort of mixed up along the way too. There are uglier frames out there for sure, but not by much...
Why the Trance X 29er?
I had a fairly specific list of wants before going down this path:
- 29" wheels;
- 120mm travel (or thereabouts);
- quality rear travel that doesn't rely on shock valving to try to correct BS suspension designs;
- ability to use lots of my existing trick stuff (Tune hubs, seatposts, fork internals, cranks etc);
- lightweight;
- good warranty.
When a deal on the frame came up it ticked alot of the right boxes. My second choice was an Intense Primer (120mm trail version) but they were taking forever to release it as frame only.
Budget
I wanted to go sub 10kg for sub $3000 but didn't manage to achieve either of those things. The 1x experiment blew the budget by about $400 as I tried various cassettes and then I ended up having to buy an 11 speed rear derailleur (the 10 speed I'd built did not clear the 48t on the Garbaruk cassette). Lighter tyres will easily get it sub 10kg but I couldn't see myself ever riding it with less tyre.
Also, there were several things that I wasn't prepared to go second hand on. The frame, fork, shock and handlebars needed to be new so some $$$ were required.
How's it ride?
It's a lot fun to ride. The extra rear travel compared to my Anthem X 26er makes for a bit more fun on the downs and combined with the bigger wheels makes things a little more forgiving. I don't notice much difference in handling compared to the Anthem X in the slow stuff but for high speed changes in direction the extra inertia in the wheels and longer wheelbase (perhaps longer seatstays) require a bit more rider input. None of this is noticeable in tight, twisty techo singletrack.
Suspension tweaking
I'm getting close to having the suspension dialed. This began with revalving a new 2018 Monarch RT to suit the maestro suspension. I've modified the compression, rebound and threshold valving. Dropping the threshold to the barest minimum that will prevent pedal induced bob has also allowed me to drop the IFP pressure. Keeping this as low as practicable is key to getting the best suspension performance out of the little Monarchs.
The fork is still a work in progress. Maybe it needs more kms to break in, but it's no where near as plush as I was able to get my 26" 120mm SIDs and I'm running the identically valved comp damper and very similar rebound valving. I think the fork needs more negative air spring volume. Bloody solo air...
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