Red Chiner: IP-057, Rockshox SID, XT

[Patrick C.]

Thanks to everyone who has shared info on here, I now have my own Chiner.  The TL:DR version is it's a Chiner with XT, painted red.  A little under $2500 total, weighs about 23.5 pounds with pedals and with Stan's in the tires.

Now for the long version-
I was finally able to take it for a real ride this evening.  I had already rolled around in the basement and on the roads around my house Friday and Saturday to make sure everything was working.  The afternoon thunderstorms held off, so I took a quick spin just before dark.






Here's a quick overview on the major bits and what they cost me.  Everything is new except the seat.

Frame- IP-057, 17.5", BSA, quick release dropouts; painted Pantone 185C red, $572 with paint, headset, and shipping
Fork- RockShox SID RLT 100 mm, $455 at Jenson
Group, including brakes- XT (except SLX front der.) with centerlock 160 mm IceTec rotors, $667 from Merlin Cycles (in the UK)
Wheels- Shimano MT75 XT wheelset, $405 also from Merlin
Tires- Continental X-King Protection folding, $49 each from REI
Easton EC90 SL riser bar, $112 REI
Easton EC70 seat post, $55 from Jenson
Easton EA50 stem, 75 mm, $40 from Jenson
Crankbrothers Candy pedals, $49 from REI
Serfas Silicone grips, $4 from Jenson
Saddle is an E3 Form- old road bike saddle from Performance Bike, was ~$45 years ago

For the group, I chose a 2 x 10 with 24/38 up front and 11-36 in the rear-  I prefer spinning rather than mashing.  I may convert it to a 1x10, but I'm going to ride it for a while first.  Ordering from Merlin was very easy.  Their groupset ordering page lets you pick all the options, so you can customize the group.  Shipping time was a bit longer than ordering from somewhere in the states, but unless you need it overnight it's worth it.  This was the first order I placed, so I got it before the frame came.


Here's all the bits put together, waiting for a ride-



See if you can guess my other hobbies from the junk in the background


Here it is, a week and a half earlier-









I posted a bit about it in the XMI thread.  Overall I'm very satisfied with XMI Play.  They aren't perfect, but they are very good.  Everything was as I ordered it, and it took 17 days from order to delivery for a custom painted frame.  I chose a simple, solid color paint job, but a two tone or whatever would probably have taken the same time.  The frame was packed well, with a plastic dropout protector and a rubber boot on the derailer hanger. 

The frame did have overspray of the paint, which caused some assembly problems and had to be cleaned out.  There was quite a bit in the headset cups and in the rear brake mount- enough that the bearings wouldn't fit easily until I cleaned it out with a felt polishing tool on a Dremel.  For the rear brake mount, I basically used the bolts to chase the threads and clean out the paint.

About 75% complete here-  I got really concerned, because the first time I stood over it the top tube made contact.  Not a lot of contact, but my first thought was 'oh ****'.  I was barefoot on carpet, but I still worried that I got too large of a frame.  I'm 5'10" with normal proportions and the ETT of 600 mm is pretty much right on for me, but the stand over is tight.  With bike shoes on I have clearance, but I would like a little more.



The tires are 'tubeless ready', and I found that they held air fine with no sealant.  Getting them on with no tools wasn't too hard- the wheels came with tags that showed 'no tire levers', so I'm trying to avoid prying on them.   

Setting the beads would have been impossible without a compressor- I tried with my little 2 gallon tank, and even that would not flow enough air to seat them.  Fortunately my father in law has a large shop compressor (50 gallon tank) and he lets me use his tools.  One popped on pretty easy, but the second took a ton of air and a strap wrapped around the outer edge of the tire to get it to catch and set the bead.   

One had a slow leak- over a week it dropped from 30 psi to around 15, but the other one held air as well as any tube I've used.   After two weeks I added some Stan's for puncture protection-  I still haven't bought any 29er tubes, but will get one to stash in the Camelback.

I had a problem with the chainline, following the Shimano instructions.  The instructions call for 1 spacer on the drive side, but that gave me a terrible chainline for the big ring.  It would barely go into the big-big combination, and the chain made a lot of noise when I turned the cranks.  I pulled the cranks and put the spacer on the non-drive side, but then the splines on that side didn't make it all the way to the outer edge of the crank arm (about 2.5 mm short ).  I pulled them again and put it together with no spacers, and that seemed to give the best results. 

With 1 Spacer on drive side-


No spacers-



Assembly went pretty easy for the most part- I still have a couple of things to do, like deciding how low to cut the steer tube, shortening the front brake line, and putting some frame protectors on the chainstays and on the headtube where the brake lines and shifter housings rub.  The clutch rear derailer seems to keep the chain fairly tight, but I still heard some slapping when I had it in the little ring up front.


After the first real ride I have a few things to tune up-
- The derailers worked well, but I'm still getting a little noise in some combinations. 
- I need to shorten the front brake line.  It has a lot of slack, and chatters against the head tube.
- Something caused the front brake to shudder/judder once.  It only happened once, but that enough to worry me.  Any tips on what to look for here?


The last thing is to find/draw a dragon for the down tube.  Along the lines of Carbon Dude's suggestion, I'm thinking gold with green highlights.  My idea is something like a parade dragon, with the head near the head tube (or course!) and the body zig-zagging down toward the cranks.  This is similar to what I'm picturing for the dragon, but without the people-





I've only got one real ride on it, but so far I love it.  My old bike is a 2004 Fisher aluminum hardtail that weighs about 30 pounds.  The Chiner feels like I'm floating above the trail compared to my old 26er.  It feels faster, but that could just be the new bike factor.   I get a bit of the 'monster truck' feeling, easily rolling over roots and rocks that were a little more jarring on the 26er.  The position is very relaxed as I have it now- the stem really high now, so that contributes a bit of a cruiser-like feel.  It still felt nimble going through the trees, and I never felt like it was plowing ahead or I couldn't steer it where I wanted.  I'm not a racer or a very aggressive rider so others may feel that it's not responsive enough, but for me it is just fine. 

I wish I could say it made everything easy, but I still spun out at the top of this climb, in the same spot that always gave me trouble on the 26er.  Oh well, got to try again.


 

[MTB2223]

Hi Patrick,

I really like the color, like I said before. Very nice combination.

Did you consider to buy a white fork ?
And why didn't you choose for 12x142 and 15x100?

I like the idea of the dragon. But green and red, is that a good combination ?

I wish I could say it made everything easy, but I still spun out at the top of this climb, in the same spot that always gave me trouble on the 26er.  Oh well, got to try again.

Maybe you need to stay seated and bend your arms more. It gives more pressure on your rear wheel and more grip. If you're going to stand, the wheels slips sooner.

Have a lot of fun with your bike and ride safely.

[Carbon_Dude]

Hi Patrick, nice write up on your Chiner!  Thanks for posting.

I like the red paint, the color works nicely and with the dragon graphic you will have a really cool looking frame.

As for the brake noise, try cleaning the rotors with some alcohol, it's possible you got a little something on them when you were building the bike.

As for shortening the brake lines, check out the youtube videos on how to shorten brake lines w/o needing to bleed the brakes.  Pretty easy to do.

Back wheel slippage can be helped by doing two things, lowering air pressure and shifting your weight back like MTB2223 said, you can either move to a seated position or just straighten your arms a bit to move your weight back.

Where are you located?

You will love the bike even more when you get some more rides on it!

[MTB2223]

As for the brake noise, try cleaning the rotors with some alcohol, it's possible you got a little something on them when you were building the bike.

Found this one last month:
http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Tech-Tuesday-Silence-That-Squeaky-Disc-Brake-2011.html

[Carbon_Dude]

I would not go to all that trouble just yet.  Everything is new so you should not need to do anything that drastic yet.

First clean your rotors with alcohol, then make sure you bed the pads correctly by doing some good, long stops on the street from say 20-0 mph, about 5-6 times.  This will transfer pad material evenly to the rotor.

Your braking forces should increase as you make more hard stops.  Also, your pads need to wear in and conform to your rotor.  I assume you have aligned the brake calipers correctly?  I'm sure you did.

Secondly, your brakes and rotors are Shimano XT, they don't cause near the number of problems as Avid brakes so you are already ahead of the game there.

[Sitar_Ned]

Great write-up, Patrick.. Thanks.

I can see in these pics now that the frame is very much red. Looks great. I gotta agree with mtb2223 on this one, I'd be careful adding green decals to that. Not knocking your vision man, lol.. Just saying it will be hard to avoid the Christmas look with red, gold, and green, and it's already going to be pretty difficult to get the dragon graphic like you want it. That said.. it's your bike and if you want an X-mas dragon themed chiner then I say go with it!    Honestly, I might consider some black and white graphics to match your rims.

Those tires are the absolute best looking tires imo. Whatever pattern or tread they have on the sidewalls just looks bad ass. Nice choice. Is that what you used on your Fisher, too? Your tires, riding style, tire pressure are the things you want to analyze and adjust when dialing in how much traction your bike gets, in regards to you spinning out at the top of climbs.

[Carbon_Dude]

The Conti X-King tires are also another one of my favorites.

[Patrick C.]

I can add a Santa hat to the dragon too

It would be mostly gold, just with some green highlights. 

[Patrick C.]

I went with the QRs mainly because I found the wheels and fork in QR for less, and I'm not sure that I'd notice much extra stiffness there.  Some folks swear by it, but in my limited research I haven't seen much (if any) real data.  If I had found better prices on comparable thru axle parts, I would have gone that way.  I not gonna be jumping any gaps or flying off a cliff, so the QRs should be fine for how I ride.

I did look at the white Manitou like Sitar Ned has, but could only find it in 80 mm and for well over $400 so I went with the 100 mm SID.

On the 26er I have IRC Mythos tires (2.0? can't remember) with tubes, running 40 psi.  I had planned to convert to tubeless but never did.  The  bigger tires definitely help.  The sidewall pattern is the "Protection" layer, supposed to make it more durable.

For that climb I was seated as much as possible- I tend to stay seated and spin.  It's likely that I stood and shifted forward as the front wheel went up to the next step, and I gave it a pedal stroke at the wrong time.  Most likely I just need to get used to how the bike handles.  When I first got the Fisher, I was always doing wheelies on steep uphills because the seat is further back than I was used to.

[Patrick C.]

Carbon Dude, I'm on the other side of Atlanta from you, in Douglasville.  The trail pictures are from Clinton Nature Preserve, 30 miles from downtown.

[Carbon_Dude]

I thought that looked like Georgia granite in your pictures .  We should plan on doing a ride sometime, maybe find a trail that is in between where each of us live.

[Patrick C.]

Yeah, Clinton has a good bit of exposed granite.  Not as much as Conyers, but a good bit. 

I think halfway between us is all concrete- maybe Sope Creek?  I've never ridden Chicopee- sounds like that would be worth the drive for me.

[Carbon_Dude]

Hi Patrick, sent you a PM so we can discuss getting together for a ride sometime.

Back on topic, I remember when my Chiner was new and looked so nice and shiny!

[manmythlegend]

Very nice.
Green can work but it has to be very dark otherwise be prepared to say hohoho on Prancer on Blitzen as you ride.
Gold is smarter pick but if you try to add details like scales it may not come out right. Some dark green inside the gold dragon would work best. Im looking at it from a smartphone so maybe ill feel differently on a bigger screen.
I actually had a PSD of  a dragon wrapping around the rear bottom tube up to seat post but went with something else instead. It definitely looked unique in pictures so go for it. Are you going to take images from internet or edit yourself ?

[Patrick C.]

My plan is for it to be mostly gold, with green and red to outline the scales and other bits.  I may ask my wife or a friend draw it up- so far I can't find images that have what I want, or close enough that I can doctor it up.  There are a lot of stock ones at vinyl sticker sites, but I haven't found one that I like yet.  Another option would be a single color outline one- there are a lot of ready-made ones from vinyl decal sellers.