Chinese Santa Cruz/AM831

[Bos]

Ah darn. I just want to get going on a new build! I have everything set and it's really just the frame. What size will be done first? Large?

Are any of you going to order?

[scourge]

I'm still considering it. I've never built up a frame and am a little intimidated by it. But it seems like it could be be a really fun project too. I may be too worried not to wait and see how the first frames turn out from buyers here. But it's so tempting.

[Flo7]

I would like to order a Frame if it is ready to ship.

[scourge]

Eddy told me delayed until mid February

[Jotegr]

Has anyone looked in to confirming the geometry chart? I can see it's lifted from the hightower, but with the sizing offset. It seems weird that they'd choose to produce M-XXL rather than S-XL as their chart shows. I'd strongly consider getting one of these for fun but I'd hate to end up ordering a large expecting an actual XL bike but in reality getting true to size large.

[scourge]

I'm curious about the geometry also. Almost matches right up with Santa Cruz geo but the seat tubes are much longer on the haideli frames.

[Flo7]

Eddy says that the geometry chart are correct and confirmed!

I will order a "haideli Size s" because this the same size as the Medium Santa. The other sizes the seat tube would be much longer then original! I think that would happen because haideli use inches for sizing and not "S/M/L/XL"

[scourge]

Do we pay full asking price, or do we haven't far a better price? I've never bought a frame from China.

[Jotegr]

Eddy says that the geometry chart are correct and confirmed!

I will order a "haideli Size s" because this the same size as the Medium Santa. The other sizes the seat tube would be much longer then original! I think that would happen because haideli use inches for sizing and not "S/M/L/XL"

Hmm weird. I'm still a bit skeptical, not that the L (XL) seat tube at 482 would be too long for me, but I'll probably wait until at least one of the folks on here get something. I'm not exactly in a rush.

[GuitsBoy]

I'm getting awfully curious about this frame now.  I was leaning towards a tantan fm08, but this looks pretty good  too.  Cant wait to read some hands on reviews.

[scourge]

Some Hightower reviews i read mention how Santa Cruz tuned the shock for the new low link VPP. How do you think the performance of this bike will be affected by the lack of specialized tune? Will it feel really different than an actual Hightower?

[Jotegr]

Some Hightower reviews i read mention how Santa Cruz tuned the shock for the new low link VPP. How do you think the performance of this bike will be affected by the lack of specialized tune? Will it feel really different than an actual Hightower?

Many, many bikes get a custom tune over the m/m baseline you'll usually get aftermarket. You end up with a couple options here.

1. Assume its exactly the same as the hightower and order a shock with a tune for a hightower right away (expensive and you have to buy a new shock)
2. Get whatever shock used/aftermarket and then play around with the options available to you until it's "good enough"
3. do #2 but get a custom tune done after you spend some time on the bike.

If you browse the SC hightower thread on MTBR many of them aren't happy with the stock tune anyway.

[RDY]

Could go for a coil shock instead, in which case dialling it in shouldn't be too much of an effort.

[Jotegr]

Could go for a coil shock instead, in which case dialling it in shouldn't be too much of an effort.

Coil shocks have the same options for tuning that air shocks do, minus volume spacers. I've had coil shocks re-valved for my needs.


Moreover I think you'd have a heck of a time fitting a coil in there from the looks of that first picture.

[scourge]

Do we pay full asking price, or do we haven't far a better price? I've never bought a frame from China.

Oops. That was supposed to be "do we haggle for a better price?" Must have auto-corrected.