Thank you everyone for the replies.
Would love to see you build up one of those enduro knock-offs, though! Great looking frames, imo. Guess you would be kinda the guinea pig though seeing as how i haven't seen a single build with one, yet.
I would love to do that but I hate being the guinea pig. It just doesn't always end up well for the rodent. Honestly if I could get one from a company that is known to put out quality frames and communicate with its customers like it sounds like Iplay does I would probably do it.
The IP-036 has about 110mm of travel as it's meant to be a cross country oriented FS frame. If you are looking to go 130mm of travel, you must be hitting some rough trails with lots of downhill action. I'd suggest something like a Carbonal Titan from www.carbonality.com, that seems to be more Trail/Enduro oriented. A little more heavy duty and a little more rear travel.
My riding is mostly trail with some small (~3'
) drops and some downhill sections though has a lot of single track and XC riding as well. A couple places have several thousand feet of climb over many miles of uphill before getting to enjoy a rooty fast downhill. I have done some chair lift mountain riding as well. Basically standard Western Washington foothills trail riding. I am really looking for a "do it all" bike which for me has at least 120mm of travel. That said, right now I am "doing it all" with a 100mm HT 29er that I am beating to hell so take that with a grain of salt. I was just curious if anyone had tried to go with a longer fork, if anyone was running a 120mm travel fork on the IP-036?
I read a comment that someone had a bad experience with the quality of the Carbonality Titan on here (I'll try and find the post) which put me off of it. Is there a thread on someone building one up and giving ride impressions?
We only want the smartest members at Chinertown... Congrats on passing the test! But seriously, I don't think it tells you specifically which question you got wrong, so that took a bit of problem solving to figure that out.
Anyways.. Fixed. Thanks for letting us know!
Wonder how many members we've lost this year so far?!?
I just had to want it a little more.
It can be confusing. A lot of companies are trying to apply a few stickers to make the frame look more "branded" or "legit" and charge a few more bucks for them. Same frame. Might as well go with Iplay. Like you said, one of the reasons they've become the go to is because of their involvement in the forums. They realize their reputation is important for future sells and therefore are unlikely to totally leave you hanging if you get a bad product or shipping issues or whatever. Don't get me wrong, you'll still have to try to get their attention sometimes, not saying it's always 5 star service, but because they understand the importance of protecting that rep on the forums, you have a level of assurance/accountability that you can't get with someone like Ican. If Ican ships you a broken (and over priced, it seems) 036 frame you can only go to them to resolve your issue. If they ignore you, don't believe you or whatever - too bad. With Iplay, if you have an issue and contact them and then still feel like you weren't treated fairly, you can come to the forums and have a voice. That's why I order from them, at least.
I can't believe none of the other sellers are smart enough to be involved in the forums. Lucky for Iplay, I guess.
The branding, their website (worked well for me) and the fact that it was available on Amazon really made me take a second and third look. Seriously, if I didn't find this forum I wouldn't have given Iplay another look and been more likely to go with ICAN or Carbonal. They gave me the best "surface" impressions.
For work I talk with counterparts in China on a daily basis. I'm a mechanical engineer for a company that manufactures in China. I actually travel to Shanghai and Wuxi City a couple times a year. I understand that having someone understand what you are saying (in english) from a technical perspective is very important and very hard to find. Iplay needs to capitalize on their ability to do so.