Mine is painted, so I have to say Paint!  I really like UD matte as well.

Oh noes!  Will dogs be able to identify these frames and warn us?   

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.

Enter


 

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.

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.

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.