Got my frame this morning and built up my bike completely! Was too eager so I called the post office and told them to hold it rather than deliver it and went to pick it up
The frame did not disappoint. It is beautiful! I'm super stoked on the original design, split seat tube, linkage tucked in between the seat tube, and the well-thought-out shock mount cavity on the downtube.
My 20.5" frame (heavily painted) weighed 2580g, the axle weighed a respectable 50g.
I built it up completely this afternoon and it stands at 22.3lbs (10.1kg) trailside weight. I still have to bleed the rear brake and put in a longer shifter cable. I went with Fox Float 34 SC 120mm travel and a 165*40mm shock.
Installing the shock was tricky. Light Carbon provided some additional machined steel spacers to put on either side of the shock (not the trunnion side). I bought the 8mm x 22.19mm kit for the shock, I might recommend going a tad narrower (maybe the 8mm x 21.8mm version). My spacer setup barely fit inside the linkage, as in I had to give it a few taps with the rubber mallet to get it lined up with the bolt holes. I'll post some pics of this later so it's clear.
I LOVE the threaded bottom bracket. BSA bottom brackets are the best.
While the paint quality does not disappoint, the painter was a bit rough on the lines. Rather than following the contour of the frame lines, the painter just took straight lines making it look a bit abrupt in places. Yes, my powerpoint rendition of the paint job was not 5-star, but painters at TanTan and Pro-Mance have done much better with these images. LightCarbon also made no bother to check my images, create a custom rendition in their paint program of choice, and send it back to me for approval--they just sent it straight to the painter. But... the orange does match my Fox fork almost perfectly!
Internal routing was quite nicely done, but the ports were a bit interesting design, hard to guide the brake cable through the headtube port.
There will be pics and a first ride review next week
I may just post on MTBR, but I'll post the link here too.
The seatpost tube is very thick, which is reassuring in a way but also meant I couldn't get my 31.6mm carbon clamp around the tube. It also wasn't too tight, an issue I have had with other frames from other vendors, the seatpost slid comfortably right into the tube and the alloy clamp held it tightly.
By the way, this is a big bike. The long reach is immediately noticeable, I'm curious how it will work for my 6'2" self out on the trail.
