IP-057 Project has begun (Completed Pics on Page 4)

[325racer]

Completed Build, with pump, tool kit, bottle cage, and crank boots picked up today.  Hate to add that weight, but it's better to have it than not.











Yes the wood graining is done by hand!  I have no idea how he does it.

[325racer]

Got out for two rides this weekend.  Saturday was fairly social ride but covered 11.38 miles and 1143 feet of climbing.  Sunday was a little longer, a little faster and not as much climbing, 13.39 miles with 610 feet of climbing.

First impressions of course are Wow, this thing is light, 20lbs by bathroom scale.  Despite being so light it feels good on the trail, solid and planted, no weird vibrations, nice and smooth.  And FAST, oh so fast, coming from my Santa Cruz Tallboy LT, which is 32lbs and 5.5" of travel.  The light wheels and stiff frame accelerate so well.  The other thing I noticed, which is more of  preference is how odd regular Round grips feel weird (I've been using Ergons for a couple years now.) just odd without the palm support.  I joked that the suspension didn't really absorb the small bumps very well, by that I really mean that's where I felt the rigidness the most.  On larger stuff it wasn't quite as bad because I was out of the saddle soaking up the bumps with arms and legs more.  On Saturday we didn't really ride anything super technical as far as downhill, mostly just flowy fun stuff where things weren't that bad, except for a few stretches of trail that got a little rough, but again, being out of saddle the arms and legs do a pretty good job sucking up the big stuff.  During Sundays ride it was noted by someone I ride with often that he could tell I was slower on the downhill, where I would normally go straight through on the Santa Cruz, I was starting to look for the smoothest line and be a little slower, but as soon as the trail went up, I just exploded up the climbs.  This I had noticed on Saturday that anytime we hit a climb, I would zip past everyone, except the one guy in way better shape than me.

Overall Saturdays ride was great, with lots of comments about the bike, one guy took it for a spin around the meetup area, and liked how it felt.  Sundays ride was a little more adventurous as I got a puncture on the front tire that the Orange Seal just wouldn't seal up.  The puncture was from a rock strike, just left of the center tread.  While sealant was pissing out, it just wouldn't fill the puncture.  Fortunately the other guy with a 29er had a spare tube, as I hadn't put one in the saddle bag yet.  I attribute the puncture to being a little to heavy on the front end on a fast section with a sharp rock I could have avoided.  The question is, would another tire or tube prevented it???  Not sure.  I think the issue was to much weight on the front, not enough give without a suspension fork and the rock just pierced the casing.

Oh, and after all this, on the drive home, I literally almost lost the bike.  I have one of the bike racks that holds with wheels with straps and a clamp on the top tube.  Well at about 80mph the clamp slipped off, the bike fell down and was only held on by the straps.  God talk about a heart attack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was able to pull over safely, stand it up and reattach.  I attribute the slip to having a towel to protect the paint and not tightening enough for fear of damaging the carbon.

Anyway, here are some photos from Saturdays ride.

[Vipassana]

Might I strongily suggest some protective vinyl in key areas to protect from damage?  I used some 8mil stuff from Amazon that worked very well and is totally transparent. It saved my paint tremendously this weekend. My crank arms too.  It's worth the 25 bucks and a few hours install.  On my frame the XX1/X01 cassette small sprocket puts the chain less than 2mm from the frame. Too close for comfort!  Especially with that work of art paint job you have.

My tape has sustained damage in a couple of locations, but the paint under is still perfect.  It's easily removable and replaceable as need be.

[Carbon_Dude]

In my experience the Schwalbe tires do no hold up to much abuse, they are thin and light but not super strong, and if you are running pressures below 28psi and you are hitting sharp rocks, you are almost sure to have a flat.  You probably don't want to replace the tire after just one ride so I would suggest increasing your tire pressures.

[tasty.dirt74]

Really nice custom paint job. Its sure would be a fast bike !

[325racer]

Been getting some riding in lately, not as much as Id like but still a fair it.   Got some day rides and a night ride in. I like how she rides.  Even with full rigid the setup is fairly comfortable.  I'm running the IPlay 700mm rise bars and a Loaded Precision Xlite 90mm stem.  I'm thinking I might try a 70mm stem for an even more "relaxed" cockpit.

She climbs extremely easily as expected, the Thunder Burt on the back is great, tons of traction on all types of SoCal dirt.  Well, mostly hard pack and some loose soil.  Only place it gets interesting is downhill bumpy braking, you have to modulate alot compared to a full squish bike.

It's very weird getting on my Tallboy LT after this.  Its at least 12+ lbs heavier, so squishy.  It felt like I had a flat tire when I first got on, I can feel the wasted energy when climbing.  Gearing is different too, being a 3x10, vs 1x11.   I certainly feel like I have way more gears than I need with the 3x.   On the 1x, I find that I'm sometimes surprised to find myself in the middle of the cassette when I thought I was near the big end.  Other times I'm surprised to find that I'm almost out of gears when I still thought there were more.  I'm liking the grip shift, no issues so far, very happy with that choice.

On a side not, it gets tons of attention, leading to some long conversations at trail crossroads.  The couple people that have got on it are amazed by the weight, ride quality and speed! 

[MTNRCKT]

It's very weird getting on my Tallboy LT after this.  Its at least 12+ lbs heavier, so squishy.  It felt like I had a flat tire when I first got on, I can feel the wasted energy when climbing.

Awesome looking bike, man!

I know it's one of those questions that's hard to answer bc the bikes are soooo different and specialize in different riding conditions.. BUT.. If you could have only one.. Which would it be?

[Carbon_Dude]

Been getting some riding in lately, not as much as Id like but still a fair it.   Got some day rides and a night ride in. I like how she rides.  Even with full rigid the setup is fairly comfortable.  I'm running the IPlay 700mm rise bars and a Loaded Precision Xlite 90mm stem.  I'm thinking I might try a 70mm stem for an even more "relaxed" cockpit.

She climbs extremely easily as expected, the Thunder Burt on the back is great, tons of traction on all types of SoCal dirt.  Well, mostly hard pack and some loose soil.  Only place it gets interesting is downhill bumpy braking, you have to modulate alot compared to a full squish bike.

It's very weird getting on my Tallboy LT after this.  Its at least 12+ lbs heavier, so squishy.  It felt like I had a flat tire when I first got on, I can feel the wasted energy when climbing.  Gearing is different too, being a 3x10, vs 1x11.   I certainly feel like I have way more gears than I need with the 3x.   On the 1x, I find that I'm sometimes surprised to find myself in the middle of the cassette when I thought I was near the big end.  Other times I'm surprised to find that I'm almost out of gears when I still thought there were more.  I'm liking the grip shift, no issues so far, very happy with that choice.

On a side not, it gets tons of attention, leading to some long conversations at trail crossroads.  The couple people that have got on it are amazed by the weight, ride quality and speed!

My experience with my IP-057 has been very similar, particularly when you talk about the 1x11 gears.  I never feel as though I need more than the 42T cog on climbs, however, it would be nice to have a bit more top end gearing for more speed on the flat sections.  I suppose I could change up to a 34T chain ring.  The light weight is nice and no name on the down tube almost always sparks up a conversation at the junctions or parking lot.

[325racer]

It's very weird getting on my Tallboy LT after this.  Its at least 12+ lbs heavier, so squishy.  It felt like I had a flat tire when I first got on, I can feel the wasted energy when climbing.

Awesome looking bike, man!

I know it's one of those questions that's hard to answer bc the bikes are soooo different and specialize in different riding conditions.. BUT.. If you could have only one.. Which would it be?

Tough question.  If I only had one, which would I have??   I think it would depend on many things.  I look at them kinda like tools, you need the right one for the job at hand.

Where I live and ride most, I could probably get away with the hard tail for 90% of the riding I do.  It wouldn't be a full rigid, I'd probably run a 120mm front fork if it was my only bike.   On the flip side the there are enough trails locally that are "downhillish" that the Tallboy LT is nice to bomb the descents.   I just wish it was lighter.

For longer rides its interesting, with the rigid, my legs and fitness are still really good, but my arms and back start getting tired from lack of suspension, while on the LT, my legs and fitness feel it, while arms and back are still good.


So at the end of the day if I only had one bike it would be the following for following reasons.  Where I live now, I'd have a lighter shorter travel full squish bike, ie. CARBON Chiner Full Suspension.  If I raced all the time or lived someplace a little flatter I'd have the rigid, most likely with a suspension fork.  If I lived in the mountains with more downhill/enduroy trails, I'd have the Tallboy LT, but probably the Carbon version with some carbon wheels to save some weight.

So thats my best answer for if I only had one which would it be.

[325racer]

I've put some mileage on this bike now, not huge numbers, probably a couple hundred miles, including several night rides and a couple races at night.

So far everything is holding together fine, I recently thought I had a crack starting on the fork, but it appears to just be a scratch.  I was cleaning it and didn't notice a metal shaving in the microfiber towel until the first swipe, but it's only 1 small scratch on the front of the fork.

Whenever I come across new people they always stop to check it out and ask questions, even the guys from a new local bike shop who were all riding similarly equiped Specialized, they even took a few photos to post.

I do think I need to true the wheels, but I started to one night and the spokes started to rotate with the nipple, so I stopped there until I felt more ambitious.

As far as riding, this thing is so fast up hills, never feels like I need more gear than the 32/42, I have run out of energy before I ran out of gear.  Places I've stopped, even if I had a smaller gear I wouldn't have gone any further.  Going downhill, sometimes gets interesting, I did a ride recently and followed a guy on a full suspension bike down a pretty gnarly section, I was quite a bit slower, but still followed down.  It was mainly a poor call because there was a smoother line, but required commitment at the start as the lines were seperated by boulders or shrubbery (don't recall).  The only on trail issue I've had with the bike happened a little after this on another section of rocky downhill.  The bar clamp slipped causing the bar to rotate downwards, nothing broke, and I actually found a better bar position after this, so no harm no foul.

Couple things I've added have been titanium bolts pretty much everyplace except the seat clamp hardware.

Rotor bolts, caliper bolts, brake lever clamp, stem bolts, aluminum bottle cage bolts, uber light stem cap/bolt.

All told I think I spent about $70 on hardware and saved about 60 grams.

Here's a couple pics of those parts.

Old Stem cap


New Cap


Brake Pad locator pins


I was suprised at how light the new ones were

[Arraider]

OMG that paint job is inanely beautiful.... great bike you got there

[brmeyer135]

So, have you weighed it lately?
Who makes the stem cap and bolt or where did you get it?  Or your light parts in general?

[325racer]

Haven't done a real weight lately, but it was 21 with saddlebag, pump, etc.  Saddlebag alone was about a pound, so bike alone weight is somewhere in the 19.5-20lb range.    Overall I was surprised by that, but a good bit of it is the wheels.  If you go back through my thread you'll see the wheel set was about 1800+ grams, but these are 32 hole 35mm wheels that should be quite robust.  The frame was also over 1300g, compared to the near 1000g of the 256 frame.

As far as hardware source, all of this Ti stuff came from Torontocycles.com, he has a ton of stuff, with plenty of options.

[Carbon_Dude]

19.5-20 lbs sound right for an IP-057 with XX1 and a decent wheelset.  That's similar to the weight of mine and I'm sure I could shave off another pound if I tried.

[brmeyer135]

But CD, he has a carbon fork, that is nearly 1000g differnce to air fork.
Thanks otherwise, I have used Toronoto myself.