Figured I’d do a quick longer term review since you tend to hear about the builds and then nothing else incase anyone is interested.
Bikes at just under 3k now, at start of decent weather for me so it had a fairly busy year 1 of life.
Just done the full service, original bearings in the frame were alittle disappointing as despite pretty much just decent weather and cleaning etc one had failed completely, so abit of a pain to get out, others were a mixed bag some perfect others fairly close to scrap. Only 6 bearings so I upgraded to a good spec. The bearing that failed made a mess of the inside face of the bolt but really pleased with lightcarbon (Jimlee) who has shipped out a replacement so can’t argue with that. People worry about the internal headset routing but service wasn’t much of an issue as you can move the slack to where you need it, more fiddly and annoying for a bike shop I’m sure, but at home just takes an extra bit of time/effort still worth it in my opinion for looks/neatness.
Light carbon wheels have been great, sadly I had to replace a rear rim last year due to two unfortunately placed rocks, one cut the sidewall and the other smacked the rim about a meter later when tyre had deflated and I hadn’t had chance to stop. Again lightcarbon,Jimlee and my local bike shop bailed me out as it happened two weeks before a race and I didnt have a spare wheel, new rim delivered and built up on old hub. LBS builds a lot of wheels and was impressed with the carbon rim and how the original was tensioned etc, rim damage was fairly minimal in the grand scheme but risk you can with carbon wheels, metal rim would be scrap too unless you ran with a tube.
Nothing to do with the frame but officially gave up on the mezcals this year went through 5 tyres last years due to tiny nicks on where the bead meets sidewall. Some gone decent mileage last one I managed about 200km. Really like how they ride but no joy, and terrible with the inserts in as the insert seems to rub the inside of the tyre so tubeless repair with sealant just doesn’t work. Switched back to conti race kings.
Only other change was some new lighter pedals and XCADEY crank power meter, so weight about the same.
Hopefully planning to build up another bike likely another lightcarbon, either upgrade the existing frame components and build onto hard tail/gravely build so I can upgrade the 918 or build up another 918 or 980 with slightly different spec.
