Why don't you just slide your controls in board a little and use open ended grips so you can slide them in as well?  Keep moving them in, 10 mm at a time until you think youve gone too far.

That IS a good idea. But I was hoping to avoid having extra bar length hanging out past the grips while testing, as I don't expect to have a good feel for width after a short ride.

I've had my 100mm XC build for just over 6 years now. I'm now in the market for a longer travel bike and am considering another full build, but I haven't seen much out there.

Thank you for the kind words.  Go right ahead and copy it.  You could also consider inverting the B&W areas for something similar but different.

I'd have to keep it the same since I also have a white fork and black shock.

What I'd really like to do with mine is leave my current decal layout on the bike, scuff everything around it, spray it white, then peel off the decals so they will come through in carbon. Then a nice clear coat over everything.
Maybe next time I do a complete tear down I'll look into that.

Nice bike, Steve! And nice decals. How did you make the 'Specialized graphics' ? Is there a font-type available ?

And a nice blog you have. When I'm having more time, I'm going to read you blog completely.

Thanks! It's been a blast building it and riding it, although it's taken a toll on me. Several hard crashes and one broken collarbone. 

As for the graphics, I found a font that was VERY close to the one Specialized uses. I then took measurements of the areas I wanted graphics and sent those measurements, along with frame pictures laying out the areas where the graphics would go, some examples from Specialized frames, and the font to a vinyl graphics guy and he made them. I think they were around $60.00 including the graphics for the rims.

Thank you for the comment on the blog. I'm WAY behind on updates. I'm stuck on day 5 of the 7 day trip. It was a brutal day and I just haven't had time to write about it. And I've had so many more things happen since that trip ended, and so many changes to the bike as well.
I should start on it now before the weather breaks and I'm out riding again. 

Man, this place has BLOWN UP since last time I was on here! Awesome!

Here's some pictures of my Flyxii FR-210 build. I've got hundreds of pictures from the various stages but I'll only put a couple here.

This is right after it's first ride. I was still waiting on some parts to arrive, but I had some spares on to get me by.


I originally built the bike for a 7 day trip from Durango, CO to Moab, UT.
This is the bike all loaded up on day 1. It weight a whopping 40lbs at this point!


Day 6 of the ride. Worst day of them all.


After the Colorado trip, I made a bunch of changes. One cosmetic change was having decals made up that matched the Specialized graphics but using my name. I put them on while I was swapping out all of the pivot bearings and most of them are black so you can barely see them. But it's caused a few confused looks on the trails.




And this winter I made even more changes. 1x10 conversion and new shock. I don't have any finished product pictures yet.

Quote from: hidperf on April 26, 2014, 06:18:25 PM

I was wondering where the traffic was coming from all of the sudden. Great forum you got going here.

Thanks for the referral. I'm going to have plenty of time over the next 6 weeks to update the blog since I'm out of commission for a while after a nasty spill on my 29er 2 weeks ago. Broken collarbone
Day 6 update should be a big one, it was the worst day of the 7 day trip.

Hey, no problem hidperf..

Would it be possible to get a link back to chinertown somehow? Nothing major, but a brief mention in one of your articles and a link to chinertown.com would be sweet, and help the forum get more traffic from the search engines.

Also, I have pretty extensive experience with wordpress and blogging, in general, if you have any questions or just want to chat. I'll be setting up an off topic board here soon, so feel free. Just an offer, it's my other passion/hobby and I could talk about it all day. And by all means, feel free to ignore the request. Just glad to have you here at Chinertown! 

For sure. I'll make sure I mention you in my next update.

I appreciate the offer on the site. I'm just doing it for fun but I'm always looking for new ideas or recommendations.