My summary with the "spider only" option + Easton EC90:

- I sanded down most oft the plastic housing to make space for the crank arm. I can easily imagine, that this clearance issue could arise with a multitude of cranks on the market, not just the Easton cranks... Actually, it's not possible to make it work perfectly. Even though the casing is now less than a mm in thickness (I even sanded a small hole, which I sealed with epoxy...), there's still collision with the crank arm.

- Also, as another forum member already stated, there's an edgle radial and close to the cinch interface of the PM, which usual cinch components (chainrings, other cinch PMs, ...) do not show. This makes it close to impossible to properly mount the PM to any "real" cinch crank. This edge is also the reason, why it wouldn't work to use washers in oder so make space for the crank.

Summary: I could easily live with the accuracy issues reported here, and was really looking forward to a PM at this price point. However, it's just not a "real" cinch interface, which disqualifies the spider for use with (probably) many third-party cinch cranks. Therefore, for this use case, I unfortunately can't recommend. This could have easily been adressed design-wise by thinkrider, and it's sad, that they didn't. However, the PM+carbon cranks still sounds like a great deal!

Awesome! What’s your shock hardware situation like?

My frame from All Star Cycling (AWST) has arrived!

I also had them send their 0 offset seatpost, i’m going to try that for some time.

Photos attached. Paint finish is pretty good! 2 knocks, first is that the paint is too high up for my seatpost clamp. I’ll have to sand/shave that down. Second downside I see is the rear rotor is SCARY close to my rear brake mount. Like, less than a mm. Frame weight with hardware attached is 1920 grams. For the color and finish, I can’t complain! unfortunately, shock hardware is pretty irrelevant to what I need. I’ll follow up with the correct size and where to procure.

I did also order an Epic Evo chainstay protector, headtube cable port rubber grommet, and the mylar tape for the down tube from my local Specialized dealer.