I'm keen for one

Size M
Colour #9 matte finish
Shipping to Perth Australia

Ya I hadn't read this thread before i ordered mine. I guess I know why they changed the model name. The answer I got when I asked about the change was "more stiff more strong" I am 140-45lbs so hopefully I have no probs.

 I ordered on the ninth got my invoice on the 12th haven't heard anything since. So I sent them an email today because I will be out of town and need to know when it will ship.
I thought it would be rather quick because I ordered glossy clear. 

I also am coming from a vpp bike an Intense Recluse. I did not care for the suspension with a coil or a air shock.
With air it was chattery off the top and then soft if you tried to pump. It did take big hits well though.
 With coil it just blew through the travel.

Ordering anything Chinese factory direct is a bit like that - confusing communications and uncertainty - especially around timelines. There is always some element of risk involved for sure. Best to do what you have done - keep a line of communication open. Having a good attitude tends to be received well and will be returned with a good attitude as well.

That said, I've personally yet to have a really bad experience and I've dealt quite a bit with Chinese factories getting 'samples (not just with bike frames).

Anyways, this frame is still going really well for me. No cracks. About 30 hours of riding now - all quite hard and gravity focused. I'm a dense 230lber too with a fairly aggressive riding style. a creak has developed somewhere - but I'm not worried about it. I didn't grease a few of the pivot bolts - probably just that.

I'm with you, vpp has always felt horrible to me. Had v1 nomad for a few years which was awful and then a v1 Bronson for a few years. The Bronson was def better, but still had that weird mushiness in the middle of the travel. No support. I hear its getting better though in the most recent models.

So I’ve managed to get about 5 hours of singletrack riding over the last couple days. Good variety of technical climbs, rocky steep descents, flowy jump lines, and everything in between. Interestingly, the bike garnered a ton of attention at the crowded trail hub I was at. I mean, A LOT. I was snappin necks like I was Pamala Anderson in her prime strutin a skimpy bikini. People on their 15k yetis were swooning over my $600 chiner bike!!

Most importantly: no cracks yet. I rode the thing pretty hard. Did a bunch of drops with the biggest being about 8 feet. A few 4-5 footers to flat. I also cased a very large double quite hard at one point – and both the frame and carbon rims are just fine.
 
Disclaimer: the ride characteristics are not all down to the frame’s design, but also largely to the build spec. Other builds may feel different. Needless to say, the beefy wide carbon bars and ultra short stem, beefy carbon rims, and fox 36’s on this bike would feel very different than a set of alloy XC wheels, 32s, and some noodlely narrow XC bars hanging off a stem longer than your….

In summary:
I am very happy with the performance. Pretty much rides as expected with the geometry/suspension design/build spec. it’s a VERY stiff bike, in a good way. It’s a fun poppy and playful bike, but not twitchy. Def more on the stable side than twitchy. It was happy to allow me to pick my lines very precisely, yet didn’t complain if I was lazy and wanted to plow through a rockgarden. Climbing was obviously not XC-like, with a hint of pedal bob, but it was actually pretty good. Good enough for me.  If I was a western company trying to market this frame, I’d spin it as an everyday fun bike for the average weekend warrior. Something to go put a smile on your face and encourage you to climb back to the top just one more time. A trail bike with a focus on making you feel like a boss on the descents.
 
Climbing:
It's a single pivot design, so yes, there is a bit of pedal bob. It's not as bad as other single pivots I've ridden though. The climb switch on my fox dps mitigated the bob pretty well. It felt fairly efficient climbing, felt like the energy that I put in was pretty well transferred to forward momentum. All in all the climbs felt similar in efficiency to my previous bike - a santa cruz bronson. The main issue I had was pedal strikes. The bottom bracket is stupidly low, 325mm, mainly because I put 27.5 wheels in a frame meant for 29ers. I did suffer from more pedal strikes than normal, but so far I'm OK with it. I think I’ll be able to adapt. 170mm crank arms, 54 engagement points in the hub, a bash guard, and thin pedals will in part mitigate it - the rest will be up to line selection and technique.
 
Descending:
Yes, there is a hint of brake jack, and a little pedal feedback. However, you don’t notice these things unless you try to – and ultimately I had more fun on trails I know best than any of my previous bikes. The bike was very balanced - it was smooth and stable yet at the same time I always felt in control. I was able to mindlessly plow over rock gardens, but it still felt easy to point the bike where I wanted - I never had a problem changing lines at will. It was intuitive, very easy, confidence inspiring. The suspension is very supportive and poppy no matter where I was in the travel - a welcome change to the dullness and mushiness of the VPP on my Bronson. I was popping off everything – I felt like I was in one of those mtb films... And OMG… the corning. The low BB and stiffness of the frame made the berms feel like heaven. Felt like I was carving a snowboard. So good. The bike was awesome through the jumps as well. I was clearing quite big doubles easier than I normally do. After a few tweaks to the suspension, the bike popped off lips in a composed and balanced way. I was also pleasantly surprised with the ease of which the bike manuals. It has 444.5mm chain stays, but honestly was no fuss getting the front wheel up. I think with such a long wheelbase it might actually be better having a slightly longer rear end to balance things out.

Anyways, I’ll come back in a few weeks or so and give any updates after more trail time and maybe the new bike love affair is over.

So far, so good.

Here are some pics of the final build, as promised.

The stoke is high.

Will be a few days before I properly ride it. Took it for a bit of an urban rampage just now, it was fun, and still no cracks yet...

The build:

- frame is a size large. Colour is '300c' with a matte finish

- fox dps factory rear shock 165x45. Got it off ebay brand new - came off an Evil the following. The Evil is also a linkage driven single pivot, so the tune should suit this bike well.

- fox 36 factory, set at 150mm

- Lightcarbon wheelset, with 27.5 x 2.6 maxxis Rekon tires

- Light carbon bars

- Sram NX eagle groupset - 170mm cranks

- Shimano XT m8000 brakes

- DVO garnet dropper. Cant remember if its 125mm or 150mm.

- cane creek hellbender headset

- spank 35mm stem

nah, just build up several light coats of each (primer, color, top/clear), sanding with 1000+ grit in between every other coat or so. Need to do it indoors (out of the wind/dust). Its not that difficult, just time consuming. A bit messy.

The build is pretty much done. Bike looks great, Will put some photos up soon. Haven't ridden it properly yet - need to sort out possible contaminated pads

Couple more tid-bits:

-The shock is a bit of a pain to air up. I have two shock pumps, one of them just barely is able to screw onto the air valve with the shock installed into the frame, the other is not. Shock is a 2019 fox dps evol, 165x45.
-Speaking of airing up the shock, the shock requires a bit more air pressure in this frame than others. Probaby because its a fairly small stroke.
-At the recommendation of Sissypants I got the 21.8mm shock hardware rather that the 22.2mm recommended by lightcarbon. I wish I had just gone with the 22.2mm as recommended by the manufacturer. Feels like there is exactly 0.4mm of play.... However, I may order an even wider one in order to eliminate the spacers provided by the factory. Need to take some measurements Ill update on how I go with this.
-Bottom Bracket. With my 27.5x2.6 maxxis ikons, 150mm fox 36, and full 130mm rear travel,  I'm measuring a static BB height of 325mm exactly. That's freakin LOOOOOW. My god its low. Hopefully the smile in the berms make up for the pedal strikes on the way up...... Needless to say, for most people this bike would probably best be built as a 29er. Shame the max width for 29 tires is only 2.3.
-I rode the bike for about 60 seconds up and down my street. did a few obligatory curb hucks. Boosted off the neighbors' tree root. No cracks in the frame yet (whew!). Obviously cant say much yet, but i can already tell the frame is really, reeeally stiff - smooth - quite - solid. Honestly, feels great. Feels like a serious tool.

Will be back with more. Having brake problems atm, suspect contaminated pads/rotors, need to sort that out. Hoping to get onto some trail in a few days.

Hopfully things improve there soon...

My frame and wheels arrived yesterday. I'm about 1/3 the way through assembly. No photos yet, but here's some initial thoughts:

-Bearings were full of what looked like nice quality grease. (white, thick). However, Some of the seals don't fit quite right - looks like they were taken out and replaced by unskilled labor.
-One bearing wasn't quite seated all the way in. not a huge deal.
- I had no trouble with my suspension hardware. However, the threadlocker they used looks to be very poor quality. I cleaned it all off and replaced it with blue loctite. Also, it wasent torqued to the specs printed on the bolts (12nm).
- The paint job is OK. Not sure I'd pay 100$ USD for it again. I reckon I could have gotten similar results with a careful application of a nice spray paint.
- I really like the internal cable routing on this frame, its very well done.
- There was some gunk in the bottom bracket threads, I had use a pick to get it out in order for the bearing to thread in smoothly.
- overall the quality of the carbon looks excellent. Looking inside the frame where I could it all looks good. I'm happy with it.
- frame appears to be very beefy. Very stiff. Linkages all move smoothly.
- there does appear to be a bit of progressiveness engineered into the suspension via the link. I do believe someone knowledgeable has engineered this frame.

-I also ordered the 810mm carbon 'downhill' bars from lightcarbon, which I've cut down to my preferred 780mm width. I am extremely happy with the bars, they appear to be very well made.

-the carbon wheel set I ordered (27.5 'all mountain' rims with areo spokes and dt 350 hubs) are really, really nice. Trueness, roundness and dish re all superb. Really good. I will report back once I try to seat my Maxxas tires tubless.

So far, so good. Ill report back once I finish the build and have a ride or two.

I'm pretty sure it's not the first one that has reported this.  I don't understand how grinding down the end of the thru axle will make it tighter, surely you need more thread cut on it unless the thru axle doesn't actually come thru the retainer nut?

I could be misunderstanding the system, but it looks like its just a hollow axle that is threaded internally and a hex-key 'bolt' threads into the end. The bolt looks to have a very wide flange (with printed torque specs on it). For it to work properly, the axle would need to be less than the width of the carbon linkage/swingarm, otherwise the flange of the bolt wouldn't be able to compress onto the carbon of the swing arm.

Shortening the axle by a couple mm should do the trick. Looks like they either gave him the wrong axle by mistake, or the axle was somehow machined 2-3 mm out of spec.