Yeah, and why flow rims? They are pretty heavy for the kind of riding these frames are designed for. Definitely a good place to save some weight. And even then at over $700 they seem v.expensive. Hope wheel sets here in the UK are like £350

I used ergon grips for a number of years and found them to be excellent! Whilst expensive they are very comfortable and do last a very long time, my last set are at least 3 years old and still with plenty of life left. I now use ESI silicon grips due to their weight and comfy (not as comfy, but very light)

Hans Dampf tyres? Really? oooookay. Heavy! Nobby Nic's could save you 200g per tyre! HD 29x2.35 - 850g, NN Evo S/S 29 x 2.25 650g. I also don't know the rear tyre clearance of the ip256 frame.

Also the usual stuff, 1x10? Tubeless?

For the wheels I would generally advise a sealed bearing, but then if you know what you're doing with cup/cone then shimano hubs will last you a very long time indeed.

What length fork are you thinking of using? And does the calculator account for any initial sag of the fork, the longer the fork, the more sag you'll get, and decrease the HA difference.

A 36T on a 29er?? That's some impressive legs! I race with a 34t on my 650B and my recently built 29er uses a 30t! I guess it depends on the racing of course but 36 is big!

I'm not convinced trailblazer will fit, that clearance is tight. And you have to mess with new wheels etc.

Yeah, you could, but you are seriously going to mess with the geo. The head angle and seat angles becoming steeper and the BB dropping so ground clearance might be an issue.

That said, I do my some 29er forks with 450 A/C which still seems quite short compared to most 29 forks which are closer to 480.

If you have the fork, try it in your bike first to see how you find it, I would imagine it to be very twitchy.

Buy a wide bar, before you put anything on it close your eyes and place your hands on the bar, see how far/wide they are, align your cockpit to this placement - move the grips in a bit and have bar over hanging if necessary. Try the bike out on a couple of rides, then cut the bar.

I just a paint pen, basically a permanent marker but with paint, for writing a name on the frame, seemed successful, but the finish isn't amazing so wouldn't really work for larger things.

Getting a cheap cycle scheme bike is definitely not a bad way of looking at things. Decathlon Rockrider big 8 is cracking value, for £800 - taxes. As you aren't paying for the brand name. Not something you should be concerned about if you are considering a Chiner

What saddle is that? Is it a tioga spyder or a cheap knock off. If the latter how are you finding it and what's your rough weight? I'm about 80kgs with kit.

As it's dual pull perhaps trying going up and over making it a top pull? Or just run it 1x problem solved

Looks good! Have you got an overall built weight?

The wheels are ordered! Went for these in the end - Sun Ringle charger pro. Mainly from a cost point of view, the superstar wheels don't come with adaptors, skewers, valves or tape, and these come with all of those! So All adds up, and will be around £70 cheaper, for a small weight penalty. However I think they will look cooler than the boring black affair (especially the 2 white spokes in with the black ones) Although the red hubs will likely clash horribly with the pink, oh well, it's done

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/sun-ringle-charger-pro-29er-wheelset-2012/rp-prod76178

Next step will be the fork.

I can't get a 142x12 as I have already bought the frame which is an open dropout. And I think I will go with the pacenti wide rims, I have crests on my race bike so would be nice to try something different

Anyway here is a very rough list of the build I have planned:
Dirty Harry, Planet X
On one fork
Cane creek or Hope headset + bung for carbon fork
Superstar tesla on Pacenti tl 28
Ctk 30t direct mount crankset
Shimano BB
Xt shadow + Rear mech
XT 10-36 cassette
XT shifter,
XT pedals
Deore m615 brakes
KCNC razor rotors
Aerozine seatpost 400mm 31.6
xs7 stem 50-80mm or bontrager rl stem
Carbon chiner saddle
Race face turbine handlebars
Giant lock on grips
Rocket ron pacestar 2.25 tires with stans sealant

Thoughts and opinions welcome