I contacted Adam January 4th to order an FM936 Small, the order was shipped January 7th and I received it January 11th! That is very quick! (when they have the item in stock).

I'm gonna fit the frame with a Fox trunnion 165 x 42.5mm the longest travel it can accept. Fork will be Fox 34 SC 120mm 44mm.

Last summer I crossed a guy who worked in a shop where they sell NS bikes, and they are not too happy that people can get the equivalent of the NS synonym frame for such a cheap price...

Hi everyone,
today I received my 60mm Syntace stem to replace my 30mm stem and once installed the bike feels like a "real" medium.
The final specs published by Flybike/Carbonda may be a bit "odd" compared to what people would expect regarding S/M/L/XL but not by much. I'm no expert at mtb geometry but for example if I compare to a Santa Cruz Hightower medium, the numbers a relatively close. Yes the Top tube length of the FM1001/FM1156 is on the the short side i.e. 575mm vs 594mm for the hightower, but it's well within margins of adjustment.
In Canada, the real test will be next spring, when the trails are mtb ready, YeeHaa!

Hi Snacks!

Many friends and I started doing MTB in 2020 because of that covid thing! I like this sport very much but I discovered like you that it requires a lot of knowledge to fully enjoy it!

1-Your fitness level is very important in your choice of bike. A friend of mine who was not particularly fit was recommended an All-Mountain bike which ended up with a weight of 35 pounds. As soon as he climbs, his hearts pumps up and eventually he often have to stop and retake his breath.... As opposed to me and my other friend in the triathlon team where we train all year long and we ride with extremely light cross country bikes which are often only 23 pounds, very good for climbing indeed!

2-But yeah descend is fun too so I agree that if you have to have only ONE bike, then a Trail bike is the best choice. That's why I ended up ordering a Carbonda FM1156 (now renamed FM1001) to have a more robust bike than my Santa Cruz Blur Trail. However the more you invest in more robust components, the more weight you add to your rig....
I knew I would never be a neck braker DH rider so a FOX 140mm fork and a Fox DPX2 is the best balance of performance without too much compromise in weight. Of course there are many similar possibilities...

3-You chose to build your bike like me and the others for two reasons: 1-MAYBE and I say maybe you are going to save some money by doing it yourself : but unless you are already fully equipped in term of specific bike tools, or you are going to borrow the tools ... then your first rig is going to cost you many hundreds of dollars in tools.
If you buy all the components for your bike you will see that they may be very expensive and in the end you won't save much compared to buy a brand new bike... But if you have spare or older parts from older bikes that you want to reuse, then you may save some interesting money! Where you save the most is by buying a Chinese carbon frame compared to a Brand name frame that can sometimes be more than 2-3K$ more expensive that a Chinese frame. 2-You want to experience the fun and satisfaction of building you own rig. By doing so you also acquire more mechanical knowledge making you less dependant on your local bike shop.

4-Rear suspension geometry: Horst-link (four-bar) and VPP are very popular, but I'm not sure it makes such a huge difference in light to moderate trail riding.

5-In the market of Chinese frames you probably know that there are very good brands as well as many bad companies. Go for Carbon and look for EPS molding, it appears to be better build quality and finish. For a Chinese Trail Frame I recommend you read the posts including mine with pictures of the FM1156/ FM1001. The geometry is quite modern and the build construction is very good. For now you can only have Medium size. For Large you'll have to wait until summer 2021. Ask Adam@carbonda.com, pay with Paypal and always order their headset and a spare derailleur hanger! Good luck with your bike project!

Hi endo.alley,

You are right: when I discovered the bike's "new specs" and compactness, the first thing I did was to move back the seat on rails and it does help a bit!
I ordered a longer stem and it should arrive soon!

Hi Flo7 and QuentinLL !

I'm new to MTB and before 2020 I was only road biking. So when I started MTB my local shop recommended a cross country bike to start riding on easy trails. So I started with a Santa Cruz Blur X01 TR (110mm fork) with Reserve 25 carbon rims.
I've always had medium size bikes as I'm 1.73M with inseam about 31.5 inches.

Anyway after a few rides at Empire 47 in Quebec, Canada, I liked it very much! But eventually I realized that for some trails I would have more fun with a more robust bike. But because of that COVID thing most local shops are overwhelmed by high demand so availability of mtb is scarce, plus a brand new Hightower X01 is a lot of money especially after spending 10K$can on a SC Blur!
So I contacted Adam at Carbonda asking if they had some Trail frame in the works. So the early specs they provided for medium FM1156 was supposed to be already final with Top Tube Length of 598mm which is pretty similar to medium Hightower. Actually the rest of the specs also share similarities with NS Bike Define 130.

But like they say: Specs are subject to changed without notice! And when I received the frame 6 months later, and now that "official specs" are out the Top Tube Length for medium is only 575mm which is obviously noticeable when you ride the bike, it feels very compact. I hope that with a longer Stem the "feel" will be less compact.

As for Head Tube Angle:
My SC Blur TR is 68.5 HTA so I wanted a slacker frame but not too slack as I'm not a fan of neck breaking DH.
So for me 66.5 HTA seemed to be a nice balanced.
But then again in the early spec sheet they wrote 67 HTA with a 130mm fork and now in January we see 65.5 HTA on Carbonda web site.
My new FM1156 certainly looks and feel much slacker than my SC blur TR, but certainly not as slack as 65.5 but I guess I should measure the HTA myself!

Final weight of the rig with I9 Enduro S + Maxxis 2.4 WT = approximately 29.5 pounds
Compared to SC Hightower or Tallboy or NS Define 130, I would say that I saved 15-20% $$ by building the rig myself.
Plus I spent countless hours online to learn how to assemble a bike from scratch, but that was part of the fun, of course!
I'm finishing 2 FM936 for my 2 kids and I'll give my SC Blur to my wife so we can all go for family mtb rides!