Bike Check: Kingdom G 600 Belt Driven Custom Titanium Hardtail

Graham Stock of Sixth Element hasn’t matched his bike to his Porsche – instead he’s had himself a rather nice custom titanium hardtail built, and of course added his own company wheels. I suspect a few ears pricked up at the mention of ‘titanium’. Now let the words ‘gearbox’ and ‘belt drive’ waft past your ears. Ahh…it’s like ASMR for bike nerds isn’t it? Cool your clammy niches, and step this way for a closer look.

Graham says:

I’ve been keen on exploring the idea of a sealed gearbox bike for a couple of years. I ride mainly in the Peak District and the Lakes: wet, muddy and wearing/damaging to drivetrains pretty much all year round. The simple concept that all your gears are sealed away from the elements (with a five year guarantee), and require no maintenance and/or replacement for literally years appealed to me.

The next logical step was to have a belt drive instead of a chain. I’ve run a single speed belt drive on my gravel bike for six years now so I’m very comfortable with the zero maintenance that the belt brings.

So, we come to the frame. I wanted a hardtail (my full suss needs are 100% met) and there are very limited options out there in terms of ‘off the peg’, either alu (Nicolai) or carbon (Olsen). My hardtail prior to this G 600 was a Ti Kingdom Vendetta – I simply loved the way that the Kingdom rode (all the hype about ‘zingy’ Ti is true) so I asked Chris Jackson at Kingdom in Copenhagen if he could make me a gearbox version of the Vendetta – and the answer was ‘yes, no problem’.

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The Frame

Construction is from Kingdom’s Aircraft grade Ti-3Al02.5V Titanium tubing. The frame has a lifetime guarantee. It’s a pretty normal Kingdom Vendetta 29er (Large size) in terms of the main geo numbers:

• HA 64.5 deg
• SA 75 deg
• Reach 475mm
• Effective top tube 645mm

But the chain stay is a little longer at 440-460mm with its sliding dropouts (the standard Vendetta is 423mm).

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Kingdom have put a ‘split’ in the seat stay to accommodate the fact that the belt is single piece of continuous material. The belt should last years and years so there shouldn’t be any need to open up that split again any time soon.

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The Gearbox

The heart of the bike is the 5 year guaranteed Pinion 12 speed C1.12 sealed gearbox. This gives the bike its name: G 600, since the 12 gears provide a 600% range. The 600% range compares to 520% for a SRAM 12 speed with 52T cog or 510% for Shimano’s latest 12 speed. The cogs are 22 T both ends. The belt come from Gates in Germany. The belt is their CDX model and is made of polyurethane and carbon.

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Graham says:

Control is with the Pinion grip shift: this allows gear changes both when moving and when stationary. It’s precise in its movement, and takes a little adjustment to rider thinking after decades of using more standard shifters. There’s no ‘clunk’ when you change. I simply can’t see me running out of gears with this 600% range.

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If I do find in the long term that this 1:1 ratio is either too high or too low in terms of the extremes of the gearbox’s gears then I can change the cogs to suit. I don’t anticipate that happening, but it’s good to know that there is such flexibility.

Wheels & Tyres

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As you’d expect, Graham has fitted the bike with his own 29er Sixth Element carbon Race rims (28mm internal / 34mm external) 32H laced with Sapim CX Ray bladed spokes and brass Secure Lock nipples. The rear hub is a 12×148 Chris King on ceramic bearings so contributing to the ‘low-to-no’ maintenance approach to the drivetrain. Front is a Hope Pro4. Tyres are Maxxis Minion 2.3s: DHF triple compound on the front, DHR dual compound rear. Axles are from Burgtec – in red of course, to match the belt and the wheel decals. He says:

Tyres are such a personal choice thing: everyone has their favourite that they are convinced are better than others on the market, so I’m not going to lecture anyone on tyre choice! As with my full suss, I run Cush Core liners front and rear: the support that these give to the tyre walls at lower pressures really suits my riding.

Cockpit, Fork and Brakes

Up front is a Pike Ultimate 130mm. The headset is Hope for reliability, bars are 800mm wide carbon Joysticks from the parts box. The stem is a 35mm Ti one from Kingdom: just lovely. Top cap is from singlespeed specialists Velosolo.

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Hope E4s for the stoppers: I love their feel and I like the fact that Hope sell all the small parts in the various colours, so I have matched the red elsewhere on the bike, for example with red hose connectors and red adjustor screws. Hope 203mm floating rotor on front, standard Hope 160mm on rear.

Seatpost is a Reverb from the parts box, SDG saddle from the same source. Grips are Pinion fit specific from Ergon.

Parts box! After all those careful geo choices and tasteful colour matching we’re not sure whether to be shocked and horrified, or glad to see a touch of frugality sneaking in. We’re struggling to pick holes in this but that dropper post routing over the top of the gear box looks a little wayward with all the neatness elsewhere. Maybe there’s an argument for an electronic dropper to keep things neater? But then, is electronics against the no fuss durability ethos of the rest of the bike?

As a final point, it turns out Graham did match his bike to a vehicle: a fire engine!

What do you think – is this build lit? Hot or not? Does it fan the flames of bike lust, or do you want to burn it with fire? OK, ok, we’ll stop. Please form and orderly queue and head to the comments.