In praise of the Wh...
 

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[Closed] In praise of the Whyte 905...

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There were a couple of people asking about these a while back, including myself, and I was surprised they weren't more popular on the forum.

I picked mine up last week and immediately headed for the Cairngorms. I was fiddling about with the forks to try and find the magic setting I discovered on my old Rebas but ended up just sticking them at a higher pressure than I would normally in order to keep them sitting quite high which is what Whyte seem to recommend (16% sag in the manual, very precise!).

Although we had a great ride in and about Inshriach, it didn't reveal anything outstanding about the bike, other than the Elixir brakes which worked very nicely and didn't even get squeeky in the wet, a big plus in my book!

Took it out on some dry trails around the Pentlands tonight though. Only thing I did differently was keep the forks locked out but with the floodgate fully open to keep a bit of a platform at the start of the travel. What a difference!

The bike absolutely flew at the singletrack, and it was difficult to resist trying to ping off any kicker or small bump I saw. Cornering didn't feel quite as nippy as my old Duster with shorter forks and narrower bars, but I did notice I was off the brakes more, probably because of the wider bars. Climbing was a breeze and the 2x10 drivetrain felt immediately intuitive, even though I wasn't prepared to get on with the SRAM drivetrain, as I've never really liked them in the past.

The Maxxis Aspen tyres probably had something to do with the fast ride, big volume but fast and low in the centre. I'd be very tempted to try them tubeless but I had resolved to keep this bike as simple as possible and resist the urge to start tinkering, so I'll leave them with tubes in for now.

The Elixirs did seem to overheat quite quickly on the fastest steepest descent of the day, but I've always been a brake dragger so thats probably my fault. I'd still be tempted to fit my BB7s, I almost found the Elixirs too powerful on steep grassy descents where I'd be unintentionally skidding a bit.

Only things I'd be tempted to change other than that is the bar/stem/seatpost, just to see how much lighter I can make the bike.

One very happy customer here!

(thanks to Edinburgh Bikes for holding on to it until I could drum up the cash, and for some sterling advice on the fork set up...)


 
Posted : 25/05/2011 10:36 pm

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