I'm after a frame to build up for a specific vague purpose. What I feel I need in my life is a HT that I can ride in loads of places. It absolutely has to have a threaded bottom bracket, needs to be able to take a rack, mudguards, bottles etc attached so I can do multi day stuff like Traws Eyryri and the Trans Cambrian trail but work well enough to be fun on trail centre style trails like CyB or Glentress as well as in the empty spots on the Welsh and Scottish maps. A sort-of-do it all all-rounder. My last HT was a Trek 9500 from 2000 that did bothy trips, Icelandic tours and Welsh trail centres. It's long gone and was a 26" so I would not really want to revive it even if I could. It had quite a harsh ride from what I remember but did do what I want my new build for.
Can anyone suggest anything suitable? New or pre owned, Al or Fe (preferered), no budget decided on as yet.
What ya got? Pics would be great.
Well there’s going to be millions of options
sonder frontier (aluminium)
surly karate monkey (steel)
there’s two for starters
Cheers, it's something that I know very little about. 👍 👍
Some nice Cotics in the classifieds 😃
https://singletrackmag.com/advert/cotic-soul-gen-4-27-5-two-off/
I'm 6'2", oh well...
I have an identiti AKA that I’ve ridden for most of what you describe, options to have it as 27.5 or 29-er, bottle bosses for days, takes pretty much whatever you can throw at it with ease, IME really fun frame to ride,
it is al, never tried fitting a rack to it either, no idea if you can…
Cotic Solaris or SolarisMax is a good option.
Just googled Cotic Solaris to check how many fitting points it has nowadays and this popped up.
XL Solaris £669 perfect!
Nothing to do with me.
The Ti olsen Swan frame at banana industries?
142mm rear spacing would put me off the Olsen bike, unless building it into a monster gravel
stooge rambler with flat bar would smash all of those requirements
in fact have a look at woods cyclery insta account as they have all sorts of nice frames from various companies built up how you want, so it's probably a great resource to see what's out there
I like Pipedream frames. I have a Moxie, but their Sirius is possibly better for the all rounder needs. Otherwise I'd look at Stanton - Sherpa, Switch9er and Sedona are all excellent frames with slightly different focuses.
If it was me looking and if I had the budget i'd go for the Fairlight Holt.
Sadly I don't have the budget and would most likely end up with an On One Scandal, from eBay🙁
I got a Sour Crumble in July and love it. That's more of a trail bike but they also do the XC focussed Pasta Party. They don't come by default with rack mounts but they will add them for you.
I've found the Crumble to be very versatile - I did a week in the Alps doing a mix of marathon and big mountain stuff on it, I ride it several times a week from the door in Edinburgh and last weekend I came second at a ten hour race on it. But if I didn't have my requirements for it to be able to handle big mountains and stuff like Innerleithen I'd have gone for the Pasta Party.
https://sour.bike/bikes/mtb/pasta-party/
142mm rear spacing would put me off the Olsen bike
Lack of rack mounts rules it out for the OP's purpose.
I built up a Frontier a month ago for this kind of stuff and like it so far. I got an XL frame from Alpkit's eBay outlet for £159 and at that price it's a no-brainer. I'm less clear on the value at full RRP. Either way I prefer light, stiff aluminium frames to steel; I'm not anticipating needing to get it welded up by an artisan blacksmith in the backstreets of Lagos anytime soon.
Lots of mounts in/under the main triangle, rack drillings low on the dropouts - but, oddly, no corresponding bosses higher up the seatstays. Fitting Sonder's own Mool rack was problematic, and I've ended up adapting an old 26" Old Man Mountain rack instead.
Solaris (more MTBey) or a flat bar Cascade (more adventure/gravelly)
I missed the bit saying you wanted photos!
Apologies for the slight aside -
@montgomery I was concerned about the lack of upper rack mounting points on my Frontier but got around it by using the Giant rack 'borrowed' from my wife's bike. The centre-mount strut is an easy fit and holds the rack nice and steady. It's not the strongest rack in the world but ok for light off-road duties. For rougher, extended trips I'd look for a similarly design but sturdier rack.
There's enough companies making racks that get round a lack of frame mounting, that it's no longer the deal-breaker it might once have been. Moving disk calipers to the chainstays has made fitting racks easier, too, while the longer chainstays associated with 29ers makes heel strike less of a problem. Overall, rack considerations wouldn't decide it on a modern frame for me.
I really like my Fairlight Holt. Bought it for bikepacking and XC duties and to replace a gravel bike after realising drop bars and gravel bikes are silly.
Fairlight have just released a new 2.0 version which gets rid of the 27.2 post in favour of a 30.9 which put lots of people off the original. It's also got redesigned dropouts so you can use T-Type derailleurs. I've got the original and am really happy with it, It's a great frame and builds pretty light, plus the purple is nice!
Plus their design notes pdf is a good read!
Pace rc529 also works for this. More enduro/trail than the 429 (which is more xc) however the 529 still comes with rack mounts and is great built up as a rigid bike packer too. Also has slidey dropouts for singlespeeding.
Well happy with mine. Super versatile and rides great.
Go custom, speak to a frame builder and get exactly what you want. It might cost more but it can be perfect....
My last 2 bikes are from clandestine.cc would recommend
you probably need to decide what wheels you want. 29" both ends or Mx (29 fr and 27.5 rear). if you want to cover distance i wouldn't suggest plain 27.5. then SS, geared, or ability to do both.
pipedream sirius looks nice, but there's always this: https://stoogecycles.co.uk/product/https-stoogecycles-co-uk-product-mk6-pre-order/
Pace. Some RC529 frames on offer at the mo (new RC629 replaces it)
I think you'll be spoilt for choice.
I see that someone's recommended the Fairlight Holt, there appears to be an unused Holt frame (large, not sure what size you're after) in the classifieds at the moment.
https://singletrackmag.com/advert/new-fairlight-holt-v2-0-large-violet-frame/
There's a lot of suggestions that are very xc or touring biased - I'm well in with Ben's suggestion of the Pace 529 as an all rounder that can shred trail centre and tour with comfort when needed. It's versatile and good looking with it.
Just to chuck in another option, Brother Cycles Big Bro. Steel frame & fork (but I've also run mine with a SID, they recommend 100mm but 120 was fine) and lots of mounting points, also sliding dropouts if that's a bonus (I haven't touched mine).
I've run most tyre sizes from 27.5x2.6 up to 29x2.6 and rigid, suspension fork and even drop bars. My friend then bought one as a result of seeing mine and just rode the Divide on it in rigid swept/flat bar form.
Ready to roll.
id prefer the option to run at least 27.5+
im not sure whether Planet X are going to discount their ‘big dog’ frames.
how well are their bikes aligned nowadays?