Andrew's used bike journey continues.

Cy’s Bad Idea

My grom wants to know why I am laughing. I tell her, “Cy wants me to move to Kipling, Saskatchewan. One thousand people live there, it is pancake flat, and it is home to the World's Largest Paper Clip. Said paper clip is 15 feet tall and weighs 3,000 pounds.” She throws me her patented pre-teen look of indifferent incredulity, a silently but fully communicated ‘Okay, sure, whatever papa,’ and then wanders off before I can elaborate further. Huh.

So, I generally have no issue acknowledging my baser instincts, and I admit that despite my best efforts to think ‘Unicorns, goody gumdrops, & Lillet on ice’ (pronounced lee-LAY) sometimes I can be a sarcastic, even sardonic, cynical, so-and-so. And that pretty much sums up my response to Cy when he suggested filling the gaping hole in Secondhand Postilions by trading the Spire frame for something else. At least while we try and find a few long-term focused bicycle brands that want to step up with an interesting and abused last-generation review frame.

I reply to Cy that it is beyond my imagination. Who is going to cover shipping, or would the trade be local only? How many people am I going to have to tell that the metal recycler is the only place that wants their 1999 Trek VRX? Hold on, I am not knocking the VRX, at least it is aluminum so someone wants it! Let us face it, hardtails are forever (for some purpose) but there is a lot of sag-wagon slag floating around out there. Bad idea Cy!

Then, the very next day, my friend Will and I agree to a swap. We meet up at the shop he wrenches at, have a quick catch-up, and the Secondhand Postilions Transition Spire that has been traded (almost half) as many times as Mike Sillinger is off to its next home. For my part, I leave in possession of a 29’er frame that cannot be mulleted (the bottom bracket height is too, too low), that has a f*cking pressfit bottom bracket, and wears the absolute most rad paint job of any rig I have ridden. Good idea Cy!

I arrive home and walk through the door with the stupidest grin on my face, ever. My wife takes one look at the thing and says something to the effect of “Well, I guess that is never leaving?” My kid just stares at me with this funny smile. And look, if there is one philosophical takeaway I want to put out there it is that full-suspension rigs are a commodity and with very rare exceptions they decrease in desirability over time. But a nice hardtail is a nice hardtail forever, or at least until it is truly worn out.

That is true whether we are talking about my daughter’s 1992 Rocky Mountain Equipe, my commuter-converted Waltworks V1, Wende Cragg’s awesome 1983 Breezer III , a Squamish-made, Mike Truelove built, Chris Dekerf painted, rare-as, Chromag Arcturian, or, you know, other less specific examples.

Arcturian

The Arcturian is, or was, Chromag’s BC-built 29-Plus hardtail. The brand was all-in enough to make suitable i40 rims, but they never sold enough of the machines to warrant an overseas frame run. The geometry chart triggers me as someone who wonders what would have become of semi-fat 29’er setups if the big proponents like Trek and Surly had made any effort to adopt modern hardtail geometry.

Most of the parts came straight across from the Spire, but even with a healthy over-forking the bottom bracket was too low to consider a mullet setup. Not even with a 27+ setup. I do not currently have a rear wheel with a suitable rim, but as an avowed hoarder of 29+ tires , there may be a wheel build in my future. For now, I am riding one of my all-time favourite 29” tire combos. In front, I have a 29x2.8” WTB Vigilante (Light Casing/High Grip) with a CushCore Pro insert on an i40 Race Face ARC rim. In the rear, I have a 29x2.6” WTB Vigilante (Light Casing/High Grip) with a CushCore Trail insert on an i25 DT Swiss XM421 rim.

There are faster tires. There are lighter tires. There are more durable tires. There are grippier tires. There are tires that work better in deep duff, tires that grip better on smooth rocks, superior tire choices for grappling greasy roots, and, of course, better choices for floating through loose-over-hard corners. The Vigilante is not the best tire for any application, but it is a contender for the best all-around tire option and the high-grip option has a surprising amount of grip in the slippery season for something that rolls this quick-enough.

Tire-clearance-wise, the DVO Onyx fork has ample room for the 29x2.8” front tire and it is easy to tune the damper to work with the rebound of the WTB tire running 15psi and the big CushCore insert. The Arcturian frame itself has ridiculously silly space for big rubber. The stays are so far into outer space that the only crankset I have on hand that will clear is the Shimano XT Boost cranks that I run on my Banshee Enigma. My WTB Vigilante rear tire is on a fairly narrow rim, but even then, it is a proper 2.6” tire. The Arcturian simply has that much space.

Here the pressfit bottom bracket is certainly helping with clearance and balancing the chainstay length between Chromag-short and my Waltworks V2-long with the final number sitting at 438mm. Creative bikes like the Arcturian and the Stache do serve as reminders of how unnecessary Super Boost 157 rear hub spacing was, never mind how unnecessary it is now that 2.6” tires are the largest anyone cares to run and many folks are choosing narrower options. That is my taking the long way around to noting that the Arcturian uses a Boost-148 rear end.

On that note, aside from a hardtail that I would be rigid-forking as a commuter-gravel rig, where 100/142 or 100/135 spacing would be great, I would only be considering used mountain bicycles with Boost 110/148 spacing. Okay, the right frame with the right geometry, with a headtube that is compatible with a tapered steerer, there are still some good 142x12 hub options available from both Hope and Spank, but in terms of relying on the used market for parts, Boost frames and forks make it much easier to buy wheels.

Wheels. So currently I am running my Project 321 G2 front hub with an Industry Nine Hydra rear hub with mix-matched rims and somehow it suits this bike. I guess it helps that both hubs are pink. Originally, I was thinking I would treat the Arcturian like any current steel hardtail big bike (think over-forked Kona Honzo ESD, my Marinster Truck, a Chromag Doctahawk, etc.) and run some 2.4-2.6” tires on the matched pair of I9/DT XM421 wheels I built a while back (the hubs are well used and have been laced up a few times) but that ample rear clearance has me pondering cutting the 27” hoop out of my mullet P321 G2 wheelset and building up a wider 29” rear option so I can plus-size it. It would not be worth the effort for a short-term project but this sled suits. WTB still makes the 2.8” Vigilante in the admittedly less impressive ‘Fast Rolling’ varietal and that would be an okay 29-Plus option for the rear.

My current drivetrain is Shimano’s surprisingly excellent CUES U6000 10-speed setup that sells for US$200 for the derailleur, cassette, shifter, and chain. The steel Arcturian with the 38mm DVO Onyx D1 SL , CushCore inserts, CUES, stainless steel chainring, and no fantastic plastic in sight is a bit of a tank. How much does it weigh? Who cares? Get stronger or get lower gears.

I was concerned that the 30x11-43t gearing would not be low enough for the steepest steeps but thus far I can drop my elbows and grind up most anything with a rise-and-grind approach when that does not work. I have an LG700 11-50t cassette and an 11spd XT LinkGlide shifter if I prove inadequate at hardtailing the 30x43t low gear.

Why go with the wider range cassette as opposed to a smaller chainring? Normally I would happily throw on a 28t ring for riding the North Shore, but I do not have a Shimano-compatible chainring on hand and there is a certain amount of run-whatcha-brung that goes hand-in-hand with the Secondhand Postilions series.

I know that it would add significant cost or require integration with some form of Shimano I-Spec, but in my perfect world, the CUES shifter would have both its own clamp and the ability to be removed from my bar without sliding off my grips. In other words, I wish Shimano would integrate a hinged clamp with their stand-alone shifters. Even if the hinge were a feature only available from Deore M5130 or even solely with XT M8130 LinkGlide groups it would be worth the extra scratch to upgrade my shifter to add the feature.

One more Shimano CUES update. I am probably jinxing myself here, but I fully smoked the U6000 rear derailleur a few times on the Spire and again on a single-speed line through some rocks on my first Arcturian ride. I have broken, and seen enough broken, Shimano aluminum cages from their HG+ 12-speed lineup that I think the heavier, but cheaper, steel CUES cages may be (are?) more durable.

Back to the frame, this is a size large with a monstrous 501mm Reach, on paper. I am usually happy on a M/L or large Chromag thanks to their relatively short headtubes and my relatively high bar preference. On the M/L frame, I run a 40mm stem fairly slammed and a higher-rise bar, and on the large, I run a 32mm stem and make up more of the height using headset spacers.

All things being equal, stock geo, I would choose a M/L over a large frame for my 5’9” frame and T-Rex arms, but part of playing the used bike game is adapting slightly imperfect setups. In the case of the Arcturian, however, the large is perfect because the over-forking and smaller rear tire slack out the effective seat tube angle and shorten the Reach at the same time.

Where does my effective Reach end up between the over-forking and subsequent slackening of the head tube angle, plus the stack of headset spacers, plus the smaller rear tire? Who knows. Geometry numbers are certainly helpful in narrowing down what size in a given bike fits me, maybe occasionally even choosing one bike over another, but once it is the shop there are plenty of variables to adjust to find the right fit. It is undoubtedly a work in progress, but it will be fun to see where I end up.

I figured I would need to lower my BikeYoke Revive III dropper post by at least 5mm from the stock 185mm height, and I might still do it. Running thin-thin flat pedals my seat is at exactly the right height with the post slammed into the frame and that drives me insane. I need to have my post at least a few hairs out of the frame so I know that I have a range of adjustments in both directions.

With my hardtail-high-grip favourite NSBillet Daemon pedals installed, I had to raise the saddle a bit and that is perfect psychologically. I have rebuilt the Daemons a few times, and they are getting near due again, and replaced quite a few pins in the three or so years I have been riding them on and off. The grip is amazing but at the cost of the pins being more fragile than the steel t-pins that most brands use these days.

I am going to leave it here for now and report back with a Secondhand Postilions VI once I have the bike fully dialed in and a significant number of rides under my belt. At the time that I am typing this, I have had one ride on trails, and it was awesome both up and down. All I have changed thus far is to rotate the saddle slightly more nose-up. I also desperately need a pair of brake pads for the front brake. In my defense, being a rarer brake system, I had two spare pairs, but I helped a friend with one and the Enigma ate the other.

I need to play with air pressure in the Onyx as well. Currently, I am running the same pressure as I did on the Spire, which generates more sag on a hardtail but also uses less travel since I am not hitting sections as fast as I did on the 170mm sag-wagon. I bring it up because I did a teardown of the DVO with Pope Jimmy at SuspensionWerx and I have enough material to write about the Onyx, but I am stalling so I do not have to give it back. Not because my own fork is not great, it is, but because this fork is fantastic.