Yeah, I doubt it’s a custom geometry carbon layup, but I did speak to his mechanic on Instagram and he confirmed that no one on that team are riding consumer model frames. Custom frames made to fit bigger chainrings is all he specifically mentioned.
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I look forward to seeing you race those courses in the future!
If a 70 HT angle is too much to handle for your steep and demanding courses you can buy a slacked out enduro bike with a 66 right now. The weight penalty is probably worth it to add some confidence to your downhill skills and you will more than make up any time lost on the climbs.
Good luck!
My focus is what I would call short course back country endurance racing. Having a bike that’s both capable on the gravel road sections as well as the steep and technical downhills is very appealing to me. I have a XC bike with a 120 fork and 68.5 HA, and adequate reach, it’s still pretty nervous on the sketchy bits, and yeah admittedly I could use some work on that aspect of my riding, but I hold my own. Hard to balance chasing PR level fitness and ride skills I guess.
I’ve ridden, owned and enjoyed full on enduro sleds, they pedal good enough for having fun but why take the weight penalty when you can have a bike that pedals really well and has the geo to match? Remember when folks were holding out on droppers for XC?
No sense in arguing about preference. There are guys out there high posting on their 70 degree hardtail and slaying it. I’ve tried it, and I don’t enjoy it.
Now, do I wait for the Transition or stay the course with the Ripley? 
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Interesting. I run a 38 front ring on my Spark RC pretty often and have never had an issue. Maybe nino is running bigger, but I’ve never heard of it. You have to remove the chain retention thingy to fit the 38 ring, but I’ve never had an issue dropping a chain without it. I use the 38 ring any time I race gravel on the bike or use it for Saturday group rides, but I often just leave it on the bike. With a 10-50 in the back, it’s fine for almost anything around here and I’m no climber.
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Anyone riding the blur?
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This is all second hand, but the people I know that had a Blue all sold them after a year or so. The feedback was generally that it was hard to pay the weight penalty for the dual link and also to have to use the lockout.
I’d expect to see the Blur either discontinued or redesigned soon. The old style VPP linkage is not as responsive or supportive compared to the new lower link style, having ridden the various models throughout the years.
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Did you end up doing this? Also did you buy or rent the ShockWiz?
Funny story - I actually Kickstarted the ShockWiz well before SRAM acquired it years back. I got a couple of them (a standard one and then one that was modified to fit my RS-1 at the time) from SRAM before they went on sale and provided some feedback.
I have been using the ShockWiz on my Supercaliber, but still have not put it on the rear. The 100mm Sid Ultimate has been taking quite a few rides to fine tune, so I still have it on the front right now. I’ve been adding tokens, and have two in at present. I’ve got the rebound dampening slowed down a lot from where I started, and on the last ride dropped the pressure into the low 90’s. It’s close, but where its tough getting the SID dialed is going from the smooth trail sections to the squared off hits on the rooted up sections. The tokens are helping, but this led to needing to drop the pressure a little bit to get rid of some of the harshness. One or two more long rides and hopefully I’ve got it.
For the rear, it’s actually felt pretty good and I don’t think I’m too far off with the set up. I did notice I was getting quite a few more pedal strikes than what I was used to on my Niner’s. I added a little more PSI to the rear shock on my last ride and this helped. My guess is once I get the ShockWiz on it, it will recommend putting in the larger token to make it more progressive like the front.
The other thing I have noticed after all the rides, especially the 5.5 hour ride I did Friday, is that the Kovee XXX bar is very stiff. By hour four on Friday the hands were hurting more than they should.
Compared to both Niner and Enve bars I’ve used in the past, the Kovee bar feels a lot stiffer and less forgiving. Anyone else notice this? I’ve also be playing with the sweep by rotating the bar position slightly to try and get a more neutral feeling hand position. I’m also going to switch out the stock grips to a set of ODI F-1 series Vapor grips. I used these on my HT last year and they felt great.
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Carbon layup is huge in handlebars. The only handlebars I like to run are enve, or renthal. I’ve ran a few other brands like bontrager, salsa, specialized etc and they definitely do not come close to the dampening properties than renthal or enve have. I have also heard raceface handlebars are good, but haven’t personally used them.
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I run Raceface Next carbon bars on my bike and have been very happy with them. I haven’t had issues with hand discomfort with them yet, whereas I have with other setups in the past.
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I have been riding a Blur. Fun bike.
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Yeah, I’ve been in one for a full season now: it’s great! As you can see though, I’m interested in trying something new. The fit and pedaling characteristics of the Blur are great; I removed the rear shock remote before I ever rode the bike, it doesn’t need it. I was riding an older Norco Optic (2017) and that bike was really fun but needed a remote badly (just mentioning this because I’m not anti-remote for the right bike).
With a 120mm fork the Blur is very capable, however it gets nervous in two scenarios; high speed rocky terrain, it doesn’t hold a line well at all, and very steep terrain it just takes extra body English to place the bike where it feels comfortable. I realize I’m asking a lot from a bike with a clear XC intent, so take it for what it’s worth.
It’s a great climber, maybe top 2 best I’ve had. It corners well, and on moderate or easier trails, it’s a blast. I leave the shock open on most trails and only bother with the medium setting for gravel. The DPS shock is so firm in the firmest setting I literally only use that on the rare pavement it sees.
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I’m surprised people felt the need for a remote on the Blur. I think SC spec’d it because they though XC racers had to have one, but pretty speculative on my part. The frame weight is worth mentioning though.
The bike is definitely due for a relaunch, I’d expect to see that as early as this summer. I’d be surprised if they walked away from the model though given the popularity of the genre.
when you say it’s hard on very steep terrain, do you eman going up, or going down?
I also am surprised at the perceived need for a remote lockout. I would think there are only a few situations where it would make a difference and they’re marginal at best.
Plus i would want to have a remote for my dropper post and having to fiddle with two remotes is a lot of mental energy
Only when you first get it. Eventually your hand just opens the suspension and drops the seat without much thought.
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That’s why I’m not running the remote that came with my scale. I’d rather have my dropper lever front and center and ready to use
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Pointed down hill.
Not to mention the handlebar real estate, it can get tricky. I successfully used an older 3 position remote from Fox when I ran one on a different bike, it allowed the use of an under the bar remote for the dropper. I had to convert the shock to a 3 position damper set up though, and mount the shock upside down - again this wasn’t on the Blur, on an older Optic that needed the pedaling support.
On my scott spark RC, I put the dropper remote where the original twinlock was (left side under bar). I flipped the twinlock upside down and put it on the right side bar above the shifter. It’s a little harder to operate on top of the bar vs. under, but it was an easy thing to adjust to. If the wireless AXS dropper was out when I put the dropper on, I might have done the button/grip approach, that seems pretty slick.
I actually copied this directly from PFP’s Canyon Lux. The SRAM Twist-Loc is the best suspension lockout I have used. I can lock and unlock my suspension on the slightest sections of trails if I want to. I also strongly dislike the remote on the KS Lev Carbon dropper post I have so I swapped it out for the PNW version.
This combination is better than anything I have ridden to this point.
PS Don’t laugh at my deadlift trap bar in the background that’s my son’s starting weight not mine 
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