The Near Full Carbon 650b Dually Build - Part 1

[MaxTBehrens]

A few years back, lets say about 10, my dad took up MTB'ing and he loved it, still does. It didn't take long for him to get hooked. A while thereafter he wanted my mother to join him in his cycling adventures and, needless to say, she was quite skeptical about doing something as ridiculous as whizzing about with a mix of alloys and rubber between your legs. My dad eventually got her cycling by getting her a bike without her knowledge and simply placing her on top of it, and chased her around the area a bit. This was not at all what she expected and really started to like it! Even after a while warmed up to the idea of clipping your foot into the pedal. Here is Alpha, the first and the one she started on. And no, it has not had a wash since... well I can't remember.

 

 

 

After what seems to be a lifetime, and minor upgrades and fixes here and there, they came to a point where my parents decided that they need softtails, using the excuse that they where getting old. And after much fussing to put the wheels in motion, I was assigned the task of building my mom her a proper softtail with a budget of 25k, and the permission to salvage parts from her old ride. 

 

Step one would be to gather all the parts needed for the dually. So I blew through most of my budget, purchasing a medium carbon dual suspension frame and many extras including a headset, handlebars, Rockshox Monarch RL, 105mm stem, setback seatpost and clamp and finally a set of tyres. Granted the stem and seatpost will most likely change, but this was the deal, all for R16 000 from one of our own hubbers.

 

 

All seemed to be good, until I swapped out the QR hangers with the through-axle... Both screws stripped on the way out and upon replacing them and fitting the hanger, I saw that the hole for the screw wasn't aligned properly... I'll see later if this will have an effect... Here is the damage

 

 

But the rest was as good as gold. Well black gold in the form of woven carbon fibers. The next step for me and my dad, was the wheels. Having gone through a process of elimination we ended up with very few options, mainly Stans ZTR Crest or a set of Rapide R27 wheels and for only R3 690 and weighing in at 1659 grams they seemed like the route to go. And upon their arrival impressed we all where! Behold we had a set of very good looking and quite light MTB wheels! Complete with QR and through axle options which swapped out quite easily.

 

 

Upon them I mounted a set of Arisun Mount Graham 2.2 tyres with their moderate weight of 650 grams each, they seemed to go well with the rims. I seated both tyres with Stans NoTubes Sealant, 80ml in each tyre, and a single 25g canister. They seated without a fuss and sealed properly.

 

Being R18 690 into the budget already I needed to start salvaging. So I dug up a crankset we had kept for just such an occasion, a basically new Sram S2000 crankset.

 

 

I can see the envy and jealousy brewing even on my own face whilst putting this magnificent being together. I'm jittery with excitement to carry on, and will do so as soon as I can. I'm currently hunting for all the necessary parts, scouring the internet for what needs to be found, for the right price of coarse. I'll continue with the following parts of my forum as I carry on with the build and find or fashion the parts I need. It's quite exhilarating to see what course the unfinished black steed of carbon fibers is going to take!