[TickTock]

Hey all. I am building up an enduro pro frameset. I ride mainly Lynn Woods, Ma. I am curently riding a hardtail so I know with the new bike having 5" in the front and rear Ill be dropping off more bigger stuff. Nothing too crazy, but I like the insurance of having nice cranks just in case.... Lynn already is tough as hell on bikes. I hit cranks and rings nonstop in there. I figured I would ask here since there are quite a few boston based riders.

Because of the terrain and the drops to flat I feel that my cranks and rings setup is pretty important.

I am running on a budget that will exclude raceface north shore cranks, which run at around 225$ for the arms alone....

I am currently looking at a few options:

I can go with an XT crankset and then put on an Evil DRS chainguide....

I can go XT and just put on a bash ring and leave the guide out...

I could go for raceface prodigy DH but I have heard some bad stuff about their prodigy stuff being crappy....

I also have heard that LX is just as good as xt so that is an option as well. In any case, i dont want or need a big ring, I currently only use it as a weak bashring and am considering grinding the teeth off it to give me more clearance.

I will most likely be throwing on 170mm cranks because that is what I am running now.

So I am running around the 200-250$ range for the xt/evil drs and 150-175$ for the xt/bashring.

I am totally open to any and all suggestions. Weight isnt "too" much of an issue unless it is horridly heavy. I like to pedal up things, too.

People seem to know a ton here so I hope you guys can set me up well!
Thanks!
-TickTock

 

[MikeD]

There's a guy selling bashrings for $20 in buy/sell...but your best bet IMHO is a lexan type like the ones from DHrings.com or Evil.

I just mounted an Evil DRS on my big hit, and it works impeccably. However, if you're not currently dropping chains, I might hold off on the chainguide.

If you really do want one, maybe you could get the Heim 3-guide (there's a review here on Ridemonkey news or someplace) for about $75 (cambriabike.com) and set it up with the bashguard. (just treat the bashguard as the outer chainring and you should be fine.) Damn True was the honcho on the Heim guide article...you could try PMing him.

XT vs. LX...personally, I don't think XT is going to gain you much over LX in strength, and I'd use Shimano before going to truvativ.

However, go to unrealcycles.com and get the FSA V-drive extreme for $65 from them. Cool shop, great deal on a tough, lifetime warranty AL crank. Lots of ISIS BBs there to match as well. I'd say cromo cranks, but they'd be out of place on an Enduro.

Best bet of all is v-drives and an Evil, in short...if you have the cash.

Good luck...I hope to one day ride all these cool trails I hear about in the NE woods.

MD

 

[TickTock]

Yeah the trails up here are pretty fun...you can pretty much always find stuff thats above your ability without trying too hard (at least I can). There are some absurd ten footers to flat around here...no thanks!

I am running a budget of around 250 for my cranks/bash setup. I agree with you on the retention system. i curently drop chains pretty infrequently, and its usually only when I an caught in the rough when in my granny. This probably wouldnt even be an issue if I was running two rings with a shorter chain.

So lets say I get an evil lexan bashring, thatll run me a lil over 50 bucks. Now I have maybe 175$ for cranks/rings. What do you think? Are the v-drive's gonna be better/worse than the Xt's? Should I consider any others? It seems cranks are either going to run me about the price of xt's then the price jumps up to 200+ for the arms alone heh.

Thanks for the advice, i have some net research to do!

 

[MikeD]

The V-drives are a crankset made specifically for abusive riding and warranteed for it...heads over XT, I'm sure, for your applications. Only seen 1 set myself, but they looked strong...and Ben from Unreal sells them, so they've got his A-OK... having bought from him before, I'd trust his judgement and objectivity.

You could get an FSA BB/V-drive/Evil guide combo from him for around $250, I think...and that would cover all your bases.

 

[Rustmouse]

unless you have some serious chain dropping issues, go with xt/bash guard option... unless you go the whole cost jump to the Northshore raceface stuff, it's pretty close to parity on those....

< working in an LBS, i find myself replacing far too many prodigy cranks and bb.... don't do it

 

[gravity]

V-Drives and DRS i reckon..... V-Drives are cheap + strong, DRS is (allegedly) top stuff.

 

[dw]

I agree with the guys above, the V-drives are top notch, and the XT's are a sweet setup also. The SunRace SantaCruz team ran the V-drives all year with the e.thirteen guide, and won at Mt. Snow, podiumed the world championships. Is a capable combination for sure.

The Evil guide will defiitely help you in Lynn, I ride there with mine all the time, and a lot of the times I use it to help me clear stuff at speed. Obstacles that i normally couldn't clear, I just tool them with the bashguard and slide up them. e.thirteen and evil sell a bashguard kit also, its called the supercharger kit, and it is available from shops and online retailers like www.bikeman.com, www.unrealcycles.com, www.bikehell.com, and go-ride.com. Cost for the guard at the shops above is very reasonable also.

if you have any specific questions about the e13 or Evil bashguards or chainguides, (or anything else for that matter!), don't hesitate to give us a yell at e13@e13components.com.

Hope this helps you out!

dw

 

[Zonic Man]

I haven't had any success with the XTs...they creak after repeated bashing and use. Pooey.

Not a fan of FSA's cranks/BBs, so can't help you there either.

Raceface prodigy is poo, too.

NO on truvativ. Just say no.

I'd spend the hundy more and be happy for a long time.

 

[Leethal]

But I have seen the pictures, light free-riding easily changes to heavy free-riding (and most of the stuff at Lynn is to flat from what I have seen) so spend a little now and get something that could break and thus hurt you or get some chromo cranks and spend your money one time. Unreal sells a bunch of different ones but the FSA's seem to be a really good deal, BTW I run Profiles with an Evil SRS.

 

[MikeD]

Cromo cranks are really out of order on an Enduro, I think...the frame isn't as strong as they would be, and the weight isn't appropriate for a general trailbike for most folks...I run them on my freeride HT, but that's it.

At least they'd be around for the next frame when you need one (which could be soon...)

MD

 

[TickTock]

Wow thanks everyone!
After speaking to the folks over at unreal cycles, I think I am going to go for the fsa v-drives. They have a nice warranty and seem plenty beefy for my 140 pound weight and the riding ill be doing.

Since the price is lower, i am also going to set it up with an evil drs system. My bb shell is pretty torn up on my hardtail from dropping chains where I ride. I like the idea of being able to granny through a technical section or wheelie drop without worrying about dropping a chain.

The bike is really going to be an all-around bike so that I can do some fun xc type rides but also step it up for some good stuff when I want to. I have a pretty decent mix of stuff I am using, and since I am a featherweight I can get away with some lighter components in the areas of rims and such.

I recently got to ride a bike with the drs set up on it and I was sold. no chain slapping around, no constant need to upshift before downhills, ability to have big torque and not worry about dropping a chain when I land....plus the bashring glides off rocks. Should get some odd looks on a bike designed for hard xc, but if it helps, then who cares!

Thanks all for the info, i looked into all the suggestions. If my light freeriding turns into heavy freeriding then I would consider crmo cranks, but I really dont need it right now.

Now I just need to decide if I want to stick with clipless or throw on some nice platforms. I have been more and more thinking "wow I wish I wasnt clipped in" each ride. Not sure I want to give up my clipped in feeling, so i may get some cheap platforms and test em out for a while.

Again thanks guys and Ill keep you posted as to how the build is going.

Lets see if this pic works of what I have built so far (i replaced the lame decals with more interesting ones)

 

[MikeD]

Niiiice bike...you're just like me and my Titus locomoto...it became a psuedo-freerider...then I just had to upgrade to a Big Hit. Worth looking at in the future for ya.

Enjoy that bike...should be an incredibly capable all-rounder!

MD