XCPro3 - back to my roots

 

After much pondering and some pauses, my decision to get back to hardtail had been taken for me. Fed up of lugging a sluggy, heavy full suss round short, sharp and precise courses and on an uber-offroad commute* it was time. So I duly received a piece of my history (I owned a Maxlight 'some' years ago), only the right size this time** and so, so much better! The only part missing for the build was a headset ... nothing serious then ... but that was sorted quickly. Thursday night saw a quick build with Reba SL, Chris King wheels, XT everything and USE post/stem. Nice. 0515, alarm clock set. Up and out to tweak and tighten on a 40 mile off road commute. 

 

 

The Ride?

 

The Superplastic Formed Tubing delivers a gorgeous integrated head/downtube gusset. The phat BB tubing keeps things tight there too. The carbon wishbone seatstays? 40 miles of off road commuting. Arrive at the garage and, rather than the stalled and slow attempts to straighten my back, it was straight off and, after few touchy toes/quad stretches, all was well. 

 

Light

Precise

Sharp

Laterally Stiff

 

 

And did I mention the graphics?

 

 

It is nice to buy things that have been designed in a quiet, undulating rural part of Britain. The kinds of places that cycling folk would naturally be. 

 


So today, I fitted Small Block Eights and blasted round the Stanmer Big Dog course. The XCPro3 doesn't beat you up on the long ride and equally is huge amounts of twitchy, accurate and quick fun on tight crazy singletrack. 

 

* The Uber On road commute scares the hell out of me - too many 07:43 cardiac moments of angst youth, 10 feet behind, pumping into the turbo/nitro bands of some rocket ship with bumpers. 

 

** Just because a bike is cheap 2nd hand, it doesn't miraculously make a 17" frame fit a 19" body.