The title of this blog post was really meant to be a play on words: "More on the Tallboy." Get it? Not funny? Well, I thought it was at the time. You probably had to be there...

Anyway, we just fired out a newsletter about the beast, and about a couple upcoming demo days we have in the works. Heck, we even included geometry charts for the bike, so we really must be making one. The skinny on that can be found here

Meanwhile, we have a real-life rideable “getting close to ready for production” carbon fiber Tallboy all built up and getting worked over (the orange one in the photos is actually made from very carefully mixed chewing gum and soap, skillfully molded to look just like the real thing, but, alas, totally unrideable). After a decade of riding my own various custom built 29″ bikes, and after running through a lot of other bikes as well as our own aluminum mules in the past year, this bike is shaping up to be something pretty damn sweet. The frame is ridiculously stiff. Probably a whole lot stiffer than it needs to be. Definitely stiffer, by a long shot, than anything else I’ve ever ridden in this wheel size. For perspective, it has been testing out stiffer than our Blur XC, but not as stiff as the Blur LTc (which is about the most brick shithouse bike we make at the moment in terms of stiffness).

Stiff is good. Flex is not so good. I’m a happy camper at the moment. As it sits, we’re targeting frame weight, with shock, in the five pound ballpark. “Ballpark” because there is still some tweaking to be done in the final stages, and frames may get a little lighter. Or they may get a little heavier. Either or, 5 pounds for a 4″ travel frame is pretty dang svelte by any measure, and for a 29″ bike, is really, really svelte. Of course, being the marketing stooge, my words are not to be trusted. I’d sell swamp gas as perfume if I thought it’d help us move bikes.

But:

Here is the ride sample we have right now. Built up with nice parts, but nothing so special - thru axle fork, 1900 gram wheels, tires with tubes in them, cr-mo saddle rails, big heavy Joplin seatpost...

And here's what it weighs, size large, nothing up our sleeves. Without breaking a sweat, or too many piggy banks, you could chop two pounds off that weight. We'll have to see what we can get them down to once we really start geeking out with the parts...

It’s gonna be a fun time ahead.