Long time road biker getting into XC mountain biking
 

Hello my fellow enthusiasts, I’m a long time road biker built a few road bikes during my younger days, and now that I’m a family man, I’m building me and my wife custom mtb’s.

I just bought matching Specialized Chisel framesets, hers in XS and mine in M both in gloss chameleonsnake eye/Forrest green. (Check it out on specialized website)

and I need y’all to teach me to build this bike to the next level.

I’m pretty much sold on a 1x12 set up (prolly a XTR set up, I’m a Shimano ***** and restomoded my 96 Cannondale with DA 7800-7850 everything) unless you all can tell me otherwise.

what fork should I use?
groupset recommendations?
wheelsets?
etc?

thanks in advance
Fred

Probably should be some kind of XTR 1x12 drivetrain.
Probably 120mm suspension fork.
Shimano Hydraulic disc brakes.
Some kind of 29r wheelset with no wider than 23mm internal width

Sorry kinda double the thread on this. But I’ll keep this one.

but yeah. For my wife’s bike I think I decided on the groupset being a complete Shimano SLX micro spline 1x12 10x51 with a 30mm chainring.

I noticed on the Specialized Chisel that it has a 2 piston brake calipers front and back, can I switch them with the 4 piston? Or is that only for full suspension downhill MTB’s? If so what size brake rotors can I use with the 4 piston calipers?

I’m aiming more towards a XC race trail/CrossCountry theme so I’m sticking with 100mm travel, but it’s hard for me to find 42mm offsets

now for wheels I’m aiming for a 29” 2.2 to 2.3 width but I can’t find any SLX hub’d wheelsets? I might just go DT Swiss but I’m trying to minimize weight as much as possible for my wife.

imma hold off on my bike for right now but I’ll post pics soon.

SLX is the sweet spot, it's the 105 for mt. bikes. It came on my '19 Chisel and has been a great system. The Comp came with a Specialized crank and BSA bottom bracket, so any 1X crank will work. I see an XT soup-to-nuts 1X group on Texas Cyclesport for $930. Be forewarned though that groups and parts are really hard to source, still, so best of luck.

Luckily enough I was able to source a take off 2020 specialized chisel front fork (RockShox Judy silver 42offset 100mm) so that’ll be for my wife.

Also found out factory rotors are 160mm and have to have a caliper adapter/spacer in order to run 180mm. Just don’t know if I could run the 4piston SLX instead of the 2piston SLX calipers

You can do quad-piston, but you probably won't need it. Why not just stick with what you have, and if you wind up thinking you need quad-pistons, it is pretty easy to swap the front or both out.

I have that fork in my bike. It’s functional but sure doesn’t match the level of your notional brakes and drivetrain.

The frame color is sick!

Four piston is not designed for XC and would probably be overkill.

In addition to most of the suggestions here I would add for next level build

• Fox 32 Stepcast fork
• Custom built wheel set with Chris King hubs and We Are One Revive rims
• dropper post
• most of the contact points are rider preference but would have some suggestions for those also

In my opinion, SLX brakes are not worth it. Deores, MT500, or MT520 (if you want 4 pistons) have the same braking power, lever, and caliper design at half the cost.

Also, I switched from SLX 2 piston, to MT520 4 pistons and the braking and feel seems identical to me. I don't think that 4 pistons will make any difference for XC riding. At least, they don't make any with my riding style.

Couple pics
 

Okay. I’ve decided to go with the 2 piston. I want to match all the groupset completely. So SLX all the way for my wife’s bike. I can’t wait to build. But parts are hard to find and tires are pricey. Here’s a couple pics hopefully to keep this thread going.

https://i.postimg.cc/Z0hjh62N/D04489...A3973-B3-E.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/68LtYrkh/3-EE61...-AE29-E0-D.jpg

No dropper posts? You're crazy! Dropper posts are as important as suspension! (Well almost)

Unfortunately when I bought the frame set it only came with a regular 30.9 seatpost. Once we get better we will upgrade to a dropper.

Nearly all serious trail bikes are now coming with droppers, but for XC they are still not a given. (That and 12-speed and a few years of inflation have turned the "$1000" bikes into nearly $1500 bikes, but there you go.)

Depends on where and how you ride - He's building a xc oriented bike -- dropper post is needless extra weight for this






xc

Sure I guess if you're riding flat gravel. But so much can be gained from having a dropper.... Safety on descents, fun ripping up single track, attempting to get any air whatsoever, bunny hopping... All things that arent that much fun with a saddle shoved up your keister all the time

At the pro level, at least, there are plenty of them now using droppers. Here's the world champion's bike (though she just withdrew from the race this weekend after a crash and concussion)

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/bike-c...-spark-rc.html

And here's Nino Schurter's bike, without a dropper
https://www.redbull.com/us-en/nino-schurter-bike-check

It is interesting, in the Nino article, that he says the dropper is one of the best inventions for bikes. He doesn't use one only because he thinks they haven't made them good enough for his style of riding.

Totally agree. I legit do not see myself riding off-road without a dropper ever again. Even with a rigid fork I would still run a dropper :ride:

Bikes are so rad now it's ridiculous :)

Unfortunately me and my wife are rookie MTBer’s so we (if not me) will upgrade to dropper post soon enough.