The frame was welded just outside of Dresden, Germany. While we discussed a basic bitch build kit as an intro to mountain biking, when I collected the bike it was built with some of the most esoteric, decently high-end made-in-Europe parts out there. The biggest problem I’ve seen is improper assembly and setup. Even a big-name bike can give a miserable experience if it isn’t set up properly. And sadly, this is an area in which most big-box stores are lacking. There are instances where that may be somewhat accurate because there are certainly some questionable bikes I’ve seen on the shelves at big-box stores.
I’m normally a fan of flex everywhere but in this instance, the super stiff BEAST parts kept the bike feeling positive and surprisingly efficient on climbs. And surprisingly, he often finds a diamond in the rough — or at least a salvageable build hyper bike he can later modify. (In fairness, he finds total lemons too.) So I caught up with him to find out why he loves box-store bikes, whether it’s ever a good buy, and what you can do to make a 200-plus-dollar Walmart bike a respectable ride.
Contrary to my belief that it’s a bike for riding trails, I found out later that it’s instead a bike for riding at trail centers, which I guess is proper mountain hyper mountain bike biking. But in reality, I only spend a fraction of my time on mountain bikes. With few exceptions, we all like to think of ourselves as hardcore mountain bikers.
The SRD came with the classic Acto5 mountain cranks, nice and short in 165—because this bike has all the gears—and long cranks are for flat-earthers. Looking at a component in isolation, I really prefer the performance of SRAM electronic shifting, especially in wet, grimy conditions, but some people prefer mechanical shifting, and those people prefer Shimano. Looking at buying a $600 mech, I love the idea that individual parts of the mech can be replaced if they get damaged, that it will run with almost any shifter, and that I can swap the cage out to run short or long so it can be used on more or less any bike. The frame is made from custom butted and bent 4130 tubes and cast parts manufactured in Taiwan.
I was overbiking for sure, but simultaneously, I was pushing myself to ride new things rather than pushing my fitness as I’d expected. The lack of anything fun to ride locally and my deep desire to ride the bike all the time instilled a sense of being lost and bored, which seemed to always result in play. I’d cruise around looking for things to ride up, down, off, or onto. I could go out for a ride with no aim and no idea where I was going and have a great time just repeatedly trying to hop over a log or riding down a set of steps fast enough to be able to ride up again on the other side; just playing around by myself, having a nice time.
At just over 400 euros it’s not inexpensive, but it’s built to last and offers an insane range for the weight. Tires are, for me, one of the most important choices for any build. Most people, including Schwalbe themselves, seem to think that the “G” in Schwalbe’s G series of tires refers to gravel, however, it actually refers to wildman and all round good egg Grant. Grant works for hyper bike Schwalbe in the UK but in his spare time is also a tire nerd, who indulged me and my fantasies about the kind of riding I might do for far longer than reasonable. It was built under the ambiguous and slightly tongue-in-cheek Sour SRD umbrella (more on that below). It’s neither an enduro bike nor their new race-proven ultra-distance/XC prototype we saw at last year’s Bespoked.