Carver Bikes 96′er Mountain Bike Review

Let me begin by stating that this review is for the Carver 96’er frameset. However, I could do a review on so many items on the bike, since I have never ridden any of them before. I wanted this build to be new and fresh as I always do, rather than build with components I am familiar with. In this way, I am able to have a broad knowledge of many brands. I try to be unbiased when evaluating different items, and judge them on their own merit. However, I will state that I would not change a single component on the bike – everything performed flawlessly!

I have been riding a rigid single speed 29’er for the past several months, so I am very familiar with riding 29” wheels. They are great for rolling trails, but I would prefer a 26” bike for racing or very technical singletrack. One of my good friends has become a 96’er convert, and now has a rigid Carver single speed, as well as another brand’s full suspension bike. I was intrigued by the 96’er idea, especially having come from a motocross background. A larger tire up front will roll more easily, which is why so many people are now riding 29”-wheeled bikes. On the other hand, it does take more effort to spin up a rear 29” wheel, so technical riding can suffer when acceleration out of corners is required. Companies making the 96’er-style of bicycle use this as the rationale for using a 29” front wheel and a 26” rear. After building Tom’s Carver 96’er single speed, I knew that would have to be my next frame! However, all three of my current mountain bikes are single speeds, so I knew that I wanted gears. I plan to race again (2 or 3 x 9), but in the meantime, I felt that a 1×9 would serve me perfectly in the Atlanta area, since I could ride most trails on a single speed. Given the benefits, a 96’er 1×9 would seem to be the perfect all-around bike.

As built, the Carver was 25.5 lbs. with pedals – very respectable, considering the fact that it had a 29” front wheel and fork. I was not aiming for a light bike necessarily – after receiving the frame, I bought the Halo rims, knowing that they would be relatively heavy since they were freeride rims. However, I compensated with the other components. I have never personally had Chris King hubs, but I have built dozens of wheels with them. I knew that I wanted the best. I decided to use a 20mm thru-axle just because. Originally I was going to get a FOX fork, but they did not have any 29’er forks in stock since they were transitioning to 2010 units. I currently have FOX, Marzocchi, and Rockshox forks on other bikes, so I decided to try the Manitou. I have been riding several models of Avid and Hayes disc brakes, so I wanted to try Magura SL. Finally, I went with the Ritchey carbon bars, stem, and seatpost.

The first thing I noticed about the bike was how responsive it was! The tubeless tires helped, but I was immediately comfortable on the bike. My friend Dave was riding behind me, and he commented several times on how well I was able to flick it around. I actually had to keep reminding myself that it was not a 26”-wheeled bike. It pulled a wheelie much easier than my other 29” bike, and just felt “right.” I was a little reluctant to push heavily into corners at first due to the standard tire converted to tubeless on the front, but my confidence increased as the ride progressed. The harder I pushed the bike, the more it seemed to want! The bottom bracket was super-stiff, and handling was exactly as expected. I have an old Mazda RX7 GSL-SE I am restoring, and this bike reminded me of that car – point it where you want it to go and it does the rest!

Descending was zero effort, and I felt perfectly confident at any speed. I will admit that the tires and brakes were a large factor, but the geometry of the frame was the main reason. Climbing was equally as impressive. I tried the new “Monster Mile” at the Fort Yargo trails in Winder for the first time, not having any experience with it. There is a decent-sized “horseshoe drop” which was the most technical part of the ride. The bike dug in and climbed out of the Georgia clay without incident – I never put a foot down on that entire trail!

I can’t say enough about how happy I am with the bike – it is the PERFECT mountain bike for almost every trail in Georgia! I am definitely a 96’er convert now, and that will be the bike I use mainly. Sure, the components were incredible, but they were only as good as the foundation. A painted Carver 96’er frame is $399 MSRP. I would take that frame any day over a $1,500 carbon 26” frameset! It was stiff and responsive with perfect handling. What more can I say? The bike was amazing!

Frame: Carver 96’er
Fork: Manitou Minute-29 Super 09 Absolute T-A – 100mm travel
Rims: Halo Freedom Disc (29” front, 26” rear) with Stan’s NoTube kits
Hubs: Chris King ISO Disc (20mm front thru-axle)
Spokes: Black Wheelsmith double-butted with blue alloy nipples
Brakes: Magura Marta SL (180 front and 160 rear)
Headset: Chris King NoThread
Shift Lever: SRAM X.0
Rear Derailleur: SRAM X.0
Chain: SRAM hollow pin
Stem: Ritchey WCS carbon
Seatpost: Ritchey WCS carbon
Handlebar: Ritchey Super Logic carbon
Tires: Kenda Nevegal (standard 29” front and 26” UST rear)
Saddle: Selle Italia SLR Troy Lee Design
Grips: Oury
Pedals: Crank Brothers Egg Beater Ti

Ventana Mountain Bikes USA: Still Rockin’ it Gringo Style

Sherwood Gibson, owner of Ventana Mountain Bikes USA, has been enjoying the mountain bike scene longer than most of us have been riding. Coming from a BMX background, Gibson built his first steel hardtail in 1985. The past twenty years or so has seen Ventana catapult from humble beginnings to one of the more recognized high-end mountain bike manufacturers in the United States. Unlike most companies that have been around for the past few decades, Ventana still produces bikes exclusively sourced and assembled in the U.S.A. The company’s philosophy places an extraordinary emphasis on quality control and drive for impeccable manufacturing. Mountain bikers lucky enough to own a Ventana are a critical source of marketing for the company. Like many builders, Sherwood admits he enjoys building bikes more than selling them. He was kind enough to talk with me from his shop outside of Sacramento, California. Feel free to drool at Ventana USA.

MTO: So,where were you guys at the National Handmade Bike Show this past weekend?

GIBSON: We didn’t go.  We were planning on it but my wife ended up having to travel for her work and that kept me home. The other thing about that venue is that there isn’t a category for best aluminum bike or best aluminum weld, so quite honestly it was for the old-school steel guys, it’s a better venue for them, we’re not really even thought of as a custom handmade bike company even though we are.

MTO: That’s what I wanted to touch on right away. Your company, and I hesitate to use the term “boutique,” but being a popular high-end brand that isn’t one of the big three, have truly maintained the “handbuilt in the USA” standard, do you face any challenges in keeping things American? Is any level of production or sourcing done overseas? Is it a point of pride for the company?

GIBSON: Not at all. [As for company pride], I guess you could say that, but really, I like making stuff. I got into making bikes because I like making stuff and I thought I could do a better job. And so with that in mind, since I’m the guy that’s out there making it happen, if we can bring it in house and it makes sense and we can have better control and have a better product, then we do. At some point in time, maybe our customer base shrinks and we’re priced out of the market, but for now people who appreciate that we can give them a product, and so I don’t have any interest in going offshore because quite honestly I’m way better at building bikes than I am selling them. So if I were to go offshore I would have to be better at selling them, and I’m not very good at that! A lot of times I can build a bike quicker than I can tell you about it. It’s crazy that way, but that’s the way it is.

MTO: Before we go any further, you are privately owned?

GIBSON: Yup.

MTO: Would you be willing to divulge your sales in terms of bike production?

GIBSON: In terms of bike production, right now we’re doing between 600 and 800 year, which sounds like a lot, but when you spread it over 15 models it’s not that many. What that has allowed us to do is get really good at doing one-off bikes. We do a lot of custom bikes for people. Of those 600 to 800 bikes, 200 to 300 are customs in one form or another. And we’re able to respond to that demand because we’re in-house. So that works out quite well. In general, a custom frame that gets ordered today likely gets started tomorrow or within the next couple of days. And we also do production of our main selling models, we keep those in stock in various sizes, we do powder coating in-house so I go next door and shoot whatever colors we’re gonna shoot, and that’s how I keep up.

MTO: You say you have 15 different stock models, I’m familiar with the product line, but is that the official number in production right now?

GIBSON: Well, there’s not really an official number, if you go to our website and you change the model name in the URL to a previous model name, all the geometry and information is still on the website, and if someone really wants it, we’ll still build it. As long as we have the capability to build it for someone we will. That 15 is not a hard number. We probably do 10 very regularly, and then we do road and cross bikes, so it’s a fluid number. We used to make bikes for Tomac, Specialized, Ellsworth, a bunch of different bikes for a bunch of different manufacturers. At that time, we were doing about 3500 frames a year. So we have more capacity than what we do, but what that does is allows us to focus on our customs in more detail. I would have to add some employees to get back to that number. We have six employees now, had 11 when we were at that number. Read more

True Beauty Comes From Within

One of my most favorite people to converse with online is Keith Scott who is the design engineer for Banshee Bikes.  Keith is a wealth of knowledge and has helped me understand the design and mechanics that go into mountain bikes.  From time to time (when he finds time) he will be contributing articles to this site.

Today I asked Keith to explain Banshee Bike’s internal ribbing design for their seat and chainstays.  To my knowledge (and Keith’s) Banshee Bikes is the only bike manufacturer using an internal rib.  So what is it?

Internal ribbing makes the rear end of Banshee Bikes very laterally stiff meaning all your pedal power goes to the wheel rather than frame flex.  Frame flex is something that most riders overlook.  They think a lighter bike will always accelerate faster.  However, a heavier and stiffer bike is much more likely to beat a lighter one off the line.  Frame flex is probably equally as important as suspension design because it accounts for a lot of the efficiency when pedaling.

The process used to manufacture internal ribbing on bikes is cold form extrusion. Cold form extrusion is a process in which the material is drawn and pressed through a die which creates the shape by aligning the material.  The nice thing about extruded tubes is that the grain structure of the metal is all aligned in the process which makes the material stronger than it was before extrusion.  Similar to how forged parts are stronger than CNC machined parts for the same weight.

The rib not only increases the second moment of area and structural rigidity of the tubes, but it also makes the bikes much more quiet.  You’ve probably ridden a big hollow monocoque frame and have noticed the really loud and hollow sound made from chain lap or objects clashing agains the metal surface…with internal ribbing this noise is significantly reduced.  Not that noise when riding is really important…  Read more

First Ride On My Fully Rigid Singular Swift SS Mountain Bike

Homeboy’s skiing blog provides you skiing tips & tricks, road-trip stories, movie and book reviews, technical information, competition watch, resort reviews, news and photo sessions. Our main focus is to provide you how-to-information, such as how to ski in different conditions, how to fix your equipment and how to organize your ski trip. In the summer time our main sport is mountain biking and you will find quite a lot of mountain biking related content on the blog at the moment.

I recently wrote a short article about converting my 29er hardtail to fully rigid single-speed. Carl from Made-to-Order Bikes found my text and asked me to feature here on this site with a post about my Singular. Well, I found this a good opportunity to promote our blog a bit. I was also just about to write a first ride report with the new set-up, so the timing suited me very well.

My Singular

I guess the Singular brand is not the most well known in the USA. So, I start with a brief introduction of the manufacturer:

Singular is a small frame manufacturer from UK specializing in 29er bikes. A quote from their website tells the following:

”Singular Cycles brings you bikes for the type of riding you do. A blend of modern concepts with proven design and materials makes for beautiful bikes, which ride like a dream.

We’ve become disillusioned with ever more fragile bikes and components which offer no real benefit to the everyday rider who wants a bike which rides sweetly, looks lovely, and doesn’t need replacing every year.

Singular Cycles – singularly distinctive bicycles.”

The company also has a nice blog – check it out for more detail about e.g. product development, race results and customer’s bikes.

I have ridden the 29er now for a bit over two seasons. Before my current bike I rode (the original) Gary Fisher Rig for about one and a half season. I bought the Singular last November and didn’t ride it much during the winter months. I was pretty happy with the original hard tail set-up in e.g. this endurance event. However, having enjoyed the excellent rolling features the 29ers offer, I started to think that maybe it is the rolling and the geometry that weight more when defining the good riding characters of a bike than the suspension per se (Especially when thinking about cross-country/trail bikes).

With that said I was still a bit nervous about this project. After all, I pretty much learned to ride a mountain bike on a full suspension rig, as I already wrote in my original blog post about this issue. This feeling got stronger as the day for the test ride came – as the first notion on the morning was “damn, it has rained the whole night before…” (This means slippery with capital s on our trails…)

We rode some five miles to the trailhead and paused to let some air pressure out of the tires. I pumped the tires (Panaracer Rampage 2.35”) to about 3 bar (around 42psi) for the road and tried now to adjust them to about 2.5 bar (around 36psi).

The trail started with some series of technical short climbs. Which were not easy for me – I should have probably let even more air out of the tires as the rear wheel kept slipping. (I’ve read somewhere that Rampages are not the best wet-conditions tires anyway?) Also the bigger factor after riding gears for couple of months was sprinting for some square-edged “steps” on the climbs: I think I just got used to the seated/geared climbing again, and now the single-speed riding style just wasn’t immediately there. The 38-18 gearing felt a tad heavy; previously I’ve had 32-19, which suits maybe even better to our rooty/quite technical trails. (I think I keep it like it is though, because now the transition to trail head was bearable. With any lighter gearing the roads would start to feel total PITA in my humble opinion.)

However, the flatter sections of the trail were ok and the 29er wheel rolled nice and easily just like it should. With the rigid fork your hands are going to feel more impacts for sure but on the other hand lifting the front wheel and/or making small corrections were very easy and accurate – a pretty cool and new feeling to me.

Then we got to some nice steep rollers. Whoa, I never believed an old-school rider friend that blasted how rigid fork is actually very good on steeps as the geometry never change during the descent. Check the pictures, I really dug to ride these slick rock sections, and was surprised how well it all went.

After that the trail got easier and I found the rigid bike very fun on some mellower, faster sections. After all, weight savings over a suspension fork must feel somewhere. Rigid bike, mellow up-hill and single speed – you don’t need any “pro pedal” set-ups, right?

Typical Southern Finland Singletrack

It was only when we hit one particular slippery part of the trail with big, wet roots when I got in trouble again. I wasn’t attacking the obstacles aggressive enough and kept slipping around – frustrating for sure but next time I know I should just pedal on and not hesitate…(funny how easy it always sound at the desk!)

Also, after about two hour of riding, I really started to feel the impacts on the arms, especially when the speeds got higher in the downhills. Today’s loop wasn’t much longer than that thought. I’ve yet to see if I can take some four-five hours ride with the rigid fork – at least you get some decent arm pump if nothing else…

At the end I also have to praise the Singular on some well thought design. Their rigid fork that is designed to go with the frame offers very good handling. The fork is quite long for a rigid one (485mm A-C) and has a rake/off-set of 48mm (that’s a good amount of it folks!). But this combinations just works – riding this bike will keep you smiling. Check this review from MTBR for further proof. It seems like riders way better than me liked the bike too.

And at last, I’d like to thank Carl for an opportunity to write on this excellent site. Happy trails and just keep pedaling! I hope you enjoyed my review.

Janne/ Homeboyski Team

Just another shot from today’s ride