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362 Posts
I guess I am lucky because Hammerhead bikes is my local bike shop and they had 3 spiders in stock. They had a black, white, and a grey. I chose the white. The black was mean looking, the grey was kinda boring, but the white had a nice pop to it. So why did I choose the Spider? Because I demoed it and it was awesome.
Well my (real) bike history is this. Two 3” bikes, 1 a hard tail the other a Racer-X. Then I went to a 4” Ventana. Then to a 5” Ventana (X5). The X5 is the coolest bike. It had the stability I was looking for. I lost a little quickness but that is the tradeoff that you have to make with these bikes. Even though I was happy with the X5 I decided to demo the Spider just to see what all of the fuss was about. I was looking for two things in the demo, rollovershit ability and traction. Well both of those turned out awesome so then I started to look at the quickness vs. stability ratio. The Spider was just as stable, if not more, than my X5. But it was much quicker, or maybe nimble is a better word. I forgot about all of the advantages to having a quick bike. So having a quick, nimble, stable, fast bike that runs over anything and has gobs of traction was enough to get me to bite.
For me it was between the Spider, Ventana, and RIP9. I decided against the Ventana because they could not as custom and I wanted. And the price of a custom is high. I liked the numbers on the RIP. A 72HA would have been perfect but that might go against the intent of the bike. I still feel that the RIP is still a bit of an unknown. All 3 would have been winners but the bottom line is that my demo when awesome. And my 29er theory is to let the geometry give you quickness and the big wheels give you stability.
So here is the build.
White Intense Spider, Med.
Rock Shox Reba
Race Face Evolve Crank, 2 ring + bash
Race Face Deus 31.8 stem with 31.8 carbon riser Answer bar
X.0 Grip Shift
X.9 Rear derailleur
11-34 XT cassette
King Hubs, DT 7.1 wheels
Kenda Nevs with stans
Thomson seatpost
Well my (real) bike history is this. Two 3” bikes, 1 a hard tail the other a Racer-X. Then I went to a 4” Ventana. Then to a 5” Ventana (X5). The X5 is the coolest bike. It had the stability I was looking for. I lost a little quickness but that is the tradeoff that you have to make with these bikes. Even though I was happy with the X5 I decided to demo the Spider just to see what all of the fuss was about. I was looking for two things in the demo, rollovershit ability and traction. Well both of those turned out awesome so then I started to look at the quickness vs. stability ratio. The Spider was just as stable, if not more, than my X5. But it was much quicker, or maybe nimble is a better word. I forgot about all of the advantages to having a quick bike. So having a quick, nimble, stable, fast bike that runs over anything and has gobs of traction was enough to get me to bite.
For me it was between the Spider, Ventana, and RIP9. I decided against the Ventana because they could not as custom and I wanted. And the price of a custom is high. I liked the numbers on the RIP. A 72HA would have been perfect but that might go against the intent of the bike. I still feel that the RIP is still a bit of an unknown. All 3 would have been winners but the bottom line is that my demo when awesome. And my 29er theory is to let the geometry give you quickness and the big wheels give you stability.
So here is the build.
White Intense Spider, Med.
Rock Shox Reba
Race Face Evolve Crank, 2 ring + bash
Race Face Deus 31.8 stem with 31.8 carbon riser Answer bar
X.0 Grip Shift
X.9 Rear derailleur
11-34 XT cassette
King Hubs, DT 7.1 wheels
Kenda Nevs with stans
Thomson seatpost
