I finally have the parts together to build the geared A9C. Woohoo!<\/p>\n
So, yesterday, I started working on it.<\/p>\n
Step one- reduce travel of my 120mm, tapered steertube, maxle lite Reba to 80 mm. Done.<\/p>\n
Step two- assemble front end of bike. Snag. The compression ring that should fit between the top headset bearing and the steertube won’t push down all the way because the end of the taper of the steertube is inside the bearing. Fail.<\/p>\n
Apparently, by using a 100mm-long taper, SRAM has given the proverbial middle finger to those of us who ride a small or medium 29er frame:<\/p>\n
Niner Air 9 Carbon Small: 100mm
\nTrek Superfly Small: 103mm
\nSanta Cruz Tallboy Medium AND Large: 99mm
\nGiant Anthem Small and Medium: 104mm
\nGiant XtC Small: 89mm, Med\/Large: 99cm
\nFelt Nine Small (not tapered, but just for example): 100mm<\/p>\n
I could go on, but I’m not in the mood to spend my morning looking at geo charts for every 29er on the market.<\/p>\n
I’m sure a few of you are saying “buyer beware,” and, to a degree, you’re right. However, if you were SRAM, would you really<\/em> want to eliminate the ability to use your product in a healthy section of a continuously growing market? I mean, seriously, what were you thinking?<\/p>\n My options now are somewhat limited.<\/p>\n -I could return the fork and get a non-tapered steertube fork with a reducer. Lame. I hate how that looks, and I really, really don’t want to do it. I also may run in to issues with the fact that I’ve already opened the fork & installed the travel reducers.<\/p>\n