Hey everyone, welcome or welcome back!
I don't know about you but as of late I got to appreciate a trusty hardtail:
it's a lot cheaper to build, it's easy to maintain
and I started to build this Octane One Prone at the beginning of the year.
I looked at the frame and I told you that I was impressed by the quality for the money.
But here it is fully built so let's take a closer look at it!
And I must admit that the first thing that attracted me to the Octane One was the price that I could find online.
If you remember these frames are built by NS Bikes they are well known for their dirt jumpers.
And this one it's a fairly modern geometry frame.
We're talking about the 66.5 degree head angle, you have a short chainstay at 425mm.
The seat tube is of 74.5 degrees, the top tube is kind of what you would expect for the size,
and the reach is not too long not too short,
this is built around 120 millimeter fork which is kind of welcome for a hardtail for me
because an Enduro hardtail... it kind of doesn't make any sense
120 millimeter 29er hardtail, it makes all the sense in the world.
And I built this with some of the parts that i had in my parts bin
so that's the reason why I've chosen some of these components
and if you were to look at the cockpit you're gonna see that the brakes that I've used here
yes, they are SLX brakes but these are the previous generation the M7000,
you can see that from the I-SPEC II bar clamp that's being used over here and not the EV of the current (brakes).
Lock-on grips, I always use that, I had these leftover Norcos from one of the NORCO Revolvers
and what you're going to see here is actually a SRAM Eagle GX
I've done videos about this new Lunar 520% GX shifter and derailleur for that matter
you can find them on my channel.
For this Small size frame I went to a 740 millimeter handlebar
and you have a 45 millimeter Raceface stem attached to it.
This is bought online, nothing special.
On the left side you're gonna see obviously the other brake lever, you're gonna see the same lock on grips
and the dropper remote which was a leftover from an old X-fusion dropper post.
Now the dropper post is actually not X- fusion, it is one of the trusty TranzX
and when I reviewed the cheap dropper posts that we're looking at today
I mentioned that TranzX might be the one manufacturing them all.
This only has a 100 mm travel which is good enough for this
and on top you're going to see a Fizik saddle that again was from the parts bin so nothing special.
34.9 mm seat clamp, remember you don't get this.
But I am probably going to replace the seat clamp with one of these DABOMB
that I've used on one of my recent builds.
I mentioned that I like the seal here around the seat tube
and also you have this little tongue that will cover that crack in your frame so
it's much better suited for using it off season or in muddy or wintry conditions.
That's an internally routed dropper post and just like all the other cables here
they're all routed outside you can see them come in here underneath the top tube
and routing all the way to the derailleur or to the rear brake in that case.
One thing that I didn't like is the fact that you do not have clamps here for your cables or hoses in the middle of that top tube.
That's why this is just a piece of electrical tape to just keep them together
otherwise they were just rattling around or moving out of the frame, it looked pretty nasty.
The top cap kind of gives you an idea of what headset I installed over here.
This is an IS so integrated IS 42/52 tapered headset.
The frame is tapered and you have 105 mm head tube length over here (small frame)
and that kind of takes me down to the fork which is nothing else but the Rockshox Recon.
This is an air fork and it does use that Motion Control damper which
is not the best that Rockshox has however the fork is quite a bit cheaper that way.
This is not too bad of a fork, 32 mm stanchions,
you can see those anodized, these are steel stanchions.
The only big problem with this is the weight the fork comes in at about 2.4 kilograms
as opposed to anything else that they offer which would be down to under 2 kilograms.
At the bottom of the fork here you're gonna have the rebound adjuster.
This is not the pretty one, it's a little flimsy plastic with 5 clicks of adjustment.
This is a 120 mm 29er as I mentioned and it provides you quite a bit of clearance.
These are 29x2.25 tires and you can see how much room I have around it here.
And the minimum rotor for this is 160 mm you can see my spacer because I have used 180 mm rotor up front.
You can see my XT rotors so RT86, I have 180 front 160 in the rear
and yes, I used the finned brake pads in the back.
And if you look carefully you're gonna see the trusty DT 350 hubs.
These wheels came with one of my Norco Revolvers and I am reusing them this way.
To go along with that is the Stan's ARCH MK3, this is the S1 rim which is heavier
but otherwise provides 26 mm ID, just kind of perfect for a 2.25 tire that I have over here.
These are the new Schwalbe that I looked at, the new casing the new rubber, you can see them all on my channel again.
2.25 x 29er, Racing Ray up front and you're gonna see the Racing Ralph in the back.
I like to use them as a pair even though some some people use this Racing Ralph up front as well.
The same trusty DT 350 hub in the back,
this is a Boost-ed bike and the thru axle is provided by them.
I am using the DT 350 with the 36 points of engagement ratchet.
If you look carefully you're gonna see that I applied 3M tape here on the frame
especially where you would rub it with your heel or on the down tube a little, bit tiny bit on the top tube as well,
Again frame looks really nice right now, we've been using this for about a month or so
and it's been holding well.
One thing that you might be curious about is that piece of silicon.
If you look underneath it you're gonna see that pretty nasty weld.
I don't like it there so I just covered it with silicone, obviously that's not really needed.
And the last thing about the frame, you can fit one of those big 610 ml bottles in here.
Pedals that you see here are quite old (Shimano Saint), we use flat petals in the off season all the time.
Otherwise they are attached to a Truvative, so SRAM Stylo crankset,
this is 170 mm long and if you look carefully here
you're gonna see a threaded bottom bracket (BB).
This is the latest SRAM DUB BB.
That's pretty obvious here on the drive side where it says DUB,
I'm using this with a steel chainring, these chainrings usually come with Eagle SX and NX
it's only because they would last forever.
And one interesting thing that I did here,
this bike is Boost-ed but I have plenty of clearance here to install a non-Boost chainring.
Why would I do that? Because I pushed my chainring inward
so the chain line is at 49 mm versus the 52 mm that Boost provides.
It just makes it easier for the chain when it's in the lowest gears.
That's an Eagle chainring and with it I have a 12 speed SRAM chain.
Now this is an SX I believe or an NX and believe it or not this is the only chain that I've ever used that we managed to break.
So if you look carefully here, yeah that's the reason why I have two quick links because it pretty much broke.
That was my daughter using it not me so not a lot of power,
I always said get the best chains you can find, get X01 or at least a GX chain if you can!
Cassette is not Eagle but is a 12 speed from SunRace, I reviewed this on my channel,
it's 11-51T, you would think is for a Shimano drivetrain.
Well let me tell you,
in this combination with this GX, this is the new Lunar 520% derailleur that I reviewed on my channel as well,
in this combination, this drivetrain for some reason
seems to be one of the smoothest drivetrains that I have today on any of my bikes!
I assume you guys are going to ask me about back pedaling on that largest cog and here it is.
Again this is 49 mm chainline not 52 mm even though this is a Boost frame
and if you look carefully it's okay up to a point.
The good news is that this is not gonna fall aggressively so you're not gonna really ruin your derailleur in case you're wondering.
Weight of the bike in the current configuration is about 28.6 or 28.7 pounds (lbs)
and that is right at 13 kg, keep in mind that this is with those fairly heavy pedals
the pedals themselves weight over 500 grams.
One thing that I have to admit is that I am kind of surprised the way this bike rides.
It's pretty comfortable for the the respective size, again, it's not too extreme geometry wise,
and overall it seems to be just a really nice bike highly recommend this frame
if you want to build a beater bike, or a winter bike or whatever the case might be.
So what do you guys think?
Are you interested in an Octane One Prone?
Do you have any questions for me?
Let me know in the comments below.
If you found this useful don't forget to like, subscribe, comment,
and until next time hope to see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!