- You little beauty!
I couldn't be more pumped on this machine.
I'm Tom Bradshaw and today,
we're going on a tour of my hard tail,
the Commencal Meta HT AM.
Like many of us,
I'm waiting patiently for my full suspension bike this year.
But I'm fortunate and really happy to have
this machine as my do-it-all daily driver.
(anticipatory techno music)
Now I have to admit I'm a little scared
of jumping back on the hard tail,
and that's because one of the last times
I was on one was at an XC World Cup in 2014,
where it sent me into the Friday fails hall of fame.
So with that in mind,
I've built this bike to be pretty much up for anything.
It's gonna take us on some big bike packing missions
inappropriately charge down some trails
and maybe even put a race plate on it.
Now I'm lucky to work with these awesome brands
and get to pick exactly what I want to put on this bike.
So let's go take a look.
So first things first is the frame.
The Commencal Meta HT AM.
Now I'm 175 centimeters or 5'8" on a good day.
So I'm the size medium.
It's an aluminum frame,
good luck translating and captioning that,
and it can fit 27 and a half or 29 inch wheels.
Now I've gone for the wagon wheels,
because that's what I'm used to
and I don't want to over complicate it.
The other thing to note here is the headset angle,
it's 65 degrees,
which is quite slack for a hard tail bike.
It's only two degrees off Commencal's downhill bike
that Amaury Pierron runs.
Suspension.
So up front suspension wise,
I'm running the Rock Shok Lyric Ultimate.
It's 150 mm travel fork.
It's got 35 mm stanchions and a 51 mm offset.
So I'm starting with 83 PSI in the fork
and three clicks of compression from closed.
And now in the rear that suspension's all me.
I've got the Zipp 3ZERO Moto wheels in 29er.
They're a single wall carbon wheel
with a 30 mm internal diameter.
Now the crazy thing about these Zipp wheels
is that it comes with the Quarq TyreWiz.
Now this connects to your phone
and it tells you realtime what your tire pressure is.
It also has a blinking LED light,
so whenever the wheels move,
it flashes green or red.
Green means that your tire pressure
is in the range that you set on the app,
and red means that it's outside that range.
So you know what that means?
It means you never have to watch
Levy's Explainer Tire video ever again.
Happy days!
Tire-wise, I want this bike to be able to do
pretty much everything.
So I want them pretty burly.
So I've gone for the Schwalbe Hans Dampf 2.35 29er tire.
I've got 25 PSI in there at the moment
and I've got it in their super gravity casing.
And upfront, I've gone for the Magic Mary,
29 by 2.35 as well,
23 PSI, and then the super gravity casing as well.
So taking it upstairs Deity provides the cockpit.
The gray lock jaw grips is what I've gone
for on the BlackLabel handlebar.
Now I've cut that down to 780 mm wide
and there's a 15 mm rise.
The Copperhead Stem,
I've gone for the 50 mm option to start with.
Deity also look after our downstairs
with their SpeedTrap saddle.
I've gone for the bronze option.
Brakes, they're Kiwi-style,
the right way around
and this is one component I'll never go less on.
So I've gone for the Code RSC's 180 mm rotor in the back
200 mm in the front with that nice rainbow finish.
It looks awesome.
Seatpost wise, I've gone for the Reverb Stealth Dropper,
150 mm in length and the one by lever
tidally attaches to the matchmaker system upfront.
Now drivetrain-wise, this is exciting.
It's the GX AXS Eagle drivetrain.
Now I've got some big missions planned for this bike,
so I'm looking forward to seeing
whether the battery or my legs fade first.
So to help my legs,
the cassette has a 52 to 10 tooth spread
and I've got a 32 tooth chain ring in the front.
And I always run 170 mm cranks
because that's what feels comfortable.
There you have it, the hard tail to do it all.
This is going to be my daily driver
and I'm gonna make a video
about what I learnt riding a hard tail.
So let me know the things I should try.
Maybe the things I should avoid.
Right now though,
I think it's time I should take it for a ride.
Cheers.
(beep)
Just give her a go.
Yep, I'm just gonna go,
you little beauty!
How stupid's that?
What else do I say that's stupid?
Just look at it.
How good?
Yeah, this is how the magic happens.