Current Hollowpoint Build

Here's some specs on the current build of my 2004 Iron Horse Hollowpoint. A combination of weight weenism, old school all tempered by good old being frugal and looking for the best value.

The build is designed around Aggressive XC. This is one of the hot buzzwords right now. Basically trails that are not super buff, and for riders that want to climb and ride fast.

This is more of a summary of the build, and I'll have a lot more review of the performance later.




Frame:
15" (extra small) 2005 Iron Horse Hollowpoint



Weight with shock is:
7.6lbs.

The shock is a 2003 SPV swinger Air and alone it weighs:



Yes a little on the heavy side. My review will talk about this and its lack of bearing on the ride. Just for reference, how does this to compare to an ultralight FS XC frame? Here is a full Scandium Salsa Caballero with a Rock Shox dual Air SID shock:

5.1 lbs with shock.
OUCH! That is light.

But folks, look which one I sold to a guy in France and which one am I riding?

Wheels

Ok this is where I splurged a little.
I bought an OEM Wheelset off ebay made with 2003 WTB Laserdisc lite hubs.



I got the whole wheelset for a great deal. A lot of people don't know that WTB OEM's this hubset direct from the kings of lighweight: American Classic
whose exact same hubset alone costs more than I got this wheel for.

However if you are going to do this make sure to either get 2005 Laser disc lites, or if you get pre 2005 make sure to upgrade the freebody to a 2005 by calling the absolute MAN when it comes to wheels. Mike Garcia at Odds and Endos.

Why? Because the pre 2005 freebodies are weak and if I can break it than you can break it. And I did break it.

Since Mike was going to work on them anyways I decided to splurge on the ultimate Weight Weenie rim in existence today. Stan's Olympic ZTR rim





Weight was one reason, but these rims are desiged specifically to work with the Stan's No tubes system. And you can even use his special valve stem in place of the rim strip. Well this worked for the rear wheel, but not the front, so I ended up using the Olympic rim strip with that. I do leak a little air overnight on the rear wheel, which eventually led to this mistake when I ran with too low air pressure:


Even with this ding though the tire remained sealed. I fixed this and it is running fine, but a lessson learned to check tire pressure every ride.

He built them with single guage Supercomp spokes. And my gosh is it STIFFFFF. I hit somethings and almost stop because the wheel doesn't give. It could have been built lighter with some double butted spokes, but I think I am glad of the extra durability with the single guage spokes.

Drivetrain

Old school square taper 107mm Real designs Ti Crankcase bottom bracket going on 9 years old I think:


Mated to a Race Face Turbine crankset 170mm.
(with some SPDs thrown in there too)

Though be aware, this is the absolute narrowest spindle length you should go. Why because the interesting chain stay setup of the HP is fairly wide at certain points. Here you can see that I have less then 1mm clearance between my crank arm and the chainstay:


Luckily it hasn't been an issue.

The rings are hodge podge and are not working well right now.

Middleburn Middle, big rings and sugino steel small. The middle ring is messed up as it chainsucks when I shift from middle to small. It doesn't want to let go of the chain and it also gets caught up on the inside of the big ring during the shift. Gotta try another middle ring to see if I can fix this cause it is a pain.

Chain is SRAM PC something or other


Rear deraileur is an X7. This picture is of an X9 though that was on originally but it has a lot of play in it


Cassette is Sram


Saddle/post

Thomson seatpost. Big and long 27.0. What a stupid size. Iron Horse, why spec something different than a 27.2?


Stock seat post clamp:


Saddle is a Ti WTB

Front controls

No name Ibex flat bar, to be replaced by some carbon flat bar

Avid Juicy 7's. LOVE the adjustability. Need to replace the rear rotor and am replacing with some Galfer. Housing is way too long, need to cut and rebleed sometime.

Grips-Oury.

Rear shifter: X7 trigger
Left Shifter: Gripshift 9.0 shorty
Stem: Ritchey Pro 80mm one of the few 80mm stems made


Fork



100mm 2005 Black Super with TPC damping/lockout
-A little on the soft side, but great for downhilling once I get used to feeling of the front end cycling through the travel. Lockout for long climbs. On the short climbs that come up, just have to deal with some loss of energy through the fork bob

Tires
IRC Mythos rear- decent tire, cheap at $12
IRC Serac front - great all around tire, cheap at $21.00

Both set up tubeless with Stans No tubes

And drum roll please:
Total weight as measured on digital scale with the good old weight myself then weigh myself holding the bike

27.2lbs.

Next changes are going to be a better handlebar, maybe some Ti bolts.