I have always enjoyed seeing builders personal bikes. From the fresh and new to the used, abused, and repurposed - it’s neat to see how long people hold onto bikes or how quickly they want to try out something new.
RULES (everyone loves rules)
I’ll start off with the two bikes I spend the most time on. While being probably the most ‘boring’ of my bikes geo wise, they far and away get the most use.
xc mtb
built - March 2021
mileage - 4725 km
I love this bike so much. I have long loved xc, and living in Vic means I can ride three trail networks from my front door. All three zones are quite techy, undulating, and lacking of climbs over 30 min haha
I borrowed the hta and sta from the SC Blur I was riding at the time, only extending the reach out to cut the 110mm stem down to a more modern 80mm haha. It’s got a pf30 bb shell with an eccentric bottom bracket installed so I can play with bb height and single speed it if I really want to. Currently the bb is set to the lowest position in line with the seat tube.
I normally ride it without a dropper gasp and truthfully prefer it that way. The dropper undeniably livens it up on the descents, but it’s stiff as heck - I will be going back to my ti post soon.
hta - 69°
sta - 75°
reach - 475
stack - 613
cs length - 435
bb height - 310
travel - 100
Photo from todays ride
Summer set up
Bike packing set up
super commuter
built - December 2021
mileage - 2700 km on Strava, probably 1000 or so missing
I wanted a bike that was comfy, quick and most importantly had bags and lights bolted to it. Something I could lock up at the grocery store or post office and not worry about too much. Because of the lights and fenders being mounted full time, it’s also become my de facto winter road bike.
The carbon isp was totally unnecessary for this build but I really wanted to try it out. It’s a 27.2 tube from rockwest so that I could use a normal seat tube for the ‘lugs’ and topper. The rest of the tubes are all fairly undersized and have a decent amount of flex under me.
In the summer it is set up with an 11-34 cassette, but in the winter I set it up single speed. My commute is 20km round trip, most of which is on pea gravel path - add that to 6 months of rain and you’ve got a drivetrain destroyer.
The paint is heavily inspired by the best looking f1 car of all time - bwt / force India. It’s even got some bwt logos hidden inside the fork haha
hta - 73°
sta - 73°
tt - 580
st - 590
stack - 580
bb height - 260
cs length - 425+
Current
Summer
I’ll throw up my enduro mtb and skatepark bike at some point as well!
Love your bike packing rig, especially with the rigid fork. Any more detailed photos of that? The scallops at the top of the fork legs look real nice. This is similar to what I would want to build in terms of geometry and exposed non-dropper post. Very cool.
Thank you!
The fork is built at the full length of the fox 32 I normally run to keep the geometry in the ‘locked out’ position. This is the first fork I had built and is the only one I did with the scallops, all my other forks are cut at the same angle as the struts.
The dry bag holster was originally designed for the 32, but fits onto the rigid fork as well. I keep thinking about making a dry bag rack for the rigid fork that sits closer to the tire, but the current set works well enough for my 1-2 trips a year haha
This is the first bike I made myself without instruction. The stays are wonky, the fillets lumpy and undercut, all tied together with a rushed rattle can paint job.
Not really sure what I was thinking with the design, its basically a Surly steamroller with 2" tires. Its a bit unwieldy with a ton of toe overlap. Terrible at all disciplines of cycling and yet, according to strava, at 3.5k it has the most miles of all of my bikes.
Dropbar CX mode:
Bikepack mode:
I built this bike so my youngest daughter could ride with me on a Mac-Ride. I have such long legs that I hit my knees on basically any front mounted kid seat, so I deliberately made this frame as long/slack as I thought I would ever actually want to ride to keep the kid seat as far up/out as possible, and also gave it 140mm of travel so we could ride easy trails without her complaining about every bump.
It’s a 65 HTA, 415 reach/650 stack (yes, that’s right) which is as long as I can reach the bars comfortably with a 35mm stem. Seat angle is a boring 73. I have stupid long femurs so steeper angles don’t really work out well. Chainstays are 43cm and I suppose I would make them a bit longer if I were doing it again. Maybe.
With the little chainring I like to run I think antisquat is around 130% but I’d need to go back and run numbers to be sure. It’s pretty far on the high side but I like it that way.
So yes, I actually built a whole bike so I could ride with a 2 (now 3) year old. I think she will graduate to a tagalong this year. Maybe. She’s a bit timid/tiny. And yes, she falls asleep on the climbs sometimes.
I don’t know how many k I have on it, our riding season is only 4-5 months here usually, but I do ride it every day for a few hours when the trails are dry.
Love it! Thanks for sharing! Also whoa at the routing down the seat stays! Do you get any moisture down there? Would you do it again?
Here’s my valiant steed. I don’t have a whole lot of pictures, other than the glamour shots soon after building it.
It’s got about a season and a half on it. Not sure what the mileage would be, but most rides for this bike are pretty rowdy. That’s what I built it for, anyways.
This was the first bike I built that I was truly happy with how it rode. Hah, you never know how much you don’t know about bike geometry until you build some.
This bike was when I also started playing around with having water/tools etc. on the bike instead of the osprey pack I’ve been wearing for 10+ years. Definitely a game-changer for short rides.
It’s starting to show it’s age, design wise. A few tweaks could really make a difference, I think. I actually want to lower the travel of this fork and see how that feels, but finding the air spring has been difficult. haha.
But this one will still stay ready to ride in the stable for big days and gnarly trails. My next bike will be for the more laid-back xc type rides. Maybe downcountry is the right word (the cool kids are still saying that, right?).
I’ve done it on almost 40 bikes now!
It rains everyday for nearly 6 months out of the year, so I don’t try and keep water out (challenge level impossible) - I just try and give the water easy places to get out.
I love how @wzrd’s XC bike is almost the polar opposite of my XC bike in every way!
-Walt
I really think short travel (120-140mm) slack hardtails ride so well. Something about it just feels right.
Haha I love it too. This is the kind of stuff I wanted to see in this thread. I really like how purpose built yours is, the slack sta / high stack makes a lot of sense when you’ve got another human in front of you.
It’s not just the kid seat, actually. I’m 180cm/5’11" so pretty average height but my saddle height from BB center is 82cm. So compared to an average shaped human my size I’ve got an extra 10cm of legs, give or take, but no long arms to match, sadly. All my bikes look like ladders with wheels, and I’ve never cut a steerer tube in my life.
I’d have back spasms riding yours in about 20 seconds! And I bet you would not enjoy mine, either (except to goof around, of course, which is always fun).
-Walt
Damn! We’re the same hight, and I thought I had a tall saddle height - 800mm
This is the XC/trail hardtail I built a couple of years ago for my local trails, which aren’t steep but rocky, loose, and fast. I typically climb for an hour and then get to the bottom as fast as I’m feeling that day. No idea on mileage, but it’s my go-to mountain bike.
I like to try new things on my personal builds. In this case, I put two bottles on the down tube, used an oval top tube, flat mount rear brake, and triple bend seat stays, none of which I’d do again 
From memory: 120mm fork, 65º HTA, 75º STA, 425mm CSL, 300mm BB height at sag, reach set for a 35mm stem and OneUp bars. Nothing crazy or outlandish geo wise. I’m not a super aggressive rider, nor am I interested in riding hardtails on really challenging terrain. I’ll let the youth fling themselves down the mountain 
@wzrd Your XC bike looks like a proper race rig. I could never handle that saddle to bar drop, but it sure looks fast.
I rode two main bikes this past season that I built.
The green one is a bike I made in my framebuilding class about four years ago. It’s been through a lot of different parts and builds. Similar to Swoods, it does nothing well but ended up being a main rider for about two years. I’ve retired it now because I’m tired of how it handles and feel like I’ve learned everything I can from it design wise.
The second, the blue and white hardtail is my 3rd ‘enduro hardtail’ prototype I’ve made. I just finished my second full MTB season on it. I absolutely love this bike. I went with a 77STA, 64HTA, 808mm FC, 435mm chainstays, and saddle clamp to handlebar clamp is 625mm. If I remember right it has a 58mm BB drop? 160mm Lyrik Ultimate, 35mm stem and 800mm OneUp Carbon bars. It even has GX AXS on it 
This bike fits me super well and rides perfectly for my riding style and terrain. My area is almost strictly ride up - ride down, with a ton of rocks, 12ft+ rock rolls, etc,. I like to jump over everything and take the bumpiest options possible. The bike also has 160mm cranks on it. I’m a convert to shorter cranks now, I personally can’t ride 170mm+ and switching to 160mm was honestly a life changer for me. Hardtail Party’s crank length video was a big inspiration for the switch. If I were to redesign the bike, I’d probably bring the BB height down because the shorter cranks push my seat post a bit higher than I’d optimally prefer. With enough upper body exercise and fitness it doesn’t bother me.
The blue and white bike used a Konga yoke, and now these enduro hard tails use a 3d printed yoke from Daniel. I still haven’t had the chance to make myself one with the 3d yoke, I’m hoping for summer of 2025 I can finally have one for myself!
Great bikes .
I ride my bicycle academy made frame. Made it January 2019, and do all my riding on it.
It’s gravel bike I guess 73,73, supposedly boring geo and fits 38mm tires
I ride mostly road, some gravel, some bike packing and did a few mtb routes with it, not ideal .
Picture is Frome a 50km braze rod haul
This is so fun seeing everyone’s bikes! I think I posted an old pic in the intro thread, but here’s a couple better pictures from today.
I built this in 2012, it was the second bike I built with the help of my friend Tucker. We both made similar geometry hard tails at the same time, he added a second HT position to his jig as mine had a shorter top tube. It was a bit of a team effort, I designed and cut the tubes, he welded it for me. The down tube cracked in 2013 and I set it aside. Then in 2015 I welded the downtube crack and gusseted over it, for the most part it’s been my main bike since then. Unsure how many miles, 26” wheels, 160mm fork. It used 26” trans am geometry, so 68 ht, 72.5 st, 423mm stays. It feels like a bmx bike on the trails compared to my rigid ss 29er.
This frame should have been retired years ago, currently working on its replacement which will be a full squish 29er.
I love seeing everyone’s bikes!
Here’s my favorite one that battles for favoritism every time I ride it. It isn’t the prettiest one nor does it have the best welds I’ve managed to do but it does have something special and I love it every time I ride it. It has had a few different builds and was intended to run a single crown fork but it is so fun I usually run it with a dual crown fork and a 200mm dropper post with an Aenomaly Switchgrade. Do any of you use one of those? Anyways, here’s the 3rd one I’ve made out of 8 in total.
Back when it was on enduro duty.
Aenomaly Switchgrade helps my moldy back on steep climbs AND descents.
The Swiss Alps are steep and my back is tired.
DH build
Downduro? Endown? Dunno but it’s fun.
We have a lot of public transportation around here going up the sides of mountains. Great for bike trail access and then you spend most of the day traversing or going down.
It’s around these numbers,
Ha 63.5*
Reach 465mm (shorter reach cuz sore back and manuals)
CS 435mm or 450mm (can do 460mm with another seatstay)
Sa 76*
3.1 to 2.2 leverage ratio
345mm bb height (up to 355mm with another seatstay)
Mullet wheels
550lbs spring
@Bucko that thing looks super freaking fun.
I keep wanting to build myself a real DH sled again after 20 years of not having one but it’s hard to justify the time when I have so much family stuff/XC riding to do. Maybe this will inspire me…
-Walt
I can’t get over how fun it is! I forgot to mention that it can do 150mm, 170mm or 200mm of rear travel depending on what shock, extender and shaft spacer. Because it is so progressive you can get away with chopping off the end stroke ramp without issues.
You can see the shock extender here to reduce travel thanks to a shorter shock and then you can also reduce the stroke with a spacer on the shaft. It makes the bike have multiple personalities and increases the fun.
