I built this POS to expose the MTB industry. PT1 

100% agree, the bike industry needs an LS engine of bike frames.

Never in my wildest fever dreams did I expect the Felt to make an appearance again

In US you can get a frane but it costs more than a complete bike. Bike industry hates bike builders.

TF you talking about, "here in Canada there's no ready to build frames" Ali express delivers in Canada 😂

Be careful with that 29 wheel in the 650 fork. It may clear the arch but check if it clears the crown at full bottom out. Most won't.

Th biggest hustle in the MTB industry is that marketing teams would have you believe that you can't make it down the mountain with a five year bike, even if it was state of the art back then.

Can't agree more. The price of framesets is just a bad joke, 80% of the time the basic complete bike is more affordable than the frameset option.

That's because companies that offer "bang for buck" completes don't make money on the frame, they primarily make money from selling you the margins they make on the OEM equipment. The frame is mostly there to sell you OEM parts. Just take them off and sell the parts to recoup the costs.

Over here in England my dissabled son ( autistic ) love's getting an old bike and swapping wheels and brakes around , his latest creation was a cheappo eurobike suspension one with 5 spoke alloy wheels . Got stolen last weekend even though it had no rotors or calipers on as he'd took them off while waiting for the new ones to come off ebay . At least he now has the new brakes ready for his next creation ! ... But what you class as a POS , he'd class as a Lambo lol ...

That Boost to standard conversion should be criminal

I'm 100% with you on this. I'm a kid who grew up building bikes. Now as an adult back in the hobby trying to build an mtb is near impossible unless you go second hand.

I've done what you did with an affordable Chromag steel hardtail frame. old fork, brakes, wheels, salvage drivetrain all came together to create a bike which has no right being as fun as it is to ride.

This video is the ethos of this channel. Love it.

I agree, having a cheap simple modern single pivot-frame-only option on the market that just works well enough would be perfect. Minimum maintenance, no carbon, no pretense of being the best.

I like it, You did well getting all the parts together and saving a bunch of money compared to what you actually wanted to build. At a pinch you could sell it on to clear it out of the way. Great Video, Subscribed.

Just checked the Status. European price 1400 euros... Discounted. Full price is above 2k. Get your shit together, big brands.

Poseidon has entered the chat

Please keep the Felt! These videos are going to be so entertaining and enjoyable! I loved this video and it was soooo refreshing to watch! Can’t express how excited I am for the next episode!!!!!! ❤

It's always the guy sending it on a clapped out shopping cart. That gets mad respect at the bike park.

Ah, in the good old days(late ‘90’s early 2000’s) you could literally pick up just about any mountain bike magazine and find ads from Wheel World, Cambria bike, Jenson etc. and by a few year old unridden take off frame for $299-$399 usually with a coupe deluxe rear shock and sometimes with a seat collar and head set. Another $200 bought a rock shox or manitou fork and for around $1000 I could satisfy that new bike itch.

You could just use a "ship to" service and thereby, be able to buy the frame in the US, and get them to ship your purchases to Canada

Sounds like Spindatt need to go into the bike frame business! Order here!

There’s no denying, that’s a bike! 😂 I’m sure there’s many people around the world that would pay a lot for that, none the less, and thoroughly love and enjoy it.

I appreciate the production efforts you’ve made here. Add the dog into the mix and you’ve got a winning combination.

i think i started watching this channel when i was 15/16 yrs old. I always wanted to be like you, being that you just have a fair few bikes, a good road bike, good mtb and just other fun bikes. Now at 21, I've got 6 bikes to my name. If you had told 16 yr old me id have this many bikes i would have gone bonkers

Admittedly my old bike was bought in 2020 (2021 version) and I have upgraded to a point last year where I had nothing else to go for but a new frame. If I hadn’t got my new frame at basically half price it would have cost the same as my old complete bike! But like you I love picking out bits and thinking ahead to when I do upgrade the frame to something more modern which is why the fork upgrade was a Bomber Z2 so I could upgrade the travel for the new frame. With the sad demise of Chhain Reaction/Wiggle I got the boost rear when I needed and the same make/model front wheel for a steal but would have been happy to leave the front wheel until later on. It all part of the journey and simpler than dropping a ton of money on a full bike. Keep up the great content, how’s the training going?

Love the vids @spindatt. Subscribed from FL in the US. I'll be up to NS riding wentworth this summer, I'll sneak a frame in for you. I saw that status frame on sale last fall for $700 usd and almost bought one but scored a an older brand new trek slash frame for$400 on fb marketplace.

Love this format! Keep it up pal!

Great episode! Yeah, pricing, availability, compatability, its all there and lets see if the result of tinke tanking works on the Felt!??

100% agree with being satisfied with current geometry and standards. Now hopefully one day I can find that reasonably priced frameset you mentioned since these standards are likely or hopefully here to stay.

I did the same in around 2002 when I first got into MTB. I purchased a Saracen mantra frame, for around £80 GBP. These were known to be over engineered, with lower end components as complete bikes, so to be able to purchase a brand new frame at that price was a godsend. The finished bike was an absolute gem. It felt like a BMX in it's nimbleness. From memory it had marzzochi forks, FSA headset, carbon bars and seatpost. Avid titanium levers, Mavic rims, and Shimano xt hubs and drivetrain. A few years later (08), I did the same again with an S-works full suspension frame (second hand £150), but powder coated and this time went to town on the build. I won't bore you with the specs, but in 2015 I swapped it for an Audi A4 3.0 quattro. I'm currently selling another hardtail that I built from the ground up. It's really satisfying to build custom bikes, and I always think (if you have good taste), the finished bikes look WAY more than the sum of their parts. ❤

I'm from an area where the default bicycle is still an XC MTB. Everything from a department store bike to a multi-thousand dentist transportation unit. I love nothing more than getting on my 2010-core fixed gear with skinny slicks and no brakes and bombing the same little trails most of them do (we have absolutely nothing major around here). You don't need that much of a bike to have fun, I'd argue I'm having more fun taking a bike that doesn't belong even near dirt trails down said dirt trails than they do.

I bought a used status frame from my buddy last year before the market crashed. I got the frame, shock, headset and a dropper/remote for $850 bucks. This year I said eff it and got a new 2022 Turbo Kenevo SL Compe for a smoking deal of $4400 with a range extender battery.

This was a brilliant very informative build. Been in bike shops for the last 20yrs and honestly see this kind of build often. Just usually never as dailed as this.

Not exactly mass-produced or as inexpensive as the Status, but Airdrop Bikes in the UK will ship worldwide and is direct-to-consumer based and is comprised of like 6 rad dudes that are entirely privately invested in their own company. 100% private and DIY!

Can relate, done similar things with my current bmx set up. I tried to do the same thing building a fixed gear. I just bought a frame and wheels. A few months later, I basically built up a entirely new bike lol. Probably shoulda bought an All City (RIP) big block complete.

Love the idea, but due to the issues you ran into, I went hardtail (Norco Torrent). You can get a Marin El Roy, aforementioned Torrent, or Trek Roscoe frame really affordably.

Specialized is selling the Status 160 frame for 750 dollars, and I upgraded my SJ Evo with carbon wheels and bar, factory 36, and AXS XX1 groupset for much less than 2k combined (new parts, on STEEP sale from various retailers). Used the takeoffs on the Status. Therefore, I built the Status for around 2500 with better parts than stock AND upgraded my main bike significantly in the process. About to grab the Trek EXE 9.5 on sale for 5.5k, which is close to A THIRD of the price of the 9.9, and swap out every single junk component for top end components for less than 3k, which will make it even lighter than the 9.9. Component sales are where it's at!

Just rolling in to say, as a many-yearslong Spindatt subscriber and shirt/sticker enjoyer, that I'm personally excited that this video went and DID SOME NUMBERS

I once got a simple GT Karakoram frame brand new for $75 bucks it was the steal of the 90's They got it in for a broken frame a guy had but he never showed up after a few years. It was the first bike I built myself and of course I tried putting in the bottom bracket backwards. The bike shop took it back out and rethreaded the threads and then put the correct size bottom bracket in for me.

I’m with you on this. Been shopping for a frame set forever only finding TOTL options

Keep up the pressure. The bike industry is beginning to crack...Between them and the "high end" user bike snobs they have priced most people out of their hobby.

I'm running into this same problem myself with a bike commuting build. I'm currently on an older hybrid bike (2016 Cannondale Quick 4) and I just want to upgrade to modern frame standards (mainly disc brakes and thru axles) to allow me to make upgrades and it's near impossible to find a bike that meets those standards and it seems silly to have to buy a whole bike just to replace have the components with the components I already have.

Just a heads up - Guerrilla Gravity closed down earlier this year and Canfield is selling their backstock of frames/parts. you can buy all the frame components separately for about 2k - not cheap but if you get the Megatrail and Shred Dogg Chainstays, you can have a few bikes in one frame without negatively affecting the geometry

I’ve always bought used frames and built my own MTBs with the upgraded components i want. Sometimes the frame is 5-10 years old. One of the myths of the bike industry is that the obsolete bikes are no longer useful. Some premium 26” bikes can be bought and built with premium parts for a fraction of the cost of a new bike.

Curious what your opinion is on the SR Suntour forks? I have a Raidon Air and am itching to replace it but worried I won’t notice a difference.

Love biking, hate the bike industry. Pricing is worse than aviation.

Bikesonline had 2 great sales before Christmas, the Marin CXR frameset and then the Alpine Trail, both priced at $599.

I have so many spare parts in my garage that I can literally build 5 bikes.

I'm a big fan of Felt road bikes, but admittedly their MTB bikes were less than great.

I was searching for some kind of non-top, non-expensive full suspension frame, to drop my parts from trail HT there and have some non-top, ridable full suspension bike. At some point I thought it will not gonna happen. I was starting to think that I should buy something like the lowest level of Marin, swap my, let's called them "medium" parts into the frame, and the entry-level ones from Marin back to ma HT frame and try to sell it as whole, cheap bike. It took me over a year of searching, thinking, but finally, middle last year I came across big sale on CRC and was able to bye some obsolete 2020 carbon, full suspension Nukeproof frame for really decent amount of money, which was much cheaper then most of the aluminium, used ones I was considering on the way. Lucky shot, patience paid off, but yeah, I completely know what you are talking about. I was also in same spot as young kid, just building bikes, changing parts having fun, and was hoping to do that again now. Inability to purchase a normal frame is frustrating.

To paint with broad strokes here, I think the people who end up in BMX tend to be more DIY/younger crowd that end up working on their own bikes out of necessity. The tools are also far more accessible....you can pretty much build up a BMX bike with household tools. The average MTBer is 42 and affluent, which tends to be a person more likely to just drop their bike off at a shop in my experience and buy stock bikes off the shelf.

I would say the 'sale' price for any bike today is closer to retail than msrp.

In South Africa, we get some titan cypher frames loose. But they're carbon and pretty good value. The trek frame only costs what a full build with sid fork costs on the titan 😅

RSD wildcat 125 frames are on sale for 1400$ ish cdn!

LS engine analogy and I'm a new sub😂😂😂😂

I have what is for me the unobtainable unicorn. The perfect short-travel tail bike that isn't too slacked-out or too long or too gimmicky that can handle bigger trails than it should but still maneuvers like a Porsche: the 2022 Pivot Trail 429, with high-end carbon wheels and everything except the gimmicky-wireless crap (yes, have seen many friends "forget" to charge these & realize it on a long, multi-hour ride with a lot of climbing). As good as this bike feels, I had "lesser" bikes that came close with about 97% of the performance & functionality with some adjustments & work-arounds, at half the cost with carbon everything, Kashima/Factory everything, X01/XTR everything. Maybe not quite as plush (yeah, makes a difference when you're getting old) and maybe compromises slightly on the climbs because of the sophisticated DW-Link. The funny thing is that I took the Carbon wheels from my "lesser" bike that I got for half the price and moved it to this new bike because I would NEVER pay $2,700 for a set of rims.

It’s almost as sketchy as the hardtail build that I’m currently preparing for

Hey, We would be totally open to having a chat about our bikes and the reason we don't offer a more competitively priced frameset

Look, the good thing about the MTB world is that the used market is out there, and unless you're a serious racer you don't need the newest thing to ever exist. I have a 2009 Demo 8, bought it in okay condition needing some basic work (it still does...) but basically fully running for just 600 bucks. As time went on i did stuff to the bike, replaced the brakes with 4 piston ones, replaced the rotors for fresh ones, got a dropper post, and even bought a coil DHX2 Kashima Factory Series that i adapted to my frame with a custom part made by a local shop (the shock, spring and custom part came all at 250 bucks). The thing rides great and i'm waiting to get a fresh fork so the suspension reaction is as smooth on both sides. I recently bought a brand new integrated stem that looks great and a good ol' Fatbar just because i wanted to treat myself and the bike. If you're patient and find a good platform that fits you even an old frame can feel new, it'll just take work, money and time to do so. Be patient and it'll be fine

Status 160s are frame only in some places for 850 usd or something like that

Same dilemma, enter the WALMART Mongoose Ledge X1, the only worthy thing on the FS mtb bike is the frame. Can't wait to buy it, strip it, and budget build it. Only waiting because if I can score a used one, even better, since I am going to ditch everything on it anyway. but no luck thus far. Did the same with the hardtail version, the Mongoose Ardor, and it was a worthwhile venture.

Airdrop Edit is about $1850? (USD). Thats my splurge pricing to get a frame that checks my boxes. Agreed that frames are priced a bit too aggressively. Then again, that’s where all of the R&D goes, and warranty support

Exactly. Sell us a rift zone frame!

It always upsets me how close in price a frame is to a full bike. I have a strong desire to build up a FS frame too .

With the demise of chain reaction cycles here in the uk there were some killer deals on nukeproof frames

Every manufacturer is making products riders might need. Choose wisely for your needs >Where's you're products, Mr. Critic?

I literally just built up a Specialized Status 160 frame set the other day. Great bike at a fantastic price.

i did this myself but i bought a used transition sentinel carbon frame with the shock for 650 bucks and i probably spent 2k total for a full sus carbon bike with a sram gx 12 speed drivetrain db8 4 piston brakes, rockshox yari, etc. just from waiting for deals online

America has a used bike implosion. Sorry to hear that Canada is so challenging. That $750 USD status frame Ive been contemplating.

Bird mtb in the uk has a FS frame around $1000. The sad part is the $300 international shipping.

gotta go to pinkbike.... just sold a 2021 Norco Optic frame in great condition for $1100

Funny you'd release this as I've been trying to do a very similar thing and the realisation that just buying a complete is probably going to be cheaper with better parts than buying and building myself.. What?? This makes no sense 🤣🤣

Who would have thought that Specialized would be the value leader this year for a full sus frame? But also inconceivable they want $700 US for their aluminum dirt jumper and $900 for Fuse hartail, both frame only. And I have never understood how a bike can approach 5 figures. The only logic to the pricing in cycling is that they will continue to charge what the dentists are willing to pay. If you don’t have a significant parts bin, it’s very difficult to buy even a $700 frame and build it up for less than the complete bike (especially now that prices are coming back down to earth). Pricing out mid tier components on sale I always find myself easily well over $2k. On a budget the used market is the way to go. Loving my gently used Stumpjumper evo alloy built up with takeoffs! It’s a shame Canada gets stuck with the import issues. You all do have some awesome brands though, Ike Divivnci and Rocky Mountain. Shame even they don’t offer frame only. At least you have the best riding! Great message as always, Spindatt. The bike does not matter, use what you’ve got. Just get out and ride. Happy trails from the US.

this is the type of content i love

I can build a mid range full carbon bike direct from China or Taiwan for less than A Shimano DI2 105 groupset now that is how ridiculous the Road bike and Mountain Bike industry has become.

Aliexpress is the solution. I bought a nice Ti frame tandem with S&S couplers there for a reasonable price. Added the components from the previous tandem, and done!

I had a e bike that the carbon frame cracked on it, for e bikes it's even worse, there is no such thing at all for e bike frames alone even at crazy money. Just praying my used aluminium e bike won't do the same!

this is why im going your rout and ordering a marino frame this year to replace my giant stance

because A lot of the time they simply won’t sell

Specialized sells the fuse frame. I really liked it as an aggressive hardtail before my SJ. Should have never sold the fuse

I love felt bikes! Hope the new owners dont mess felt up!

I've had good luck using cheap carbon frames from no-name Chinese suppliers. I'm lightweight and don't ride too rowdy so not too likely to break a frame anyway, but YMMV. No problems with cheap Chinese carbon wheels either. Save your bread for higher-end suspension and drivetrain parts. Give it a whirl -- you'll save thousands!

Man I made a few of frankenbikes back when I worked at the bikeshop and I loved that over anything.

That felt looks like a malnourished 2011 specialized pitch pro fsr

Yay!! Lovin’ the new studio setup, been a while since I’ve seen your vids mate. You have gone even more against the grain with the current bike industry. Just what I love. 80’s/90’s steel frames with Shimano/Suntour 7x3 for Lyf!!!

I thought you can't ride bikes without a dropper post anymore. Not even a gravel bike.

You’re back to some of the things you started with on the channel, building affordable bikes

Finally someone speaks the Truth!

Disgusting that in Canada...we get the table scraps. And pay extra because of duty and currency exchange. For example: a GT Avalanche Comp at Sport Check. Still comes with 3x9 Micro-shift (garbage). No internal cable routing. And no 1x10 Micro-shift. For 1k. In America....1x10 Micro-shift Advent X, Internal cable routing. SR Suntour XCM, NOT a XCT in Canada. Like what the F***? Nor that if you want a 68 or 73mm Square Tapered bottom bracket. You are stuck with UN300 by shimano which wears out fast. I wore out 3 last year on one bike. Then I bought a cheap VT BB on Amazon Canada; and it still works 5 months later. But in American, they get UN26 and UN55.

Do I smell another Poseidon collab?

not long ago you could get the carbon rift zone frame only with a sweet Fox coil for $600. I tried hard to get it but being poor is real. The exact one you showed a picture of

not kidding when i tell you my local dealer was embarresed to tell me a trek slash alloy frame was 3500 fucken dollars

Slack that headset one degree to help that seat angle and moderate the BB rise. Works components UK makes the best angle adjustment headset but they’re steer tube length specific to an extent ;)

what songs did you use in the video?

Just grind of 3mm of each end of rear wheel axle and you will be perfectly fine ive done 142 thru axle to 135mm 9mm gr ith just machining the caps down and making adapters

I built a Schwinn Taff Comp HT for $800 that is comp to a $1,200 Trek

My wife would HATE hearing 800 for a whole bike...let alone frame only! 😅

Hallelujah yes why why can’t we have a modern Geo full suspension frame that doesn’t cost as much as a complete Hardtail.

I relate so hard to the BMX transition.