Intense Socom FRO
Brakes:
Brakes – Formula ONE
For brakes, I wanted a powerful setup but didn’t want a heavy brakeset. Formula came out with the ONE this year and they’re some impressive brakes. Long story short: XC weight, DH power. They come packed with features that are easy to use and appreciate, like the tool free adjustments for not only the lever position but also the pad contact. The levers can hyper extend a little bit to assist in protecting the vitals of the brake and offer other protective measure you can read about in our past article on the ONE’s. The 24mm piston paired with the 10mm master cylinder provides an even more controllable brake than the Oro/Puro series. Sintered pads paired with a 200mm front / 180mm rear setup have proven to be quite solid.
Our Formula ONE preview can be seen here if you’re looking for more details (click to enlarge)
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Cockpit:
Grips – Sunline Half Waffle grips
These grips feel great and are light to boot. They’ve integrated the lock on mechanism into the grip itself so you get some weight savings in additon to some security (the grips don’t develop slop quite as easily). They’re a tad bigger than an ODI ruffian for comparison.
Sunline makes some of the lightest Lock-On grips around (click to enlarge)
Handlebar – Gravity Light 28″ (710mm)
The FSA Gravity Light bar weighs in at only 278g. While it’s not up to the standards of the 30″ + bar seekers, it has ample room for me to help control the bike. Gravity does however make an 800mm (31.5″) bar if you’re seeking a wide bar but it comes with some additional heft. Ideally I would like a ~29″ bar but the 28″ bar works fine for now and the Gravity Light bar delivers in this category.
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Headset – E.13 Zero Stack and FSA IS2 bearings
Great headset. Low stack height. Lightweight. Smooth. The other option we would’ve gone to would’ve been the Hope stepdown but we wanted a deeper insertion headset for this build for a little additional security and the E.13 setup is a killer one that is just as light. Additionally, we are running the headset without a typical top cap and opted to use a few small spacers underneath the compression ring to keep the crowns low. This also allows us to not have to use a taller Boxxer drop crown.
e.13 has revised the cups with indentations to allow for easier bearing removal (click to enlarge)
Saddle – Selle SLR
This saddle looks like a slice of pizza atop the Thomson Masterpiece seatpost but surprisingly it’s more comfortable than a lot of other saddles out there. This lightweight saddle isn’t the strongest out there but it can take a decent beating and hey, you shouldn’t be sitting down anyway right?
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Seatpost – Thomson Masterpiece
Hands down, Thomson makes some of the best seatposts in my opinion. It’s one of those great set and forget pieces that you never want to neglect but can because it’s made so great. It’s lightweight and strong, and the Masterpiece option is just the icing on the cake. Lighter than a lot of carbon posts but with the security and proven Thomson name. It’s almost a defacto that you’ll see a Thomson on all of our builds given their performance, weight, and elegance.
find out more about Thomson’s seatposts here (click to enlarge)
Seatpost collar – Hope
Lightweight and reliable. The Hope collar weighs only 20g and is simple. The stock Intense QR collar weighs a little bit more and the Hope one fit our build spec’s nicely so it got the nod.
Stem – Sunline Boxxer Direct Mount Stem
The Sunline stem bolts directly to the top of the Boxxer crown and it’s got a sweet shine to it as well as some nice lines. It’s solid and is one of the lightest direct mount stems out there at 171g. Since it’s a direct mount stem, you can also (optionally) cut your steerer tube just a bit more should you never plan on running a regular stem with your fork. The stem itself sets the bars pretty low and comes in 50mm length. We added a custom top cap to give it a little more flare / motivation.
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