Building a Transition Blindside

written by: J.V. Nixon

Transition Blindside sitting pretty at 37.52 lbs (click to enlarge)

Introduction:

When setting out to build a downhill mountain bike, it’s often hard for many people to identify areas where weight can be saved without compromising the bike’s overall durability. This Blindside bike build aims to challenge the typical lightweight bike build that takes the easy route to lightening a bike by using carbon fiber head to toe, and the more fragile all-mountain/XC rims. These parts along with XC tubes and Single-Ply tires typically don’t last for most people in the real world if you plan on riding your DH bike in its intended environment and trouble free. The point of this build is to build a lightweight downhill bike, while maintaining most of the key characteristics in heavier downhill bikes to maximize the riding experience.

The Blindside you see above weighs in at at 37.5lbs. Could it be lighter? Without a doubt yes. To build a sub 38 bike isn’t that hard anymore and the Blindside being new we thought it’d be a great bike to not only review, but show how it can be done. A lot of people on the Internet for some reason love claiming that their bike is really lighter than it really is, so rest assured this bike is accurately weighed piece by piece and not on a bathroom scale. Knowing the weights of the pieces that are going on your bike before they go on there isn’t always the easiest information to find out. Utilizing the weight section we’ve created helps a whole lot.

Every piece on a bike counts. Saving 10g on every part of a bike seems insignificant in the short term, but makes a big difference in the overall weight. So far the bike just completely rips and we feel it is every bit as capable and durable as just about any other dh bike out there but without the heft. This is a build article so it will focus on part selections but look out for a full review before the season begins around April.

So you want to see what we put on there… ? Read on.

The full gallery of all the pictures from the build can be seen here.

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