Building a Transition Blindside
Drivetrain:
Cables & Housing – Nokon stock
Nokon is pretty lightweight and is fully sealed. It’s easy to route the housing around tight areas often accompanied in downhill bikes. Add to that the crisper shifting the compressionless housing offers and it makes it that much sweeter. Cheap? Nope. Running full length housing is great for durability and crisp shifting and is an area that’s often overlooked when building a bike. Using cheap standard housing can hurt a lightweight bike more than you might think. This is an easy place to save weight. It’s not necessary to get Nokon housing/cables but there are lots light options out there that work well and don’t cost quite as much.
You can read our full review on Nokon’s housing here (click to enlarge)
Axle - Hadley / DT Swiss / Sun Ringle
The axle is an often overlooked piece in the big puzzle. Some DH bikes must use their own proprietary axle, but if you’ve got one that doesn’t it’s a quick way to typically save weight. The stock Transition steel axle weighs in at 184g. It’s replacement easily saves over 100g.
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Cassette – Shimano Dura Ace 11-21t
This cassette isn’t cheap. You’ll be hard pressed to find a lighter cassette that shifts this well though. Going downhill exclusively, the bigger geared XC cassettes aren’t needed. Coupled with a smaller chainring in the front (36t), the smaller cassette offers weight benefits as well as clearance benefits in the front sprocket to get over obstacles cleanly and enable you to run a smaller bash guard. Smaller cassettes also use less chain and tend to slap around less as a result. With the bottom bracket heights going down on downhill bikes, clearance becomes an issue and running a smaller front ring and road cassette enables you to run everything smaller.
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Chain – KMC X9SL
The KMC X9SL chain shifts well and is very lightweight. It’s a lightweight chain that doesn’t compromise quality where some other chains fall short. We’ve had no issues with these chains. (*note some pictures were taken before this chain arrived).
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Chainguide – Gamut P30
The Gamut P30 was new this year. The P30 is a 36t specific chainguide and it’s really really light. The other option was to run an e.thirteen LG1 but it doesn’t offer quite as much protection against side impacts. When you add the weight of the Taco to the LG1 it’s heavier than the Gamut P30 by a little bit and doesn’t offer quite the same protection a full bash ring does. The ISCG tabs on the Blindside are also welded onto the frame in 3 spots and I feel safer running a setup that won’t comprise the ISCG tabs for this bike.
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Chainring – e.thirteen 36t guidering
Light and strong. The e.thirteen chainrings are great and it’s a no brainer picking this for me.
Crankset – Shimano XT 165mm M760
I chose these cranks for a few reasons. They’re real light, pretty stiff, and I’ve never had any problems with banging cranks or pedals too much to ever bend/break a set of Shimano cranks. I chose 165mm for some additional ground clearance as well. These cranks don’t have pedal inserts or washers so a really strong hit on them might spell stripped pedal threads. Shimano also makes a Hone double crankset that does have the pedal washers & inserts for not much weight gain (~30g) if you’re looking for a little more security. The cranks were polished for a little unique look.
Pedals – Straitline / Shimano XTR / Shimano PD-m647
I chose the Straitline pedals for a few reasons. They’re not the lightest pedals, nor the cheapest, but they’ve got a great feel to them. I also run clipless most of the time when not shuttling so the Shimano M647 pedals offer some great clipless pedals that are encased in a very durable plastic body. Another option that saves a good bit of weight is to run XC clipless pedals like the m959/m540. It’ll drop almost 200g easily off some pedals and if you don’t bash pedals/cranks into rocks too much or don’t need the security of a bigger platform they work just great and give you a little bit more clearance as well.
You can read our full review on Straitline’s pedals here (click to enlarge)
You can read our full review on the M647’s here (click to enlarge)
Rear Derailleur – Shimano XT Shadow GS
This derailleur is new this year and really is a step up for Shimano. The shifts are crisp and it won’t bang on swingarms any more! It’s not the lightest option but it works great and stays away from obstacles just a little bit more than your other typical derailleurs. As shown in the picture below you can see its profile which is more out of harms way. I don’t perceive running into any problems with the derailleur and it’s built quite well to stay behind the chainstay.
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Rear Shifter – Shimano M770 XT
Redesigned for 2008, the XT shifter is pretty awesome. I’ve taken the gear display off as I don’t need it and it’s very adjustable to fit varying positions with ease. It mates very nice with the Shadow XT medium cage rear derailleur.
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