Plus, it was purple, had a huge head tube, and came with a dropper post. All good.
My build got off to a slow start. There were two change points that had me worried going in: my rear wheel had to be converted from quick release to through axle, and I had to increase my fork's travel from 100mm to 120mm. The wheel change turned out to be dead easy, taking less than five minutes. The fork travel change, on the other hand... I remember some Rock Shox forks used to have a U turn knob to change your travel. Super easy to adjust. But probably to save cost and weight, X fusion relies on a spacer on the spring shaft to control travel. Taking the fork apart to get to the spacer was straightforward, though I had to order a $9 special tool from ebay. But the spacer was held in by a pressed in pin. I ended up using my friend Marc's drill press as a press to drive out the pin, using a nail I had modified into a press pin. I didn't have the spring shaft well supported while I was pressing the pin out, so I bent it slightly during the operation. Doh. I did successfully get the pin out, and then bent the shaft back as straight as I could. I adjusted the spacer and pressed the pin back in with a bench vise.
I put it all together, and... it seems to work. Nothing blew up or leaked or acted weird in my first loop at Chestnut Ridge, and I'm getting about 110mm of travel:
My fork has plenty of clearance for the Fat B Nimble "3.5" tire, and the rear triangle could probably fit an even bigger tire than the WTB TrailBlazer "2.8":
If I ever see another ROS9 with a 25 year old Suntour XC Pro crankset, I will be very surprised:
Theoretically, this crank shouldn't work well with the Niner's Biocentric II bottom bracket. The square taper bottom bracket holds by pushing outboard against itself, while the EBB holds by bolts pulling it back together. They're working against each other. But I ran this setup on my first Niner SIR9 with no issues, so I'm hoping it works well here. The XC Pro is a lovely, low Q factor crankset.
With the EBB, I can run the bottom bracket in the up position to make up for the smaller diameter of the B+ wheels. No pedals strikes on this first ride. And even with the 420mm chainstays, the B+ tire gives me a lot of room to the curved seat tube.
The frame came with a Rockshox Reverb dropper post, internally routed. It's holding up my decidedly XC-ish Flite saddle:
On this ride, I played around quite a bit with where to put the dropper button. It started here, but I ended up putting it between the grip and the brake lever for better access without moving my hand:
The rest of the build is my usual old stuff: Shimano 1x10, Shimano Deore hydro brakes, Blunt 35 rims, short stem, wide Salsa Bend 2 bar that I really don't like all that well.
I had two concerns going into this ride. Concern #1 was that the burly, oversized frame would be too stiff and feel like a cheap aluminum frame. Concern #2 was that I wouldn't like the slack 68 degree head angle--four degrees slacker than my old Karate Monkey.
For the frame stiffness, it actually felt pretty good under power. Frames that are overbuilt can feel dead and unresponsive, like pushing up against a brick wall. The best frames flex and then give that springy snap feel as they flex back. With a 35mm top and down tube, I wasn't expecting much from the Niner, but Niner must have designed their frame well: it's definitely not as springy as my Karate Monkey, but it doesn't feel too stiff, either. It's probably appropriate for the hard riding this bike was designed for.
The slack geometry was my other concern. It's all the rage these days, but a slack head angle, short stays, wide bars, short stem setup hasn't worked well for me in the past. In this case, while I did have a bit of front end wander climbing up, it was entirely manageable, and paid off in going down the jumps and berms of the More Cowbell trail. There's one corner on More Cowbell where I can always feel the front end of the KM start to tuck under me, a short warning before going over the bars. On the Niner, there were no moments like that. With the slack head angle, long travel fork, and big tires, I could just point and shoot the Niner down the trail with confidence, and I'm not exactly a skilled or brave downhiller.
I think in some sense, bike geometry is getting more trail specific. On the machine made flowing curves and jumps at CR, the ROS9 felt great. I had to stop at the bottom of More Cowbell to rest and let my heart rate settle. At the handbuilt tight and twisty trails at Alum Creek, my KM feels great, able to thread and dodge between the trees with ease. I haven't ridding my Niner at Alum yet, so I'm curious how it will do there. Possibly this will be an excuse to keep a specific bike for each trail!
This ride was also my first extended ride on a dropper seat post. I'm still figuring out when and where to use it. There's definitely a learning curve here. Often, I would find myself coming hot into a corner, needing to brake and simultaneously upshift and... hit the dropper button. I'm trying to work in the timing of that extra third action. When I did nail it, I could feel some extra stability and confidence having my center of gravity shifted low. My friend Marc, a rider as old school as I am, says he uses the dropper post on his new wunderbike more often than he shifts. I'm still experimenting with mine.
So far, I'm quite pleased with the ROS9. It's capable, fun to ride, and cuts a nice profile. I need to get it out on some different trails to see how it works when the best bits of the trail aren't pointing down.
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