Ragley Marley Intro

I've been meaning to try a modern mountain bike. Modern being long (long front center), low (low bottom bracket), and slack (slack head angle). I ended up with a Ragley Marley frame, courtesy of Chain Reaction Cycles, as a cheap way to try this. It's long (475mm reach/820mm front center), low-ish but not too low (45mm bb drop), and very slack (65.5 degree head angle). It's all modern with boost spacing and clearance for nearly full size B+ tires. Of course, I resolved to build this as cheaply as possible, so it's a parts bin special.


The killer parts pick is the Suntour Raidon fork. An ebay seller has this 27.5 boost version, NIB, for just $100 shipped. For a budget fork, it has a nice, smooth action, good stiffness, and a refreshing lack of adjustments so I don't have to worry about them. Seriously, I hate all those rebound and compression twiddlers. Just let me set the air pressure and ride. It also has the best through axle I've encountered. It's almost as easy to use a regular QR.

I may end up ordering a spare fork, just for some future build.

Alas, my only 27.5 wheels are not boost, so I had to order a $10 adapter kit to make them work. This works fine, except getting the little axle spacers in place while installing the wheels is an exercise in frustration. I'm now trying a dab of super glue to hold the spacer in place.

My crank is a very old Suntour XC Pro, with a 32t narrow wide ring from my parts bin, and the pedals I stole off Henry's fixed gear bike. The green pedals match the decals and help break up all the boring black:

The drivetrain is an old Sram X7 9 speed with just an 11-34 cassette, but it's the best I could dig out of my parts bin. A 27.5x2.7" (actual) Panaracer FBN on the rear and Vee something 2.9"ish on the front work OK:

A ten year old X9 twist shifter, a Salsa bend 2 bar, and Shimano MT-201 hydro brakes, all from my bin, all work well enough:

It all comes together well, although I wouldn't mind more gear range. I used to single speed all the time with a 32-20 ratio, but now a 32x34 low end leaves me wanting more. That's getting old for you.

No dropper because I didn't want to deal with removing the hydraulic Reverb from my Trek Fuel:

I've only ridden the Marley twice, so I can't give a detailed ride report. On my first ride, I hit Chestnut Ridge to do several loops of the More Cowbell trail. My first ride left me impressed with the down hill confidence, but a bit sore from the harsh rear end. Party this was due to the undersized WTB Trailblazer I was using at the time--the Panaracer on there now is significantly cushier.

Today's ride at the flatter Alum Creek trail made me wonder if this bike went too far in the "slack" category. It takes some definite push on the bars to get around tight, low speed corners, and sometimes I found myself going off the far side of the trail. It was better by the end of the ride, but there is definitely a sacrifice to nimbleness to get that downhill confidence.

I was curious if I could fit a 29er tire on there, so I roughly fit the wheels from the my Trek. On the rear, the 2.3" (actual) Ikon fits fine. Some have reported a 29er tire won't fit on the Ragley, but this may be size dependent. My XL frame has a higher seat tube brace to clear the wheel:

Pretty tight to the seat tube:

The fork can easily take the 2.4" Chunky Monkey:

Here's the Ragely geo for reference:

I'm warming up to the new geo, but I can't help but wondering if this would be better for Ohio with a few degrees steeper head angle. And maybe in steel. But that's a thought for another day.