Recent Niner Builds

Air9 Carbon RDO with Shimano XT/XTR, SID XX World Cup, NoTubes Crest, 

Niner/Thomson cockpit

Air9 Carbon with Shimano XT, SID XX, NoTubes Crest, Niner cockpit

EMD9 with Shimano XT, SID XX World Cup, NoTubes Crest, Niner/Thomson cockpit

EMD9 with Shimano XT, Niner Carbon fork, NoTubes Crest, Niner/Thomson cockpit

Niner Jet9 Carbon RDO with Shimano XT, SID XX World Cup, NoTubes Crest, 

ENVE/Thomson cockpit

Niner Jet9 Carbon RDO with Shimano XT, SID XX World Cup, NoTubes Crest, 

ENVE/Thomson cockpit

The Weekend Office

This weekend was sweet.  Saturday was a nice day at the shop, steady and smooth.  Everyone working, but under control.  Not so busy that we can't really take care of people the way we want to, yet busy enough to keep us from standing around.

Then came Sunday.  With expected temperatures in the high-90's and a lot of miles to log on the trails, I stocked up with a ton of fluids.  My bike was set to only carry two bottles, but I had two more Iron Cycles bottles as well as 1 liter of water and 32oz of Gatorade in my car.

I set out with Derrick who was riding his new Niner Jet9 RDO.  This was only his second or third ride on it, and having a new baby at home his training has been limited, but once the trails get twisty that dude is fast.  He's been raving about the Jet9 RDO and how fast it is in rough stuff, but watching him carve was impressive.

Within a couple of miles I knew I couldn't take his lines.  My Air9 RDO is sick-fast, but it won't eat up the bumps the same way his Jet9 RDO will, so I have to duck and weave a lot more where Derrick can just point and shoot.

We ran into Ted Burger and David Pilotto about 20 minutes in and did some miles with them.  Cemetary Loop and heading North-East with those guys was a blast.

After we had knocked out an hour, we shot back to the car for more fluid.  We ran into one of Derrick's friends who gave us a nice tour of some new trails I haven't seen before, then we hit Swallow Cliffs.  8 miles of gravel with a few nice climbs.  We hammered those, rode a few more miles, then it was time for Derrick to depart.

Back to the cars and we have over 3 hours done.  I make my way over to Speedway for a refill on water and Gatorade as well as some Gummy-Savers.  I'm feeling not so bad, and head back to the trails.  Another 12-14 miles and it's time to get off the trails.  I start to really feel it on the climbs and catch a glimpse of some goosebumps.  Not good.  Too much heat, and even though I have gotten about 120-140 oz o fluids in, I'm not sure I have gotten enough.

Just shy of 60 total miles, 50 of it on single-track, and I'm cashed.  Here's the cockpit that was staring at me for about 5 hours:

I'm loving this Air9 RDO.  Coming off of the EMD9, the bottom bracket stiffness doesn't seem like a huge jump, but front-end stiffness is noticeably better.  The frame is also significantly lighter, something like 550g lighter (1780g for the EMD9, 1230g for the Air9 RDO, both weights include all hardware).

A real nice, in-depth review is coming sooner rather than later on the Air9 RDO, stay tuned....

On Test: 2012 Niner AIR9 Carbon RDO!

We were high on the list for this bike, but since we had the parts and needed only the frame we ended up getting bumped a couple times.  No problems, though, because she's here now and she's beautiful.

Out of the box we weighed everything that was different from the EMD9 this is replacing.  When going from the EMD9 you not only swap to a carbon frame, but the headset is now integrated instead of a Zero Stack pressfit.  Honestly, I dig the pressfit headsets, but it's incredibly easy to change bearings with an integrated headset, so I'm not too broken up about it.  Also, the integrated FSA headset is roughly half the weight of the Cane Creek pressfit that was in the EMD9.

Also different from the EMD9 is the bottom bracket standard.  The EMD9 uses a standard English-threaded bottom bracket where the AIR9 Carbon RDO uses a PressFit30 bottom bracket.  This opens up the possibility to use lighter BB30-compatible cranks and larger tube junctions.

We'll have a first-ride review coming very soon, as well as apples-to-apples weight comparisons and some build notes coming very soon.  Stay tuned....

2012 Niner EMD9 - 400 miles in

This bike has seen a solid number of miles over the last few weeks.  Commuting miles, plenty of trail miles, lots of gravel.

I love this thing.  Sure, carbon sexiness is still calling my name and really trying to draw me in, but until then I'm sold.  And I'll always hold a place for this alloy EMD9.

Another ride in the books on my 2012 Niner EMD9 ....

Lumberjack is only 8 weeks away at this point, and today wrapped up a pretty big (for me) 3-week training block.  Building from 10-11 hours per week up to a high of about 16 this week, I was lucky enough to get a really nice chunk of those hours on single track.

It's pretty incredible how great the trails are right now, especially Palos.  This time of year we're usually sitting around grumbling about how the trails are closed because they are too wet, but after a few trips to the trails I'm psyched about how dry they are.

This weekend as well as last weekend were about as good as they get, today had only 3-4 spots of mud in the 55-ish miles of trail I traveled.  Anyone who has hit Palos in the spring knows the lack of mud in April is very welcome.

After these three weeks I'm ready for a little time off of the bike.  A couple of rest days thrown in this week, maybe even a massage, will hopefully leave me ready for another big weekend next week.

After about 5 weeks of training on this 2012 Niner EMD9, I'm in love.  While the lust for carbon MAY overtake me before Lumberjack hits, this is the perfect bike to train on.  The least expensive frame in Niner's lineup means I don't have to sweat a dent or scratch the same way an AIR9 Carbon would probably bother me.  It's light enough, it handles very neutral, and is an absolute rocket.

If you want to get into a Niner, or maybe you've been riding a 29er but want to go with something new, this is it.  The EMD9 has a tapered head tube for perfect steering, and comes out of the box finished like all Niners: faced and reamed head tube, faced and chased bottom bracket, and faced disc brake mounts.  This may not mean a ton to you, but it means quality and time savings to me.

Niner has the geometry dialed, their fit and finish is second to none, and their pricing is hard to beat.

OK, enough of the sales pitch.  Go ride your bike.

Niner EMD9 w/ 2012 Shimano XT

This one was a pleasure to build, because well, it's mine.  I previously had built an EMD9 but it's since been sold.  I loved the frame enough that I just replaced it with an identical one.

For the first time for me, I decided to build it with a Shimano build kit.  I spent some time chatting with some mountain biking friends who do some "real" riding, you know, in the mountains.  The consensus was easy to gather: Shimano XT brakes are the best.  I heard from many of them that XTR works just as well, but at a far higher cost.

Since I was going with XT brakes, I stuck with the full XT kit.  Shifters, derailleurs, cranks, chain, and cassette are all XT.  The fork is a Niner carbon unit, bars and post are also Niner carbon, the post is the RDO version.  The stem is ole faithful, a 130mm Thomson X4.

Wheels were hand built Stan's NoTubes Crest laced to DT Swiss 240s 6-bolt disc hubs with DT Swiss Revolution spokes 3x and DT Swiss ProLoc brass nipples.

Price as built?  $3700 out the door for a pure-bred race bike.