My Niner One 9 RDO

This is my Niner One 9 RDO, the beastly bike which I've been riding for the entirety of this season. It's served me through rain, hail and shine, never having had a problem or any signs of breaking (which the previous bike I had tended to do a lot of).

No matter what I do to this bike, it has always survived and it still looks pretty damn good. It's made it through the harsh Tasmanian winter which is genuinely known for ruining bikes, it's survived downhill tracks which probably aren't recommended for hard tails (okay, definitely not recommended), and it's even survived me, which most people I know are genuinely surprised about. 

What I have to say I love most about this bike, besides the ability to ride pretty much anything and anywhere without fault, is its clean, smooth-lookin' aesthetics. This particular model comes with Niner's 'Blaze Yellow' paint colour, a personal favourite. Not only does this allow the bike to give off a florescent green colour in certain lighting (Not many bikes change colour, so that's cool), but it matches the Cyclingo shop kit and looks lightening fast on the trails.

If we get deep into the specifics of the bike, you'll notice that I run a Kenda Small Block 8' on the rear, and a Maxxis Ardent Race on the front. These tyres provide me with all the grip I need to hook into corners at blazing speed (If I've got my tyre pressure set correctly anyway...), much needed rear-wheel traction whilst climbing, but they also are created to allow for less rolling-resistance, allowing me to put the power down on any firetrails I come across. 

I'm also running a set of Mavic SLR's which I acquired second hand. These wheels are sturdy, and also apparently resistant to buckling (I've tried, believe me). The thing which is so cool about these though, is their weight, weighing lighter than a set of carbon wheels that I came across and weighed a few weeks ago.

Gearing wise, I'm running the SRAM XX1 groupset, which was a rather substantial upgrade to the SRAM XO1 (apparently there's some weight difference or something, but the price was a bit much so again, I got it second hand with minimal wear). The internal cabling of the frame is again, a nice touch which adds aesthetically. Although it might take a little while to get it in there and through the other side, I believe it's worth it. Alternatively, for those no interested in internal cabling, the option to run it external still exists on the frame.

Gearing wise, I'm only running a 30T chain ring on the front, but I do have a 32T for when I'm feeling good. One of the problems with living in Tasmania is the abundance of really quite steep hills everywhere you go (this could be seen a blessing for training), but it means that you simply can't have a big gear on and expect to make it all the way to the top of some of the climbs without having to get off because of the huge (but in reality, small) gear your pushing. This could potentially be an issue on flat races or rides, but that's uncommon in Tasmania, and the large selection of gears at the rear allows for a zone of safety.

When I swapped the groupset from XO1 to XX1, I lost the old brakes too. The Avid XX brakes took a bit to get used to, as they seemed to be considerably less touchy than the Avid XO trails. Now that I'm used to them though, they do the job exceptionally well, not that there was anything wrong with what I had before.

As the XX stuff is all integrated, I had to change everything, so what I was hoping was just a fork swap turned out to be swapping pretty much everything on the bike, which is why I've got the full XX groupset. Pictured above is the fork lockout which came with the swap. I keep getting it all mixed up though with what's locked and what isn't, because it's the other way around to what I think it should be. 

Above is one of the personal touches I've added, although I can't show you for reasons I cannot say (mainly due to forgetting to take a good photo of it...). Niner's 'Pedal Damn It' is a great motivator if ever you find yourself eating stem, wondering if you're legs are going to make it to the destination. Below that, being the sticker I put on, is one of the Aficionadi's own. What more could you ask for than a mountain bike riding pirate? 

Finally, the forks I picked up are pretty alright. The cleaning hasn't been immaculate for the photo, but i'll blame that on riding it over to the destination (gets pretty rowdy in the backyard sometimes). These forks (SID World Cup) are really damn good, and that's about all I have to say about them. They also look really nice and are really quite smooth to touch, not that what the forks feel like has really anything to do with anything.

Overall, this Niner One 9 RDO is a superb bike. It does everything I need, want, and more! And most of all, I'm stoked with it!