Debby's On One Inbred

I love my girlfriend's bike

On One Inbred -Debby's pride & joy

Pink Hope Pro 2'S

My girlfriends Inbred has taken a big step towards being the pink-tastic bike of her dreams recently with the addition of some cracking upgrades.

First up was a pink Chris King sotte voce headset which need no explanation because if you're looking to add some colour co-ordination and bling to your bike Chris King is an easy if a little expensive choice. It really sets the pink theme off.

Next came the Salsa fliplock seatpost quick release binder.  This is another quality bit of kit and has a really positive feel to it when locking it down, a much nicer feel to the similar offering from Hope. I wanted Deb to have the simpler seatpost collar with just the Allen key bolt as it's a bit more pleasing to the eye,  but I'm glad she has stuck to her gun's and gone for the quick release option really so she can drop her seat easier to give her a bit more confidence when the trail starts to point downwards.

The pink gear cabling was up next. I wasn't too sure about this thinking it might be a step too far in the co-ordination stakes but Debs had been wanting them for a while so on went the Clark's cabling. Like my Lurcher the Inbred runs full outers so I like to add a couple of Middleburn cable oilers to help keep the cables running smooth.
These little aluminium thingies fit on the cables and have a rubber o-ring that pop's off to reveal a little hole that fits the red pipe you get with cans of wd40 or GT85 so you can just squirt in the lube to keep the cables running free. They also double as frame protectors as a bonus. I would just like to add I think they look great after my initial reservations and would even like to see the brake hoses going pink too when Deb's upgrades the brakeset.

Last but certainly not least is the new  Stans Crest/pink Hope hubs wheelset.
Debs was really lusting after some pink hubs to finish the look of her bike but I was more concerned about shedding some weight off the bike and everyone knows that the wheels is the best place to do that.  I have the 29er Stans Crest / Hope Pro 2'S wheelset on my Lurcher and Stans Alpha 340 rims on Goldtec hubs on my Pompino and I can't think of one negative thing to say about Stans tubeless rims. They build into inexpensive light weight wheelset's and with Hope Pro 2'S they are probably in my view the best value for money upgrade you can make for your bike and are one of a very few genuine bargains to be had in mtbing and will give instant performance enhancements to your bike like no other. So when we did a search and found out that Hope had started a limited run of their pink hubs we were chuffed. I emailed Hope to ask if they offered the pink hub option in their wheel builds because it wasn't available on the website and was puzzled when the reply said they didn't do the wheel builds with the pink hubs. Strange. Anyway after much searching we found On Yer Bike were offering a Stans Crest / pink Hope Pro 2'S wheelset build and that was that we thought. Deb's was buzzing with anticipation for her new wheels, but we hadn't heard anything back after a week so I contacted On Yer Bike who explained that it would take a bit longer for the wheels to arrive as Hope as a rule don't make the wheels with the pink hubs, like the email to me from Hope had said. But after a day of phone calls between Hope and On Yer Bike, Hope agreed to make the wheels as a one off only because On Yer Bike were a Hopetech centre.  On Yer Bike had mistakenly been offering the pink hubs in the wheel builds on their website luckily for us. Full marks must go to On Yer Bike for going the extra mile for us to get Hope to build the wheels for us though, I bet there are a few shops out there who would of just turned round and told us they couldn't be done.  Deb's likes to think she now has a custom set of wheels  which I suppose in a way she has. Thanks again to On Yer Bike.

Deb's hasn't had much chance to put her new wheels to test yet apart from a few hours on a core skills course at the Alpkit-Big shakeout festival but what she has done she has been able to feel the benefit of a good lightweight tubeless wheelset that the Stans/Hope combination gives you.

The groupset is in the firing line next with the low end elixir brakes and clunky & stiff Sram gears being replaced with a lot nicer female friendly lighter action Shimano SLX groupo.

The poor girl has well and truly been infected with my affliction for mtb upgrade-itis.

Sorry Debs I hope you can forgive me.