Thanks to O’Spire I got a Media pass thanks which allowed me to shoot everything for an hour before the doors opened to the public. The show is on over the weekend at Carriageworks. For event details, visit: www.spoken.bike

27.5″ Conti Trinotal and Dubnital tyres came in the mail. Was really hesitant to put them on initially as the fat 2.8 and 2.6 Specialized tyres look so rad, have so much traction and felt so cushy out on the trails in comparison to the thin 29″ Specialized Fast Track and Air Track tyres, but since I had them in my hands I thought I might as well at least give them a go.

Turns out what sealant was in the tyres had turned to water and man, just like the super wide Roval CLX II front wheel on my Tarmac SL8, the tyres were near impossible to get on and off these rims. I got the front tyre on AOK, but the rear was a prick and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get the bead to sit so I put the rear Dubnital (which was even harder to get off the rim than on) on a ZEN Carbon Bike rear wheel I had in my parts bin and voila! Went on easy as.

Turns out the ZEN rear wheel is way lighter than the Roval and it’s brought the total weight down to 11.1kg’s. The Conti tyres also don’t look as anemic as I thought they would look with the front Trinotal looking quite round and chunky.

I’m happier with the bike with the smaller wheels. Excited to feel the difference in weight and rolling speed with these vs. the Butcher and Purgatory setup. Still waiting on some much needed shorter cranks to claim back some of the -18mm BB drop.

I suffer from arm pump and being the sucker I am I bought some of these. They look stupid AF as expected, but they feel instantly weird, in a good way! Not ridden the bike with them out on the trails yet, but will do ASAP.

Trickstuff Ultralight rotors.

Procraft PRC Carbon 31.8 x 760 mm 9° handlebars are insanely light at 136g.

Procraft grips feel comfortable and super light too at 19g a pair.

PRC seatpost clamp. Was a little lazy to remove the dropper to install this as it’s only 4g lighter than the OEM Specialized one, but got it done after a couple of glasses of wine.

Updates specs list:

2025 Specialized Chisel Size S

Fork: Fork: Rockshox SID Ultimate RLC with 120mm 51mm offset (1612g)
Shock: RockShox Deluxe Select+ 190x40mm (340g)
Shifter: NX Eagle shifter (112g)
Derailleur: SRAM GX Eagle (300g)
Chain: GX chain (244g)
Crankset: SRAM XX1 Eagle Carbon 170mm (358g)
Chainring: Race Face 30T (63g)
BB: SRAM DUB (76g)
Pedals: HT Components ME03 Alloy (263g)
Brakes: SRAM G2 RS (260g/280g)
Brake Rotors: Trickstuff Ultralight 180/160 (119g/87g)
Rotor Adapters: Chaser 6-bolt to centrelock (8g/8g)
Rotor Lockrings: Craft Racing Works (9g/9g)
Seatpost: OneUp Dropper 120mm 30.9mm (374g)
Seatpost Clamp: Procraft PRC Carbon (11g)
Dropper Lever: OneUp (24g)
Saddle: WTB Volt Carbon (161g)
Handlebar: Procraft PRC Carbon 31.8 x 760 mm 9° (136g)
Grips: Procraft Superlite (19g)
Stem: Kalloy UNO 80mm (90g)
Spacer: God & Famous 10mm (4g)
Top Cap + Bolt (4g)
Front Wheel: DT Swiss XMC 1200 Spline, DT180 (650g)
Front Tyre: Specialized Fast Trak Flex Lite T5/T7 TLR 29×2.35 (633g)
Rear Wheel: DT Swiss XMC 1200 Spline, DT180 (835g)
Rear Tyre: Specialized Air Trak Flex Lite T5/T7 TLR 29×2.35, (617g)
Cassette: ZTTO SLR Gen3 Ultimate 10-50T XD (297g)
Valves: CushCore 44mm (20g)
Sealant: Silca Ultimate (90g)
Bottle Cage: S-Works Carbon Zee Cage II Left (24g)
Pump: OneUp EDC + OneUp inline mount (250g/27g)

WEIGHT: 11.17kg
Original Weight: 13.51kg

27.5″ Setup:

Wheelset: Roval Traverse SL Fattie, DT240 internals, 54T (1690g)
Brake Rotors: SRAM Centreline 180mm/160mm (141g/114g)
Front Tyre: 27.5 Plus 2.8 Butcher Grid Trail T7 (1100g)
Rear Tyre: 2.6 Purgatory Grid (970g)
Cassette: ZTTO SLR Gen3 Ultimate 10-50T HG (292g)

WEIGHT: 12.36kg

Visit: forum.ccache.cc

It never rains, but when it does it pours!

I’ve been invited to help CCACHE build a local Cycling Community and I just got the green light to soft launch the CCACHE Cycling Community Forum, so please join up and if you can, post a few things. It’ll really help me shape up the forums before they officially go live. Much thanks in advance!

Visit: forum.ccache.cc

Got to take 2 of my bikes out today as I introduced my cousin Adam to mountain biking. I had plans to bring the Torrent hardtail out as he had been thinking about buying a hardtail, but I woke up this morning to a Facebook message from a guy who wanted the Torrent and was willing to come and pick it up at 12pm. I decided against taking it out for one more ride just in case, so brought the Starling Murmur out to play instead.

Adam is hooked. He’s got $1K to play with so the hunt is on for a duel suspension bike (probably a 2nd hand Polygon T6?). We both swapped bikes a lot today and man, nothing quite like having another bike to swap between to really identify the differences hey? The Murmur is just such a super plush and stable bike, it’s amazing. The Chisel really felt a lot smaller (it is a size smaller) and more rigid. It felt older/simpler/stiffer/snappy, more involved and most of all it felt fast.

All my thoughts about the 27.5″ wheelset feeling more playful, or the 29″ wheelset feeling more sluggish just kinda faded away today. Just enjoying both bikes for different reasons and happy they’re both so radically different to each other.

Skinny Minnie.

WEIGHT: 11.66kg
Original Weight: 13.51kg