When Richard first came to me we discussed building a 650b hardtail with lots of travel in the front fork which would have two different set ups; one for winter and one for summer.  Summer would run 1×11 Shram XX shifters and winter would swap over to an Alfine internal shifting.

To achieve this we used PMW Rocker dropouts with different inserts for different drivechains.   Richard was really specific about setting the geometry of the frame and he knew exactly how he wanted the bike to handle with different travel options on the fork.   We did internal routing for his dropper seatpost and T.I.G. welded his dropouts for extra strength.  We also double braced the seat stay bridge, but as more of a design feature as opposed to functionality.  It was good to see some clips of Richard taking some jumps in the North Downs and I’m glad to say the functionality of having two different drivechains has worked well.

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