This week’s Readers’ Rides comes from Andrew and his Binary Bicycles Chuparosa hardtail. Let’s check out photos and words from Andrew below…
In these days of exceptional bicycle demand and supply chain issues, I think it’s important that smaller boutique bicycle companies get more exposure. Plus, I think everyone can appreciate an artful curvaceous titanium frame. As such, I am submitting my build based on Binary Bicycles’ Chuparosa frame for Readers’ Rides.
Binary Bicycles is a smaller company building a number of handcrafted titanium frames, run by George and Jalene Harris. The frames are made overseas, but they offer the ability to customize and modify their frame designs, and the build quality is exceptional. I’d encourage The Radavist team to reach out to them for more information about their company and philosophy, they’re very communicative and wonderful to work with.
This titanium Chuparosa frame happened to be one they had in stock when I reached out about ordering one. It has rainbow anodizing for the logos, and an engraved head tube badge, but otherwise the same geometry as their standard Medium spec.
I managed to get my hands on the latest generation Fox 34 Step-Cast, which is a 120mm fork. The Chuparosa geometry can accommodate 120-140mm travel, but I opted to add a 10mm crown race spacer from Reverse Components to bump up the A-C length of the 34 to match a 130mm travel equivalent, which is what the Chuparosa’s geometry chart is based on.
The rest of the build entails a mix of Shimano XT brakes (which I prefer the feel of) with 180mm Galfer rotors:
and SRAM XO1 crankset and derailleur. The cassette is a Shimano Deore 11-51T M5100 11-speed temporarily, while I await a Garbaruk cassette to shed some weight.
I did make some modifications to the drivetrain, however, if you note the Ratio sticker on the seatstay. I opted to use SRAM’s 11-speed S700 shifter, which uses their Exact Actuation cable pull ratio, in conjunction with a Ratio Technology Cable Fin to adapt the XO1 derailleur from X-Actuation to Exact Actuation. This is because my other bike, which is a steel drop-bar mountain bike conversion, uses SRAM’s road brifters with a similar wide-range 11-speed rear setup (SRAM Rival rear derailleur with Garbaruk cage). This way I can maintain parts compatibility between both bikes in case of any issues, with today’s parts shortage and all.
The rest of the cockpit consists of RaceFace Next R handlebars with a 40mm RaceFace Aeffect stem, Ergon GA2 grips, and a SDG Bel-Air V3 saddle.
As far as wheels go, I’m running a 27.5″ RaceFace Turbine rear wheel, with Maxxis Rekon 27.5×2.8 tire in the EXO+ casing, with a 29″ RaceFace Aeffect front wheel, with a Maxxis Rekon 29×2.4″ tire in the same EXO+ casing. The smaller rear wheel with a larger tire drops the rear end a small amount, but bottom bracket height is still right around the 12″ mark and plenty acceptable. This offers a little more cushion with the larger volume rear tire, and corners really, really well.
The build is topped off with a shoutout to my Michigan roots (although I live in California now) via a Bell’s Oberon bottle cap top cap, and oil slick valve caps just to have a little bit of color coordination with the frame logos.
Hope you enjoy! It rides as great as it looks.
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We’d like to thank all of you who have submitted Readers Rides builds to be shared over here. The response has been incredible and we have so many to share over the next few months. Feel free to submit your bike, listing details, components, and other information. You can also include a portrait of yourself with your bike and your Instagram account! Please, shoot landscape-orientation photos, not portrait. Thanks!
