We’ve all been tinkering while staying at home during the pandemic. Marco chose the All-City Gorilla Monsoon as the chassis for his newest build project and over the past 18 months, he’s been perfecting the build. Let’s see it in detail below…
I bought the All-City Gorilla Monsoon as a frame only during the first lockdown in UK. Apparently it was the last green shaded frame size 52 available in UK, and the guys at SBC Cycles managed the get their hands on. The initial idea was just to swap the parts from my Brothers Kepler with the aim to increase tyre clearance from 650 plus up to 2.4 and to do long weekend trips.
It didn’t take a long time to realise how capable and fun the bike is and (pushed also from the never-ending lockdown restrictions) I ended up to use it only for short journeys mainly on trails so I decided to go flat bars… and the cool thing is the possibility to easily swap between the two configurations since rear derailleur and brakes are connected to shifters on the drops and all the cables are external.
From a simple frame swap I then started to test different configurations and lately I am running carbon hops on Onyx hubs… so smooth I love the silent costing in the woods!
Drop configuration:
Hope finishing kit, RX4 brake calipers and hubs laced to kinlin rims
Shimano Ultegra shifters an RX800 derailleur, SLX 11-42 cassette
Easton carbon crankset (cracked so running Hope Cranks)
Ritchey Venturemax drops
Maxxis Ikon 27.5×2.4
Flatbar configuration:
Onyx hubs laced with Sapim CX Ray spokes to carbon Light Bicycle Recon Pro rims
Shimano SLX 11 speed shifters and rear derailleur, Shimano Deore brakeset
Nice and 780 wide Omnium Wunderbar
Teravail Honcho 27.5×2.4
Rode for a while with Jones Loop bars as well…
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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!
