Staff Rides - Wills winter XC weapon of wonder!

Staff Rides - Will’s Chisel FS 

Will Gell 

“Welds Win Waces” 

What you’re looking at here is my Specialized Chisel FS. It’s the lightest aluminium full-suspension frame on the market, and is heavily based on the Epic cross country race bike. 

The Premise 

I race on an Epic, so this made perfect sense as a spare-slash-training bike. I bought it as a frame only and built it in this very racy format largely out of stuff I had kicking about, but it’s a very capable platform so you could really build it as anything from a fast but comfy towpath bike to a proper rough-and-ready little trail bike. 

I’ve gone closer to the towpath end of the spectrum here because the majority of my riding on it is pretty mellow, but I have used it with a bigger fork, burlier tyres and a dropper post to handle “proper mountain biking” and it’s great. But this isn’t a review so I’ll crack on with talking you through the build! 

The Basis 

The frame’s a size medium, geo is pretty modern so a pretty long reach, quite slack head angle, and it’s got a flip chip in the shock eyelet to control the angles. I run it in high because I think there’s such thing as too slack for XC bikes, and I also like to keep the BB up a bit so I can pedal round flat corners and not kick the floor. I’ve also dropped the fork travel to 110mm when the bike’s intended for 120 which does make me a bit wary of that BB height. 

Less Suspension, Same Obsession 

The reason I’ve dropped the fork is so I can run the Rockshox SID SL, which is only available in up to 110mm travel but is a couple hundred grams lighter than the non-SL model thanks to its 32mm stanchions. It’s a flexier fork but in this case I’m happy to concede some flex to get the weight down. I’m running 110psi in the fork with 1.5 tokens, and rebound 4 clicks from fast. We also re-bled the damper with 1.5wt fluid (instead of 3wt) as I just found the latest Charger Race Day 2 damper a bit harsh. 

Shock is the Rockshox Deluxe Select+ that came on the frame. I can’t really find anything to moan about other than it’s a bit ugly, but I’m not about to spend £600 to put a SIDLuxe on my winter bike. 

The Deluxe is set at 210psi, with 3 tokens, and 3 clicks of rebound. 

This setup equates to between 16 and 18 percent sag both ends. Firm, but fair. Just Keep Spinning

Onto the wheels and recently I’ve been racing a bit of cyclocross on the bike so I’ve got a relatively lightweight setup. The hubs aren’t particularly light, they’re Industry 9 Hydras, but they’ve been very good to be fair - I’m not that into high engagement (these have 690 points per rotation) but I’ve got no complaints against these hubs other than weight, and they were kind of just kicking around. Spokes are DT Swiss Revolution which are super skinny so very light, and I’ve used alloy nipples too which saves about 40 grams a wheel over brass. The rims, as much as it isn’t towing the industry line, are a pair of Light Bicycle XC930 from the far east. Sue me, but they’re actually alright. They built up nicely, they’ve not broken, and they weigh about 285g a rim for a 30mm internal width. As a result, the wheelset tips the scales at less than 1400g, which for 30-internals and i9 hubs is pretty light. 

Tyres, again, a bit of cyclocross recently so I’ve got the Maxxis Severes fitted, which are the XC mud tyre. They’ve surprised me actually, because my first ride on them was an 18mph road ride, which is usually pretty painful on mud treads. The Severes, however, chip along nicely! As such, I was worried they’d come up short in the mud, but let some air out and do an absolute slopfest 

cyclocross race and they’ve got unreal grip, so I’m really loving them. Sealant is Stans and at the minute I’m not running inserts but I’ll often put an XC Cushcore in the rear depending on where I’m riding. 

Deploy Anchor 

Brakes then, we’ve got Hope XCRs, which I’ve used for a few years now. These ones are hand-me-downs off of my race bike so they’re a bit tired but they’re only a good service away from working sweet again. I’ve gone a bit connoisseur and put a 2-pot caliper on the rear and a 4-pot on the front - I did some long, steep stuff in Scotland a little while back and the 2-piston front brake wasn’t loving it so I upped it to a 4-pot and it’s getting on a bit better. Discs are 160mm rear and 180mm front, standard Hope rotors. 

Tooth Ache 

Drivetrain, we’ll start at the back because the crank area is a bit of a mess. It’s a 10-52, rainbow, XX1 cassette, and the mech’s a GX AXS. I got a bit upset that the mech wasn’t high-end enough though so I put an XX1 fairing on it to make it look more upmarket, even though it clearly isn’t. I’ll quickly mention the shifter, which is one of the newer style with the rocker paddle, which I really like. You can sit your thumb in the middle and rock it up and down, and then use your index finger round the back for shifting down the cassette as well. I’ve fitted an XX1 rainbow chain to match the cassette, and that leads us to the crank arrangement. Chainring clearance isn’t massive on these frames - realistically you’d be limited to only 34t on a normal crank - but I tend to use a 38 so had to get a bit custom. First thing’s first it’s a 170mm XX1 Eagle crank, but I went for the 8-bolt version so I could fit the newer XXSL power meter spider. The chainring threads onto the spider, I chose a zero-offset ring to get a bit more clearance. BUT. It wasn’t quite enough. Stuck in a bit of a jam, with a really expensive power meter and a frame I’d waited four months for, my solution was to move the whole crankset to the driveside by a few millimetres. To do that I had to take off the threaded preloader

on the non driveside to make space, move the whole crankset over, and preload the BB with little shim washers and a metal wavy washer, kind of like with BB30. And THEN, to counteract all that messing-up of q-factor, I put a short spindle XTR pedal on the right and kept the standard one on the left. The BB that all spins on is just a standard SRAM DUB. 

Finishing Kit and Bike Fit 

Now you’re bored, I’ll fly through the finishing kit to finish: 

Stem is an FSA SL-K, with minus 20 degrees of rise, and a slight drop profile to put the bars super low, and it looks pretty cool I think. It’s 90mm long, and holds some Ritchey World Championship Series alloy bars. I’ve had these ages because I love the shape; they’re 5 degree backsweep, no upsweep, and either 5mm rise or 5mm drop - I’ve got them upside down to give the 5mm drop. They’re cut to 680mm and I’ve got matching Ritchey foam grips on them. it’s kind of the done thing in XC to have foam grips, it’s difficult to explain but I like them. Moving backwards, at the minute I’ve got a Roval Control carbon seatpost, but I switch out to a wireless Magura Vyron as and when I need a dropper. But on the top is always a Fabric ALM full carbon saddle. Fabric don’t exist any more so I bought a few of these saddles because I get on really well with them. You’ll see it’s slammed backwards - the seat angle’s quite steep on this bike so I’m kind of trying to get the saddle as far back as possible to maintain a bit of weight over the rear wheel as well as a decent sustainable pedalling position. 

Final details, I’ve got a Topeak Shuttle X carbon bottle cage and an eBay special Garmin mount that doubles as a headset spacer, and that wraps us up! 

The Finished Article 

For those who are interested, the weight as you see it right here is 24lbs, which is about 11kg. For a full suspension bike with welds I think that’s alright. I for one am very pleased. 

I’m absolutely loving this bike - as I said earlier this is not a review, but I can’t finish without telling you that the Chisel FS is a huge success. Admittedly, it did take some pretty high end parts to get it down to a competitive weight for a race bike, but I’m under no illusions that there’s a few more important things than a low weight, and the fundamentals of this platform are all spot on.