It only took one ride to become infatuated with this light weight trail-conquering steed. The combination of minimal heft and travel combined with familiar all mountain angles results in a trail bike perfect for tearing it up on the sanitized trails of our local riding spots here in the Bay Area. When you’re (you as in, “my other bike has a coil sprung rear shock with beaucoup travel and I love to shred the gnar”) tired of getting passed by spandex clad dudes flying past you on the climb on their flexy short travel whips, a new Blur TRc might just be the ticket for you. With a listed frame weight of 4.77lbs., the chassis is the perfect place to start in building up a light weight whip of your own that handles like a real bike going back down the hill.
This one here belongs to Bobby McMullen and with XO parts, weighed in at about 26-27lbs. He was nice enough to let me ride it all over the Marin Headlands instead of my Nomad, and I could have ridden the thing up (and down) mountains all day. I’ll admit it has been a while since I’ve ridden an XC bike I’ve actually had fun riding; the combination of slacker than typical XC angles with a familiar cockpit (30″ wide bars and 70mm Thomson stem) put me right at home, and the hills have never seemed as short. The only problem is the price: this kind of awesome doesn’t come cheaply. Expect to pay $2699 for the frame with a Fox RP23, with complete builds starting at $3799. Expect to pay upwards of $7k for a build ready to set some KOM worthy lap times. I’m putting aside a fund for mine now and will take mine with the green accents (as pictured above) please.
