650b full suspension

[adarn]

Hah! You thought I'd already made one. Sorry.

Now that I have your attention though, who's done it? Or put in some research into it?
I'm looking for a real challenge of a summer project (yeah, I'm starting to plan it already), and I've really been wanting a FS bike for a while. 650b seems like the way to go. I would hope in the 4-6" of travel range.

Could a Ventana rear end be used? How do I get one of those? gut another bike? go from scratch? How the hell does that FS thing work anyway?

Any thoughts would be super appreciated. Thanks!

[TrailMaker]

An ambitious project;

As far as the rear triangle is concerned, I'd be very surprised if you couldn't simply call Ventana and order one. I'd be further surprised if you couldn't get at least a few small morsels of advice there as well. As I've heard, the owner is pretty legendary for being a right-there-and-ready kind of guy.

[shirk]

Pretty sure Ventana does not sell direct to amateur builders. Need to prove insurance. Walt might chime in as I think I got that from something he has posted.

Go single pivot and fab everything yourself.

[Walt]

Ventana only sells to insured "professional" builders. That said, you can score broken/used/old Ventana frames all over the place and pull off the rear end.

I've written about how to build with these rear ends pretty extensively on the blog if you do some searching around. They offer a lot of flexibility in an off-the-shelf product, so you get a lot given that you don't have to fab much up yourself. That said, you can do it all yourself (especially single pivot bikes) in a variety of ways and that may be more fun if you're building for yourself and don't mind some experimenting.

-Walt

Pretty sure Ventana does not sell direct to amateur builders. Need to prove insurance. Walt might chime in as I think I got that from something he has posted.

Go single pivot and fab everything yourself.

[Syltmunk]

Build your own rear triangle in steel, that's the fun part of the project, just finished a 29er fs all steel and it works well, you can do it, keep us posted.

[adarn]

Walt, I've seen your blog posts and they're definitely a good resource.

I'll definitely be doing a lot of research on the front end here.

Syltmunk, got any pics?

Adam

[Walt]

...without pictures, that is! Share the wealth, man!

-Walt

Build your own rear triangle in steel, that's the fun part of the project, just finished a 29er fs all steel and it works well, you can do it, keep us posted.

[Syltmunk]

Walt, I've seen your blog posts and they're definitely a good resource.

I'll definitely be doing a lot of research on the front end here.

Syltmunk, got any pics?

Adam

Here are some pics of my all steel 29er, have about 200 miles since finished, no issues so far works great.