new upgrades: Hygia brakes and Hylix fork

[turbogrover]

Just added a few new parts to my WW ride, and thought I should share my results.
Biggest change was the Hygia SLP brakes. I orginally built the bike up with Avid v-brakes, then switched to KCNC v-brakes and i-link cables looking for better braking performance and keeping the bike light. The brakes never worked well, and needed constant adjustment, to get even marginal performance out of them. Here's a pic of the bike before the switch:


So, I decided to switch to hydraulic discs after trying out a few other bikes with them. In order to do the switch, I needed new hubs, (I bought a NOS SUN-Ringle wheelset off ebay for $175) a new fork with disc mounts, (Hylix carbon off ebay for $130) and the brakeset. (Hygia SLP for $175 off ebay) I figured I could get this setup pretty light with a little tuning.


1st thing I did, was sand off the gaudy Hylix graphics from the fork and cut it down. I left it a little long and played with the bar height a little. The fork is 128 grams lighter than the Mosso carbon/al fork it replaced, and a little longer. (460 a-c on the Hylix vs. 413 a-c on the Mosso) It made the geometry a little more relaxed, but was actually just right for suspension fork correction, so it brought the angles back to factory specs. The fork is nice! Not super-flexy like I was warned it might be, and handled some pretty rough trails very well, with point-and-shoot accuracy. I realize the limitations of a lightweight xc bike, and don't intend to ride it and jump it like a free-ride bike.


The brakes were awesome right out f the box. I bolted them up, centered them easily with no rotor rub, and went riding for 4 hours on some varied trails with lots of rocks, tree roots, fast decents, and twisty, rolling singletrack.
No problems, no issues, and the modulation was a world better than anything I had before. 1 finger braking for any conditions. I think they look great on my bike too. I couldn't be happier! I was definitely faster than before, now that I had total control over my braking. I feel like I came out of the stone age compared with the v-brakes.
The weight for the pair was 710 grams complete, and I will probably replace all the hardware with ti or al bolts.
The weight of my bike didn't increase significantly, but it was a definite performance increase for the extra weight. The complete bike is still around 17.5 lbs.
My next upgrade will be a superlight race-only wheelset with carbon rims.

[MaLoL]

I bought those brakes too, and so far I love them.

I also got a second set of brakes that i will return to the seller next week or send them to any rider in the need of these brakes...

[Virtus]

Bike looks nice and clean bro! Good job!