Scot Nicol’s 40th Bike Check

To cel­e­brate our 40^th Anniver­sary and the launch of our new San­ta Cruz, CA fac­to­ry, we’re ship­ping the first 40 Exie’s with a spe­cial anniver­sary build kit. Each com­po­nent was hand-select­ed by our CEO and Head Weight Wee­nie, Hans Heim. Over the past year, Hans has put over 4,500 miles on his pro­to­type test­ing var­i­ous components. 

Nat­u­ral­ly, the first bike to come off the pro­duc­tion line was des­tined for our Founder and Direc­tor of Good Times, Scot Nicol. We laser etch the anniver­sary num­ber on the top tube of each 40^th edi­tion frame and Scot received ⁰⁄₄₀.

Since he loves to prank us, we decid­ed to laser etch a few east­er eggs on his per­son­al bike. You can find his nick­name on the oppo­site side of the top tube and his favorite hash­tag on the bot­tom bracket.

The rest of the frame is ​“stock”, except for a small 40^th-anniver­sary decal applied to the down­tube. The same decal is present on the anniver­sary bikes raced by our EWS team ear­li­er this season.

The 40^th Exie build kit fea­tures the 60g Hyper­stem from the Ital­ian wiz­ards at Extralite. The stem weighs half of what a ​“light­weight” stem nor­mal­ly weighs at about two-thirds the weight of a Deck of Cards. This engi­neer­ing mar­vel is tough enough to car­ry an enduro rat­ing, even though it’s one of the light­est stems available.

Sus­pen­sion duties are per­formed by the new Fox 34 Step­cast which weighs an unbe­liev­able 3.30 lb / 1496 g. While a Fox 32 Step­cast would have been lighter, we didn’t want to com­pro­mise per­for­mance. We picked the 34 because it kicks ass and the fact that it’s amaz­ing­ly light­weight is a bonus.

For wheels, we laced our Ibis S28 rims to Indus­try Nine Hydra Hubs in a love­ly shade of blue. At 405g, the rims are light enough for cross coun­try use, but tough enough for trail rid­ing. Capa­ble yet light. Can you sense a theme?

Sharp eyes may notice the mis­matched tires. While some may con­sid­er it a car­di­nal sin, it comes down to per­for­mance. Up front, the 2.4” Maxxis Rekon Race deliv­ers the high­est trac­tion-to-weight ratio of any tire in the uni­verse. OK, we made that up but you get the point; light­weight, excel­lent trac­tion. It’s paired with a Con­ti­nen­tal Race King in the rear, which actu­al­ly is the fastest tire we’ve ever tested.

Accord­ing to Hans, ​“The rear of the Exie sup­ports about 65% of your weight, so you can get away with a high­er trac­tion and slow­er rolling front tire as only 35% of your weight is on that end. Our rear tire spec is incred­i­bly fast and saves 10w over sim­i­lar rear tires. It pro­vides a dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly large sav­ings in rolling resistance.”

Dri­ve­train duties are per­formed by Shimano’s crisp-shift­ing XTR dri­ve­train. There’s noth­ing that per­forms on the same lev­el when shift­ing under pow­er at race pace. When it came to cranks, there was only one option.

The Cane Creek eeW­ings not only look spec­tac­u­lar, but they are super strong, stiff, and light­weight. Over the years, Hans has bro­ken half a dozen light­weight cranks. In addi­tion to being frag­ile, these prod­ucts tend to creak after a few months of reg­u­lar rid­ing. How­ev­er, his orig­i­nal set of eeW­ings are still spin­ning smooth and qui­et after 4,500 miles of KOM-chas­ing abuse.

Per­haps the coolest indi­vid­ual com­po­nent on our 40^th is the cus­tom Bike Yoke 125mm Divine SL Drop­per. Nor­mal­ly, the SL is only avail­able as an 80mm drop­per. At 405 g (for a 31.6mm post), it is the light­est ful­ly adjustable drop­per post on the mar­ket. We begged them to deliv­er a 125mm ver­sion and they did. Just for us. And just for this bike.

With a gen­er­ous amount of tire sealant, a 2021 Step­cast (which is 146g heav­ier, the new forks just arrived), trail-capa­ble wheels, and a drop­per, Scot’s per­son­al bike weighs 22.7 lbs. The parts cho­sen for this spe­cial anniver­sary build reflect our design ethos: they’re tough, durable, and also hap­pen to be light­weight. The end result is a dream-wor­thy build that can be rid­den hard for years to come.

Of course, when we say we built 40 of these spe­cial bikes, we kin­da mean 50. We made an extra 10 for employ­ees and bike shop own­ers. You can tell these are extra spe­cial (empha­sis on extra) because these are labeled ⁰⁄₄₀, ⁴¹⁄₄₀, ⁴²⁄₄₀ and so on.

All 40 (er, 50) units shipped from our ware­house last week. If you’re very lucky, you may find one at a deal­er near you.