This 7.2kg XC rig will body shame your mountain bike

Open One+ gets the full weight weenie treatment

Published: August 2, 2017 at 8:00 pm

How much does your mountain bike weigh? We’re pretty confident it’ll be more than this one. Fair Wheel Bikes of Tucson, Arizona is better known for its high-zoot roadie builds, but it does fat tyres too.

Based on Open’s One+ frame, which weighs in at 923g in a size large, this no-expense-spared build features all manner of weight weenie exotica and comes in at 7.2kg including pedals.

The One+ sports a hyper-niche German:A Xcite Zero 29er fork with 100mm of travel, which weighs just 1,102g despite its 36mm stanchions.

The wheelset is from Alchemist and it uses the company’s own hubs and carbon rims, laced up with Sapim CX-Ray spokes for a total weight of 1,248g.

The One+ is extremely Euro, but it’s meant to be a usable racer

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Gearing and braking comes courtesy of Shimano M9000 XTR components, matched to SRAM’s 10-42 XX1 cassette and THM’s insane Clavicula M3 cranks.

THM cranks, an XTR derailleur and a SRAM cassette — all chosen for their individual qualities

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Keeping with the boutique German theme, the full-carbon cockpit is a Schmolke bar held in the delicate embrace of an Mcfk stem, for a total weight of 176g. Anyone can build a lightweight bike, but it’s the obsessive attention to detail that makes this machine a little more extreme than most.

Fair Wheel has mixed and matched component brands for minimal weight

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Fair Wheel saved 28g by swapping out the frame’s stock headset and seat clamp, and shaved a whole 5g off the shifter with an aftermarket barrel adjuster and replacement bolts.

The gear cable is a standard Shimano item, but it’s housed in Alligator Mini I-link outer for a total weight of 21g.

With a steep head angle, longish stem and fixed post, the Open has quite an old-school Euro flavour.

Nevertheless, the build aimed to achieve minimum weight without compromising on “functionality and race-worthiness”, so that meant usable tyres (Schwalbe Rocket Rons) and a normal cassette rather than an aluminium weight weenie special.

For a full breakdown of this build including the weights of literally every component, head over to the Fair Wheel Bikes blog.

Matthew Loveridge

Senior Writer

Matthew Loveridge (formerly Allen) is an experienced mechanic and an expert on bike tech who appreciates practical, beautifully-engineered things. Originally a roadie, he likes bikes and kit of every stripe, and he's tested a huge variety of both over the years for BikeRadar, Cycling Plus and others. For a long time Matthew's heart belonged to the Scott Addict, but he's currently enjoying Specialized's sublime Roubaix Expert and having a torrid affair with a Giant Trance e-MTB. At 174cm tall and 53kg, he looks like he should be better at cycling than he actually is, and he's ok with that.