There’s nothing like the excitement of building a mountain bike up from the constituent parts. The satisfaction from having carefully spent hours pouring over catalogues of bike parts and making decisions, taking the plunge and ordering components, with no real idea whether all the individual parts you’re about to assemble onto a naked frame will gel together.

So here I am faced with large pile of bike components all ready to be carefully bolted together. The basis for this build is the Kinesis XCPro 3, a lightweight aluminium hardtail with swoopy carbon stays that has ‘XC race’ written all over it. I’m rather excited about the prospect of a lightning quick hardtail for some XC and enduro racing this summer (now that it has finally arrived) and so I’ve gone light (ish) with the build too.

So on will go a new Shimano Dyna-Sys XT 10-speed groupset, Magura Durin Marathon fork and Marta SL brakes and an old a pair of current Shimano XTR wheels. Finishing kit will be whatever I find in the bottom of my parts bin that fits and helps me achieve a good fit on the bike. Although I’ve been running flat bars and bar ends on the Trek Top Fuel for out-and-out speed, I’m going to set the Kinesis up for singletrack with a shorter stem and wide riser bars.

Watch this space…