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Craftworks Rail
Scott - 7th January 2005
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After breaking the swing arm on my 2003 Haro X3 for a second time I decided I needed a new frame because the Haro just was not up to the abuse it was getting. This time I decided I wanted a super strong hardtail, with bombproof components so I wasn't constantly repairing and buying new parts for my bike. So after many ours of flicking through magazines and searching the Internet I finally decided I wanted the Craftworks Rail, with its beefy chainstays, some nice gussets to strengthen it all up
and a nice clean silver paint job, which made it look very smart. Also at £260 with seat tube and seat tube clamp it was a bargain. Then after quickly deciding what I wanted built around the frame I gave Topshelf Components a ring, only to find out they had sold out of the 2004 rail. Luckily though the 2005 frames were due in 3 weeks, which would be fine, and I would get the new and improved 2005 Rail. Anyway enough about all the hassle of getting it lets talk more about the bike.
When it arrived I was amazed, instead of the bright silver it was gloss black and the front gusset near the headtube was gone which I thought was over the top and has now been replaced by some nice square tapered tubes which then go down to nice round tubes. The chainstays look even bigger when you see them in the metal and the support brace things which went from the seat tube to the top chain stays had gone, I rather liked them though. I had the frame built with a lot of top pieces of kit, RaceFace Diablo's cranks, bars, stem. Z1 Freeride Pro forks with Sun MTX rims and Aerial Industries hub and braking duties were left to the Hayes HFX 9 HD.
When I put it all together I managed to break the QR20 bit on one fork leg so I had to get another one quickly. Once I had that I was ready to ride. The Rail has a slightly larger frame size than a lot of bikes, which was one of the reasons I went for it because I have very long legs, and I find 14" jump frames to small. The first time I took it out for a proper ride was at Haldon woods, which was perfect to test everything out with a nice mix of north shore and downhill. As soon as you sit on the bike you feel like you can ride off anything and the bike just wants to go airborne. It has quite a long wheel base making it very stable downhill but it's not too long that you cant manoeuvre it round the skinny north shore, It feels just right. So far I have done loads of average drops about 5 to 7ft and some bigger drops about 10ft (hopefully going bigger soon) the bike feels totally solid when it lands and it is always confidence inspiring, it really does make you go bigger.
I did have one problem with it though; I could never get the rear QR to stay square in the horizontal dropouts. The force of the braking was just pulling it out of line however tight I done the QR up. So I finally went to a metal workshop and asked them to make me a 12mm axle which goes down to 10mm at the ends to fit through the dropouts. Once I had that all set-up the wheel has not moved at all and it has stiffened the back end up even more making the back of the bike incredibly strong. Really I think this bike is made for gears on the rear so it should have vertical dropouts. Another thing which annoyed me was the brake cable running along the top tube, it keeps on moving and scratching the top tube when there's mud and grit up there, I no its no major problem but it would be nice if they could run it under the ton tube instead to tidy things up a bit. The paint also seems to chip pretty easily, you normally cant see it because the bikes covered in mud but when I do clean it you can see the chips on the paint from small stones which is annoying.
Overall verdict: Great confidence inspiring bike which wants to go big but let down but small things like the paint chipping very easy.
Out of 10, I would give it 9. Very good frame.
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