Say hi to one of our newest salespeople, Greg.
Greg is one of our newest members of staff, having just arrived in Canada from the UK only a few weeks before the COVID-19 outbreak. We're pretty lucky we found him as he's a great part of the Steed team!
Greg decided that since he knew he wasn't going to have a car for the first little while in Canada, he should bring a bike that he can ride anywhere, including gravel rides, mountain bike trails and commuting to and from work. This is where his Santa Cruz Stigmata comes in! He loves this bike because it's 'basically a mountain bike'. He can use his Stig to explore some of BC's best gravel roads, he can commute or road cycle on it, and he can even ride the mountain bike playground that is the North Shore on it. Is there any limit to what the humble Stigmata can do? We're not sure, but Greg's doing his best to find out.
Is it a bike? Is it a guitar? Nah, it's definitely a bike...
Most bike shop employees like to make their bikes their own, and this particular Stigmata has some pretty interesting (you might say 'English') spec choices that definitely give a clue as to it's intentions and to it's owner. So without further ado, let's take a dive into Greg's bike to see what makes it so unique.
Greg's Stigmata is decidedly mountain bikey... or is it?
Let's start at what I (as a fellow Englishman) consider to be the coolest part of the bike... It wouldn't be a true British build without a smattering of Hope parts. I'm reluctant to admit that I didn't even know that Hope made flat-mount road calipers, but here we are. Greg likes to put Hope brakes on all of his bikes, so here we have Hope RX4 calipers mated to the stock Sram Rival levers. With Bags of power and modulation, these should be able to slow Greg down on even the gnarliest trails, and will probably outlast any other part of the bike. I do love a bit of Hope...
Hope RX4 brakes are in charge of slowing down here. Good choice.
Next we're headed to the cockpit. Cockpit setup is always a personal choice, and here Greg has gone Hope again with their carbon seatpost. Because if you're going to go Hope, you might as well go all-in, right?
Hope seatpost - understated but undeniably British.
Next in the cockpit department is something that gives away Greg's past a little more. Greg has a dark and shady past in track and road cycling. This bike is specced to be able to do it all, and while the Hope brakes could stop a truck off-road, he still wants the fit to work on-road too. This is why he's gone for a Zipp SL Sprint stem to fine-tune his fit, and drop some grams at the same time.
The Zipp stem drops some weight but keeps his fit pretty aggressive.
Greg is a mountain biker through and through, and we mountain bikers like to keep some things simple. In this case, Greg opted for the Sram Rival build - with just enough range for the road and low enough gearing and chain retention for riding off-road, Sram Rival 1 is simple and reliable - it's the mountain biker's road groupset.
Sram Rival 1 keeps things simple in the drivetrain department
Finally Greg is running some sweet All Mountain Style frame protection in the custom Pinkbike graphic set to protect his top tube. Riding in the mud wearing baggy shorts means your top tube can get scratched up pretty quick, so the All Mountain Style protection does a great job of keeping the high-wear sections of your frame protected whilst looking good too.
All Mountain Style frame protection is super robust and looks good too.
