Today, we are showing off Jordyn’s deep custom Chromag Darco. Unlike your local rad dad selling his 10-year-old MTB as “custom” after swapping the saddle and grips, Tucson local Jordyn went deep to adapt his Chromag Darco to his desert trails. Check out all the dialed details below!
Jordyn originally purchased his Chromag Darco when he lived in Colorado’s front range. While its long-travel fork and long, low, and slack geometry spoke to the big mountain rides out yonder, he found when he moved to Tucson the Darco was a bit extra for the local trails around town and even the zone’s upper mountain trails. The bike needed some desert adaptations, so Jordyn got to tinkering.
I first became aware of Jordyn’s Darco when I was reviewing the Wolf Tooth Geo Adjust headset and he mentioned that he wanted to use the 2-degree headset to steepen the headtube angle rather than slack it out. After the headset install, his Darco was sitting at a hair under 65 degrees with an unsagged BB height of 337 mm (about 5 mm higher than how it measures in the stock configuration). The 160 mm fork, which is 10 mm longer than stock, keeps the BB high enough to prevent pedal strikes. He also tried a 140 mm Pike which was lighter and livelier but left the pedals too low.
In addition to the headtube angle wizardry, he understroked the 120mm shock down to 106 mm. This produced what he calls “the best Tucson mountain park XC bike” with quite a chuckle. The understroked shock has been key in not letting those pedals get too low when pedaling through compressions.
Jordyn used to work at SRAM if you couldn’t already tell by looking at the nine separate wireless electronic components on the bike. It’s got a Transmission drivetrain, XX SL power meter, Reverb dropper, RockShox Flight Attendant, and Quarq TyreWiz valves. This Darco is just dripping in tech.
The mix of short and long travel feels uniquely adapted to Tucson trails, with our mix of techy XC on the west side of town and the big mountain feel of Mt Lemmon. Making a bike that feels at home in many situations can be difficult and can often feel like being a jack of all trades and a master of none, but this setup has kept Jordyn’s desire for a second full-sus bike at bay… for now.
Parts Spec:
- Frame: Chromag Darco
- Fork: Rockshox Lyric Ultimate Flight Attendant (160 mm)
- Shock: SIDLuxe Ultimate Flight Attendant (106 mm)
- Headset: Wolf Tooth Angleset GeoAdjust -2º
- Wheels: Zipp 3Zero Moto 29 with Zipp TyreWiz
- Tires: Maxxis Assegai 29 x 2.5″ / Maxxis Dissector 29 x 2.4″
- Handlebars: Chromag Cutlass
- Brakes: SRAM Code RSC
- Grips: Ergon GE1 Evo
- Shifter: AXS Pod Ultimate
- Stem: Truvativ Atmos
- Bell: Spur Cycle
- Cranks: XX Eagle AXS Transmission Power Meter Crankset
- Pedals: Time
- Framebag: Evoc Multi Frame Pack
- Pump: Oneup EDC Pump 100 cc
- Derailleur: XX SL Eagle Transmission Derailleur
- Cassette: XS-1299 Eagle Transmission Cassette
- Dropper Post: Rockshox Reverb AXS
- Saddle: Fizik Kium Argo Tempo
If you’re curious about the Chromag Darco, albeit in a bit mote stock config than seen here, check out John’s review to see why it was our top MTB of the year