Milwaukee Bicycle Company 29″er: Final Review Part I

The Milwaukee Bicycle Company 29″er has been here for several months now. So it is time to lay down my final thoughts on this white steel hard tail. I will also be adding some mini-reviews on some of the parts on this rig as well.

The Milwaukee Bicycle Company, a part of Ben’s Cycle, is certainly best known as a fixie/urban frame and complete bicycle source, but this 29″er should not be overlooked. Built in the same place as Gunnar frames are built,(namely, Waterford Precision Cycles) the craftsmanship is really good and the frame is made up of True Temper OX Platinum tubes. The Milwaukee Bicycle Company 29″er is a unique frame in that you can alter several parameters including paint, braze ons, parts, and decals that fit your budget or desires. If that is all too confusing for you, Milwaukee Bicycle Company has pre-packaged some build kits and offers them for sale as well. The staff is very helpful at Ben’s, so giving them a call is highly recommended if you have further questions about availabilities and options.

This bike has always impressed me with its looks which are, well………clean and white! I have a thing for white bicycles, what can I say?! It also has great lines and always feels light weight when I hoist it up to take it outside for a ride. In fact, the weight of this one, ready to ride, is 25.08lbs. Not too shabby when you consider that it has no “stupid-lite” parts and is actually a pretty solidly built rig. In fact, let’s take a short look at the parts here………

The bike is set up with several of the Hayes Bicycle Group’s offerings. The Manitou Minute 29″er fork, the Sun/Ringle’ Charger 29″er wheels, and the Stroker Trail brakes. Let’s break it down individually to get a take on each component.

Manitou Minute 29″er Fork: This isn’t news, but this fork is very nice. It is plenty stiff, and if I were to get the Hex-axle set up, it would be rock solid, but as it is, the Minute is a worthy fork. Definitely stiffer than the original Reba 29″er forks. The suspension has the Absolute Damper, and it is one of the earlier “clicking” examples. This noise isn’t a mechanical issue, so I lived with it. In fact, it has become much more subdued with time. New forks have a fix to eliminate the click, so it isn’t an issue for you if you are buying now. The Absolute damper has several clicks that set the threshold for compression by the rider, but still allows for suspension activity generated by trail obstacles. I liked it. Especially for single speeding, since I climb out of the saddle a lot. I could aset the Absolute damper to eliminate bobbing, but have some needed squish on the downhill side of things. Nice!

The stroke on this fork felt linear and smooth. I never had to futz with any air pressure settings or other adjustments with the exception of playing with the Absolute Damper lever a few times. I liked that. It was a great performing fork, and I would buy a new example for sure. (In fact, the newest ones have an updated damper, which should be an improvement).

Sun/Ringle’ Charger 29″er Wheel set: These wheels are Sun/Ringle’ products that are sold as a pre-built wheel set. The wheels are a no nonsense design with 32 hole hubs laced 3X to Sun rims with eyelets at the spoke holes. Good solid design executed well. It all added up to a wheel set I never had to think twice about. Just pedal and smile. In keeping with the single speed or geared versatility idea, these wheels were of the geared variety and set up for single speeding with a Surly spacer and cog kit. Bomber wheels that I think are worth it if you want reliability and decent performance. There are lighter wheels for sure, but these gave me no issues with flex or otherwise. I’ll take that any day over lightweight and compromises in stiffness and performance. The only nit I had was that they were not tubeless ready, but a trip to the No-Tubes website shows me that a kit is available for a rim like the ones on the Charger, so it could be accomplished.

Stroker Trail brakes: These brakes are a love/hate relationship. When they are quiet and conditions are just so, they work fantastically. When they are noisy, or if conditions are just right, they are somewhat of an annoyance. I never really got on with the rear brake since whatever I did to adjust it never really got rid of the rotor noise which was more of a scrubbing noise than a squeal. The front was much better in this regard. Perhaps a swap of pads and rotor would have cured this, but I never tried that.

Beyond that, the Stroker Trails were decent performing brakes. Good modulation, decent lever feel, and the brakes would haul your carcass down to zero mph in a hurry. I liked the white calipers which went well with the black components elsewhere and the white frame. I just am not enamored of the performance enough to be very excited about the Stroker Trails. Especially in light of the noise they produce at seemingly random times.

Stay tuned for Part Two of the final review on the Milwaukee Bicycle Company’s 29″er model.