On the road to recovery - Morewood Kalula Bikecheck

So I’ve seen a couple of these being done, and thought I’d join in with the fun and games while I have nothing better to do. For the last 4 months I’ve been out of riding with a torn PCL and stretched ACL and LCL (basically all the main ligaments) in my left knee. I picked up this injury whilst riding my Dartmoor, managing to massively overcook a nose manual over a box at a wooden skatepark, which sent me over my bars to land flat, falling around 3 feet straight onto my shin bone, which caused these ligaments to be put under a lot of strain. So my knee is pretty damn f*cked. I hope that physio will aid recovery time and I’ll be in good strength to ride in summer.
Since I received the injury, I’ve concentrated on getting my Morewood to be as dialled as I can afford; replacing many parts including the wheels, tyres, seat, derailleur and brakes. It is now by far the most dialled bike I own and it gives me a huge amount to look forward to once I’ve recovered sufficiently to ride properly. A great deal of the money I earn working part time at the local bike shop goes into my bikes; it’s too easy to spend money on new parts when you’re working around them so much!


First of all is the frame. It’s a 2010 Morewood Kalula. It has 7 inches of travel, and for me is the ideal frame for the riding I enjoy. The riding in my area is a mix of freeride and downhill, which the morewood handles equally capably. It’s slightly steeper than a modern downhill frame, with a 65.5 degree headangle, and its chainstays are shorter than those on a typical dh bike too, which create a very playful bike. But it’s by no means unstable, and feels equally as home on flatout downhill tracks. I run the rear suspension reasonably stiff on it, to allow me to push hard in corners and further increase the playfulness of the bike - It loves to hop around and get airborne. It's a medium size and has a relatively short top tube for it's size, so it's very short for me at 6'1", but i like the shortness, it makes it easier to move around. The frame is on the heavy side for its category, but it’s incredibly stiff which goes some way to making up for it. With as light a build as I dare (aside from carbon bars and cranks), it comes in around 33 lbs, which is a very respectable weight in my mind, but the same build on something along the lines of a session 9.9 would be incredibly light. The lightweight aspect of the build further contributes to its playfulness, and there are no parts which I feel are too weak to hold up to my riding so it’s a perfect mix of weight and strength to me. The paint on the frame is beautiful. It looks amazing in the sun, changing shades as you move around it. It’s on the thin side however and needs to be looked after by copious amounts of cable rub protection.


The rear shock is an x-fusion vector air hlr. It performs very well, can’t complain about it. It’s very tuneable, and the adjustments make a noticeable difference. I’m yet to tune it perfectly, but it feels amazing as it is. It hasn’t suffered from any heat fade, is supple for an air shock, and deals with hard hits very well compared to a dhx air or rp23. I sent it in for a service at the distro as there was a slight stiction on the rebound stroke that was bugging me, and was given a new one as they didn’t have the spares to service it. I believe a simple main air seal re-lube would have solved the problem, but I’m not complaining about a free new shock! The new one seems to be stiction free on the rebound stroke so that’ll hopefully fix the issue.


On the front end I picked up an almost new 170mm rockshox lyrik rc2dh solo air fork. It’s amazingly stiff for its weight (4.7lbs) and very supple for an air fork. The adjustments all make a noticeable difference, and for the first few rides I fettled with them to find an ideal setup, but I found my initial setup was best. The air adjustment makes it super easy to change them for different tracks and set them up for my weight, whilst losing a great deal of weight aswell. They feel soo good that I can’t see myself going back to a coil fork! I had originally wanted a black fork but the price was good enough to persuade me to go for a white one, and I like how it looks. On the lyrik I’m running a muckynutz bender fender mudguard. It’s a bit of plastic with some holes in it for zipties that attaches onto the arch of the lowers. It keeps the spray out well and also keeps mud away from the seals of the fork – hard to fault really.


The headset is a superstar reducer, to run the straight 1 1/8th steerer in a tapered headtube. It comes with a crown race to run a tapered steerer which I thought was a great feature. So far the bearings have been smooth and there’s nothing to complain about. Stack is a little high on the bottom cup but it’s no big deal.


On to the cockpit and the stem I’m running is a funn funnduro. I bought it mainly because of the weight and price, but was pleasantly surprised when it arrived and looked as good as it does. It’s very minimalistic, with cutouts on the steerer clamp and another between the bars and steerer. It was initially scary to be able to look through the middle of the stem, but there’s no noticeable flex and it’s yet to give me anything to complain about.

The bars are blackspire 808s, cut down to 780mm. They feel nice, with good bends. The finish on them is quite weak and wears away reasonably easily, but they were very cheap and look and feel good so no complaints. I’d like to switch to a raceface sixc sometime this year to get on the carbon bangwagon, save a little weight and gain some extremely important e-points.


The grips I’m running are sdg hansolo. They’re made by odi so the rubber feels amazing, and the pattern provides a lot of grip and a very comfortable feel on first impressions. Yet to take them for a ride due to the knee so time will tell as to how nice they are, but for now they seem very nice.


The gearing I’m running is slightly ghetto. It’s a sram x9 9spd shifter, with a shimano zee 10spd mech. You may ask how this works? The secret is that the ratios are extremely close. By fitting a 6mm washer under the cable at the derailleur, the ratios are basically identical, so the mech works as a 9spd system. I’m yet to ride this setup due to the injury, but on car park tests there is nothing to complain about, and the clutch system will hopefully reduce chainslap and generally improve the performance.
I’m running a sram pc991 with some shimano hg something links as it was too short. It’s a chain, does its job with no complaints. Would like a gold kmc x10 sl next.
The cassette is a 11-25 shimano ultegra. It is very light, nothing else to say. When the cassette and chain wear down to the point that they’re no longer fit for use, I’ll switch them out for 10spd and change the shifter too. I’ll probably get a wider ratio cassette (11-28 ) as I would like to increase the versatility a bit so it can be climbed.


The brakes are another part I’ve purchased whilst being injured. They’re the newest generation shimano xt’s, mated to the xt icetech floating 203mm rotors. They’re yet to bed in, but from carpark testing feel very powerful, and due to the effort shimano have put in with the finned pads and icetech 3-layer rotor, I’d hope they’ll deal with heat very well. The levers look great with the chrome touches and short blade, and the finned pads look badass. The floating rotors also look very nice and stealthy.


The cranks are shimano saint m815. 83mm spindle, 165mm long. They’re pretty much the benchmark downhill crank and so I trust them a great amount. I recently fitted some slik graphic decals to them to freshen up the look. I’d love to switch them out for some raceface sixc cranks, but they’re just too expensive for me to justify.
The chainguide is a straitline silent guide. It’s nothing short of amazing. It’s silent as the name would suggest, and produces little or no drag. When set up properly, it holds the chain on flawlessly, the bash provides full chainring coverage, and it’s light. What more could you want?
The chainring is some fsa random. I don’t like it, but it’s hidden so I can live with it. I’ll change it for a raceface single ring when I change my chain, cassette and shifter.
The pedals are superstar ultra mags. They’ve very light and have an amazing platform. They’re very grippy and thin enough to provide a low COG and stay out of the way of rocks. The paint on them does come off very easily however. I’m tempted to remove it completely and have them raw. But for now it’s too much effort and they can stay red with scratches.


The seatpost is a sdg carbon i-beam. It’s light, looks fine, but the seat slips a little unless cranked down extremely hard. Other than that, I’ve got no complaints. It’s the only carbon on my bike and for that reason is badass.
The seat is a raceface atlas i-beam. It looks amazing, my favourite looking seat, it’s light, and satisfies my crush for raceface’s new lineup of products (if you read this clap, hook me up please!).


The wheels are another thing bought whilst injured, and are my favourite part of the bike. The rear is a chris king iso 150 hub laced to a mavic en521 rim with dt swiss competition db spokes and dt prolock hexagonal alloy nipples. It looks amazing, and is a very light setup. The king is nothing short of a piece of art. It looks incredible, sounds awesome and performs very well according to the general consensus. I can’t wait to see if it lives up to the hype when I’m back on the road. The rims are a good weight and seem to be strong enough for people to run for my kind of riding, time will tell as to how well they hold up to general abuse, but being mavic I can see them being good.
The front wheel is the same build but with a hope pro2 evo hub. I went for this simply to save money over the king alternative. It’s not as nice as the king but it does the job well enough.


The tyres are schwalbe folding single plies with snakeskin sidewalls. The front is a muddy mary, the rear is a hans damph. I’ve attempted to set them up tubeless to prevent pinch flatting. The hd went perfectly, seated straight away with a floor pump, however I couldn’t get the mary to seal, so have put a tube in for now until I can get to an air compressor to give it another shot. I guess it’s probably because it’s not a tubeless ready tyre, and has been used. It’s my first experience with tubeless so will be interesting to see how it performs out on the trail when I get it set up. I personally find schwalbe tyres to be the best on the market. It’ll take a lot to persuade me back on to the maxxis tyres I used to run.


So that’s covered the whole bike. I hope it hasn’t been too boring to read. It certainly gives me something to look forward to riding when I recover! Depending on how my knee goes I’d be tempted to do some races this year. But priority is riding as much as possible to make up for the lost time during injury. The bike is almost perfect for me, with the 10spd and carbon cranks and bars being the only things I can see myself changing.
Cheers for reading, hope you got a bit of an insight into my setup and have a good year riding!