after riding the vt for some time i felt it was just not doing what i wanted it to do. while it was reasonably light at around 13 kg i felt that giant had made some compromises to get there, especially with the fork and the rims. the manitou black was a bottom of the range fork and very soft anyway. the rims were clearly xc material, and very narrow.
i came across the proceed fst frame on the vertriders.com site. a bunch of lunatics in austria used this bike to ride where a sane person would probably even refuse to walk. the frame was resonably light and stiff … and it was on special at my local bike shop.
i then added components, trying to strike a good balance between cost, weight and performance. the chris king headset is definitely top notch, whereas the xt cranks were reliable & stiff for a good price.
initially some of the components came off the vt, like brakes, rims and the fork (i had acquired the pike earlier for the vt), but then i started to replace the borrowed components with what i really wanted to have. hope brakes, hope hubs & mavic 729 rims (top of the range freeride rims), medium cage x0 derailleur, x0 triggers …
the final build stage weight was 16 kg – quite heavy and in retrospect i feel i did an extraordinary job lugging the proceed round (and up) the salzkammergut trophy course – but i felt i had the perfect bike.
shame it got stolen … probably by somebody who has no idea what they’ve got.