ON-ONE HELLO DAVE SRAM GX
On-one’s wacky hardtail demands a response – will it be ‘goodbye Dave’ or ‘you’re my bike now’?
On-one’s Hello Dave is a radical hardtail. With a 62° head angle and stretched 1,295mm wheelbase on the size L, it puts the 29in front wheel in the land of DH bikes. And, if that’s where you choose to ride it, this steel monster truck is easily capable of handling it.
Sold in the UK by Planet X – an online retailer with a reputation for unbelievable value – the Hello Dave is supplied as a complete build with a 150mm-travel Rockshox Pike fork and SRAM GX Eagle drivetrain for less than £1,700. There’s also a frame-only option for £599.99.
The triple-butted 4130 steel frame has a ‘designed in Yorkshire’ sticker, but was actually first built for another UK brand launched in a blaze of crowdfunding hype and far-out frame designs. Called Sick Bicycle Co., this outfit made plenty of noise about its progressive hardtail ideas and ‘stick-it-to-the-man’ attitude and appealed to a certain demographic before shirking on its promises and becoming terminally ill in 2019.
Sick’s demise wasn’t due to an unwilling customer base, more a failure to deliver its orders. The backlog and social media backlash this led to got so heated there were threats of violence as irate customers lost patience and wished to make the firm’s founders very sick indeed. And with many riders in the lurch and out of pocket, plenty of frames ended up unpaid for and sitting dormant with the frame-builder in Peru. I’m not making this up! Cue On-one and the League of Gentlemen-referencing ‘Hello Dave’ name entering the tale.
So On-one bought that first frame batch cheap and continued the relationship (albeit with a few tweaks like no modular dropouts) to keep prices keen. And, considering Sick charged hundreds more with plenty of willing customers, On-one’s price is even more appealing. It makes for a cool backstory too, but what exactly did Sick dream up in the first place and does it work?
Hello Dave is essentially a superstrong aggro 29er hardtail that’s pretty extreme in terms of geometry. Designed to be hammered, it’s geared towards the steepest and roughest downhills, rather than making too many
£1,699 / 29in / planetx.co.uk
Hello Dave is a super-strong aggro 29er hardtail