The Monkey Lab: Rohloff-Equipped Ventana Zeus 650B Full Suspension Mountain Bike

26 August 2013

Rohloff-Equipped Ventana Zeus 650B Full Suspension Mountain Bike

Zeus at home in the dirt

Fresh out of the Monkey Lab is this beautiful Ventana Zeus 650B Rohloff 160mm full suspension mountain bike designed to conquer any type of trail you can throw it at. Built for a customer in Walnut Creek, CA, this is his second full suspension Rohloff mountain bike. The Rohloff SPEEDHUB is the ultimate drivetrain for a bike like this, with the full range of its 14 gears available on demand at the twist of the shifter. This is a tough bike but the SPEEDHUB will still be rolling long after everything else on this bike has worn out. With nothing to get clogged up or bent, you can ride this bike with total confidence through the diciest rock gardens and single track. This Zeus was finished in a beautiful shade of orange with just the right amount of sparkle to really pop in the sunlight. This frame has a few custom extras including a painted to match rear triangle and Rohloff-specific housing guides, which are available for a modest upcharge.

The rear suspension linkage can be swapped to give the Zeus 140mm or 160mm of travel

Custom Rohloff cable routing and the Monkey Bone brake adaptor to keep the OEM2 axle plate in place

Fox 34mm Talas fork with travel adjust from 130mm to 160mm

Thomson's Elite Dropper seatpost offers 125mm of travel

American-made Chris King ISO disc hub is convertible between 15mm and 20mm axles

For the wheels on this Ventana we laced the Rohloff SPEEDHUB rear and Chris King 15mm thru axle front hub to a pair of 650B Stans Flow EX tubeless rims with SAPIM Race spokes for a strong wheelset that matches up great with the Schwalbe Hans Dampf 2.35" tires.

Magura MT-4 brake lever, Rohloff twist shifter and ESI grips

Ventana is a great company to work with. They are located near us and make everything in-house at their Northern California factory including all of the machined parts, heat treating, and powdercoating. A wide range of custom options is available including a broad color palette, custom geometry, and cable routing. Turn around time is amazing for a made to order frame and the people at Ventana are super friendly. More importantly, the bikes are fun to ride and are built to hold up to many years of hard riding (see this post). Check out their website and then get in touch to see what we can put together for you!

Build details: