Am I the only one who doesn’t see anything exciting here.
It’s a muni, with a brake, fat tire, long cranks, spiked pedals, and a funny looking frame.
Maybe I’m just a debbie downer. :o
Don’t get me wrong, if I didn’t already have a muni I was happy with, I’d add that to my list for consideration.
Is there some advantage to that frame design?
This would seem to be just another version of the Surly LM Conundrum. Munivision (Jim) used to own one, which had the endomorph 3.7" tire. I think the one pictured below has a 4" tire. A few of us tried it at Devil’s slide, which is a super technical, 100% rocky trail. As I remember, it was rather hard to control and very, very heavy.
Terry, don’t you ride a Muni with the LM rim? If you do, there’s no huge weight difference between the Larry tire and quite a few 3.0 tires. The uni in the pic you posted seems to have an endomorph tire… or something strange looking, that’s probably why it was so unruly.
I could see calling it heavy comparing it to a 3.0 or less KH 26-er with the KH rim but if you already ride a LM rim, the Larry is not a huge difference. I like the way mine rides better than most of my tires unless I am doing a lot of hopping, then, at 200-210lbs, the sidewalls are too floppy for me. I also ride my 3.0 tires with much more air pressure than most so I don’t crush them when I am hopping…I ride fat 
Only problem with this uni is the weight like Terry said, when i ride trails sometimes i have no choice but to carry the uni and all my gear up the hill because its impossible to ride up. My 24inch weighs in 13lbs i think and that is with 150 Kh moments.
At the end of a long day i can be sore just from carrying my uni around, but if you have an area with just all downhills or flat or stuff you can ride up then shoot this would be one fun ride i bet 
Holly frame clearance batman! 
I thought that my custom Triton was the only frame that existed (except for the identical one owned by Jogi) that would fit a 29x3.4" tire but I think the frankenwheel would fit just fine in a Oregon.
Too bad about the non-symetrical super wide hub.
Edit: they would probably put other cranks on there if you wanted but 165 is an appropriate length for these tires of endomorphic proportions.
2nd Edit: and you can easily loose a lot of weight by re-building your wheel with a snowbiking rim.
3rd Edit: anyone know the width of the frame? would it be able to handle a Larry on a 100mm rim? (~108mm)
I’d think of this as a bad-weather uni… seems like it would be perfect for snow, ice, mud, etc. Maybe overkill for most muni (?) but maybe ideal for that super-nasty January commute. I’m not certain I’d get $800 of that kind of use out of it, but I’d love to give it a college try!
Q? Uncomfortable perhaps?
It is spec’d with a fixed Nimbus post and gel seat, so upgrading those is worthwhile; they used those to keep the price down surely.
Frame is strong and light, can’t compare it to the Surly yet, but when it arrives I’ll do a weigh in
The hub is chromoly, not sure about disc clearance, but I’ll check for you when it arrives. I’m not keen on the brake color or lever style, so I’ll be swapping in a Shimano hydraulic or an Avid bb 7 (if it fits).
In terms of riding akwardness of the Larry, yeah, it is different from a narrower tire, but not in a bad way. I find that when I ride the Larry all the time that I lose that awkwardness, same can be said of adjusting to anything different.
Last night I rode with my son and we swapped back and forth between the Surly/Larry 3.8 and 29er/Ardent 2.4, reason I wanted to swap from 29er being that my knees were sore and the 29er was beating me up.
Did some research on weights and it appears that the Larry is 200 gm LESS than the Intense DH 3"/Duro 3"/Arrow 3" and 400-500 gm LESS than a Gazz 3".
Now if you’re running a 3" DH tube, which is what most folks are usinig, then you need to add in another 200 gm, cuz them tubes are heavy!! A Duro 3" DH tube is 600gm, that’s the same weight as a KH 26 FR rim!!!
The Surly 24 LM XC rim is 300gm MORE than the KH 24 FR rim.
If someone were to ride a 26 LM XC and Larry 3.8 tire/tube, they would see no difference in weight over a KH FR rim and Duro/Arrow/Intense DH 3" tire/tube.
In other words, Terry is carrying a whole lot of rim and tire 
You can drop a whole lot of weight by running lighter tubes and tires, shorter cranks, etc… but you sacrifice performance and comfort. Last night when my knees were hurting as I rode my 29er, the switch to the Surly Larry was an immediate relief to my knees, just from the additional cushioning. That’s the “Larry effect”.
There is another issue worth looking at on the Oregon, that is hub width and crank q factor. Josh said that the new Ventures had no q factor, which is going to be significant for running a wider hub. I’m going to look at running the QuAx chromoly 170 cranks I use on my Conundrum, but it may be that a wider hub will necessitate a low q factor to avoid being “splayed legged”.
But weight is mostly in the mind, as if an extra pound of uni is actually going to make carrying your uni that much harder, compared to a bike or a backpack.
I’m seriously considering getting the Oregon.
It should be possible to run several different wheelsets on it:
wide or narrower 29er, 47mm 26er, even 24x3…
It might look a little weird, especially on the narrower wheels or on the 24".
Would a 3" wide tire be the narrowest to put on a LM?
It might be an idea to drill the LM for weight savings.
I do like the looks of that frame. It’s pretty special…
With no experience with disc brakes whatsover, would the braking power be good with that size of rotor?
I’m also a little concerned about the asymetric wheel. I wonder if that would affect side to side balance.
Anyways, it’s been a long time since I’ve been that excited about a new uni.
every wheelset with 125mm hub;)
Given your current geared KH26 setup, I’m a bit surprised. You won’t be able to run the geared wheel in the Oregon frame due to hub spacing differences.
For about the same cost you could get a Triton triple frame with disc mount and a crank mounted rotor setup for your current wheel. That will allow you to run your geared 26 wheel and later build up a Large Marge/Larry wheel on a non-geared hub and run both in the same frame.
The Oregon seems best suited for someone looking for a muni with a Large Marge/Larry wheel and the possibility of swapping to a lighter 29" wheel (built around the special hub).
Or, find a conundrum frame and use the UCM disk mount and MountainUni rotor/Sinz cranks. That way, you don’t have to rebuild your wheels with wider hubs and you can use your 26" Guni wheel set. I have this set up with a disk tab and run my 29" 2.4, 26" 3.8, and 24" 3.0 wheels.
Yup, I’ve done that. If I remember correctly, 1 inch holes saved about 4 onces (~110 grams).
isn’t there already a “drilled” LM at Surly? I tend to remember that there are 2 different Large Marge and one is “drilled” (now is it ok for Muni is another question).
What could be the lightest combination of Muni parts with Large Marge and Larry? (I have been considering having a 26 for a long time now but still cannot make up my mind: I already own an heavy Muni! -and would prefer 145mm cranks-)
That’s the XC large marge. It’s the one that comes with the Oregon Muni. I have both the XC and the DH.
The drilled version's inner wall has wide oval cutouts. It’s made for xc and is a bit lighter, but I prefer my standard non-drilled LM for optimum brute strength. Then there’s this. 
The drilled 26 XC is only 100g lighter than the 1150g solid wall 26 DH. That saves a mere 3.5oz. I’ll stick with the the non-drilled for optimum strength.
I have the XC on my 26" wheel set and have had absolutely no problem with strength, even after 4 ft + drops.
Yeah, compared with the standard issue 47mm drilled rims, the LM’s are pretty much indestructible. But for xc riding on my 29er, I’ll stick with my stock kh rim. Not that they make a 29er LM, but even if they did, I would never get one! Talk about a tank! 
Check this out!
You know… The 80mm wide fatbike rim is about 300 g less than the 26" XC LM rim. I may have to pick one up and build it. I’ll just have to do some measurements to see if it will fit in my Surly conundrum frame. That’s almost a pound of rotational weight savings.
