there is no 'king headset creaking problem'. i'm willing to bet the ratio of poeple running big forks (as in FR/DH bikes) and having problems vs. the ratio that do have mysterious 'creaking' is probobly 2000-1 and that dude is probobly running a '99 stumpjumper with an ovalized headtube.



but to be on subject, a friend had one of these out for a test bike a couple of weeks ago and we rode the living hell out of it two days in a row. both of us overall -really- loved the bike. the only critiques we had were the juicy's squelling like crazy, we would have liked a shorter stem (my bike had a 50mm x 0deg better), and we both prefered my platforms over the clipless.

honestly, i dunno what the heck was up with those brakes, other poeple really like them.

as for pedals, stems, ect, thats all setup stuff based on personal taste and getting the bike to best fit the terrain, so its 100% subjective.

we were riding some very technical, twisty rolling rooty and muddy terrain and riding them -fast-. we beat the living heck out of that thing and it really did very very well. compaired to my HD hardtail at just over 32lbs the stumpy felt very lite. it was intresting to compair the two bikes, i was able to bomb down the hills with much higher speed and hit obstacles with much more speed and authority, but the stumpy was just consistant. making it smoothly down and back up the other side of the rollers.