What's the ride like?
how's that Rooster ride after waiting for it for so long?
I'd make a terrible product reviewer, my ability to describe a bike's characteristics is pretty much limited to "I haven't crashed it yet, so it must handle OK".
I've done about 65km on it so far, including a night out on Clee Hill and I like it. My only previous experience of 29+ was a lap of the Battle on the Beach course on a Surly demo bike.
It suits my type of riding. I like to do long distance with as much as possible off road, even if that means somewhat illogically riding 5km on tarmac to incorporate 1km of bridleway rather than take the direct 3km road route. The fat tyres are a bit slower than 29x2.00 on tarmac, but then 29x2.00s are a lot slower than 700c32 'cross tyres. Every bike's a compromise and this just nudges the compromise a bit further the one way than a "normal" mountain bike.
What I liked best about the Surly demo bike and now the Rooster is the comfort while sitting down and pedalling over rough ground. Hard packed trails are OK on a hardtail 29er, but proper bumpy stone tracks or those bridleways on open moorland or that are just two gates on opposite sides of a field with no clearly defined path get a bit tiring after a while. 29+ is ideal for that.
My only critscism of the frame and fork is the lack of bottle cage mounts.
I've already mentioned the cable guides, but as Rohloff 29+ is a niche within a niche, maybe I'm expecting too much for manufacturers to cater for it.
However, with three bolt Gorilla Cage mounts on the forks, the bike is apparently aimed at bikepackers, so having just one bottle cage mounting on the down tube is a bit puzzling. Something like two on the downtube, one on the seat tube and another one or two under the downtube would have left more options open.
Worcestershire's fastest veteran vegan mountain bike endurance racer with a beard.
I shouldn't joke, I think for a while all the "drama" and mystery of whether they'd ever happen properly ticked him off 
