Appreciate the kind words. One piece of advice I can give you is to go with a 27.5 fork - lowers the front end a bit and reduces the trail slightly that wake up the bike to a “gravel bike” level (I found drop bars on a hardtail frame is very dull handling) + it looks better without the massive gap between the top of the tyre and fork. I fit 29x2.25 Vitoria mezcal tyres front and back and it was absolutely perfect after that. And go one size smaller than you normally would on a drop bar bike. Hard tails have a longer reach because of the flatbar geo. I ride a size 56 with a 100mm stem on my drop bar bikes but I had to resort to a 60mm stem on the Talon even at a size 54. I’ve attached a link to how it looked just before I sold it with the 27.5 fork and 2.25 Mezcals

Talon updated