Singletrack Staff Blog

We’ve got a Santa Cruz Heckler frame to use for testing long travel XC or ‘All Mountain’ type stuff on. It’s previous incarnation was a lightweight build (sub 28lbs) and I didn’t really like how it handled. It had the lack of bulk to make road climbs easier and it accelerated pretty quick on straight line pedally flat stuff but it just felt a bit too easily bullied by rough trails and was too slack for twisty singletrack.

Last week I decided to change the build kit to try to make the bike ‘make sense’. On went: beefier and more tweak-able suspension bits (a rarely seen Spinner Cargo fork and X-Fusion 02 PVA DC shock), wider rimmed front wheel (Bontrager), bigger tyres (2.6 Schwalbe Al Mighty up front, Bontrager Big Earl Wet 2.5 rear), higher and wider bars (Syncros Bulk bars). Off came the big ring, on went a bash guard.

It weighs more (34lbs) but it rides a million times better. Gone is the feeling of it being an confused mess of inefficient XC wannabe and malnourished skittery freerider. It feels like a genuine All Mountain bike now (if I have to categorise it into a marketing pigeonhole). It still climbs surprisingly well belying its heft (I was quite prepared to sacrifice a bit of uphill performance but needn’t have worried really) but it’s on the descents that it is sooo much better. Whether it’s slo-mo, nadgery, hairpinny, stuttery stuff or hooning down at speed over wider, jumpier, rockier stuff it’s now very, very capable. And just a top laugh

It’s still not 100% there yet (needs better brakes and non-flippy shifters and the front tyre is a tad OTT) but now it’s a bike I want to ride again.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 24th, 2006 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Bike rides, Blogroll . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.