Not being an owner (yet) but having ridden one in Luchon with AQR recently for a week here’s my thoughts.
The ride feels more spritely (is that a word?) lively than the weight would suggest of a 30lbs ish build. Is that down to the steel front and alloy back, I’m not sure?
The suspension ramps up nicely on a Float shock and the rear feels nice and taught, the rear feels stronger than my old HL 5 Spot and with the forks wound down the bike climbs very well indeed. I wouldn’t go for one of those CTD shocks as less adjustment and just not as good as older Float RP23 shock.
Descending the bikes feels lively and encourages you to pop off things which is very good in my book, depends if you like that…
Top tubes are quite long so if you’re running wide (700mm +) bars then you need quite a short stem (60mm on a Medium was ideal for me being 5′ 11″ and longer torso compared with running a 90mm stem on my Soda)which obviously keeps the handling sharp.
Overall the bike feels like a obviously heavier and full susser version of my Soda (Lynskey version) and with a 160mm adjustable fork it would be my ideal bike for the rough stuff, a hooligan bike! I just don’t currently ride enough rough stuff to warrant one or could afford another bike otherwise I’d have one myself.
