Intense SS2

Hi all.

Just before I start my pipe dream that usually turns into reality, has anybody had any experience with the Intense Slopestyle 2?

I currently ride an Alpine 160, and although a slog uphill I’m more than willing to put up with it for the downhill benefit 🙂

So any experiences? Bike weight when built etc.

Thanks!

TomO

I’ve got one.

Will you be running it 1×10 or putting hammerschmidt on?

Hi Toons

It would either be 1 x 10, or if I had the ability to run 2 x 9 or 2 x 10?

Definitely not Hammerschmidt.

Thanks

You can’t fit a front mech and you’ll need a dropper post for xc.

I reckon the SS2 will be more of a slog than the Alpine 160, but it’s an amazing bike downhill.

SS2 with 160mm fork 33-35lbs depending how much money you throw at it.

Mine’s 37lbs with 180mm, hammerschimdt & sram x9.

I’ve got an Uzzi (essentially the bigger brother of the SS) and it rides perfectly fine uphill. However, a mate has the Orange Alpine and I’d struggle to see how much better (if at all) a slopestyle would be in comparison.

Putting a Cane Creek double barrel on the Alpine might be a better option?

Not the same but I’ve an Intense SS1 that I use for the trails (it was my do it all bike but I bought a bigger one for the silly stuff) and it’s brilliant. Not the best climber but good enough if that’s your thing and really shines in the downs. The VPP suspension is very good indeed and the bike pedals well. It be nice if it were a bit lighter especially when it’s cold, wet, dark, raining horizontal and you and it are covered in mud but come the summer I will have forgiven it.

SS2 should pedal better. Mine is 33lb built up with a coil at both ends a reverb and maxis 2.5 minion DHF exo 3cs.

Any excuse, but here without the reverb fitted:

Thanks for all the replies.

Toons: Ah I wasn’t aware of the front mech restrictions, which does kind of put a spanner in the works to a small degree. I like to ride Coed-y-brenin and I’m not sure I’d make it without a 2 upfront.

Wacko: The uzzi was the other one I was looking at, I’ll be honest the Intense 951 (look of) has always appealed to me, the SS2 mimicks it which is why I’ve started to have this pipedream as such. The uzzi is a lovely bike, and definitely more all mountain orientated, just doesnt share the same curves as the SS2. I currently run a coil Diverse Dueller with Ti Coil which I love. I might take a bit of a closer look at the Uzzi though I know id still lust after the SS.

Dans160: Nice bike 🙂 Is yours running a single ring upfront to? I feel I’d probably struggle with a single to have it for the high high climbs. Although I’m sure mine wouldn’t be heavier, I prefer to run air up front.

I was looking at getting a Tracer 2 but was put off by the shoddy workmanship and dodgy warranty service of Intense.

Skywalker, please continue lol. I have contacts in the US (My companies US Office)so transporting goods to and from the US isnt a problem. What service problems?

Wacko: I’ve been looking at the Uzzi and it actually shares quite a lot of the same looks as the SS2, its actually stunning. Something that does depress me a little but with some of these top end bikes, is the cable routing. One thing that often seems to be overlooked and can ruin a bike.

GS – have a look on the MTBR forums, loads of examples of the Uzzi and SS. From what you are saying the SS is probably more “aggressive” for downhill despite having less travel (I have coil totems on the uzzi). FWIW I found the Alpine to be a very good climber…

Skywalker, please continue lol. I have contacts in the US (My companies US Office)so transporting goods to and from the US isnt a problem. What service problems?

Just what I read about them put me off, other peoples experiences. Miss aligned chain and seat stays, cracking welds, and poor customer service (not Intense themselves but the importers, mainly CRC)

http://www.sicklines.com/projects/project-intense-slopestyle-2/

Does this help?

Just fit hammerschimdt

me and my friends like intense!

[/url]
SS2 Owners Club[/url] by james_ferguson[/url], on Flickr

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Morzine Day 4[/url] by james_ferguson[/url], on Flickr

Made it to the top of Keilder running 1*9 32-2-32. It’s fine. Coed -y – brenin was also fine. Twice. 1*10 will be plenty, I reckon.

SS1s can take front mech.

The ‘shoddy’ workmanship is true in some cases as it is for all manufacturers to a degree. My first tracer was on the piss but this was resolved quickly by the UK importers who were great. Both my SS1 and M9 are spot on. If you do buy, get it checked out by the store before you pick it up. They should do this anyway.

Put it like this, there are far more happy Intense owners than there are unhappy. For me, nothing else comes close (although those carbon fibre zestys do look nice). The geo, ride and look are all spot on.

Skywalker, please continue lol. I have contacts in the US (My companies US Office)so transporting goods to and from the US isnt a problem. What service problems?

I got a large Intense Tracer, and both the HA and SA where almost 2 degree steeper then they where supposed to be. With a 0-stack headset and Van 36 RC2 the HA was close to 69.5.

Sent a few emails to their customer service and tech support emails to ask if this was supposed to be, they either bounced (email full) or just did not get responses. I posted about it on mtbr and somebody gave me a direct contact at Intense who immediately started to help. They never questioned that they would replace it, but it still took them 6 months to send the replacement Uzzi. The new frame arrived with the wrong stickers and shock, and has a misaligned rear triangle.

I was so fed up with the whole process that it took a while until I bothered getting back to them. When I did, none of the people I had been in contact with worked for the company, and again the emails to general customer service went unanswered. Finally I complained on some thread at mtbr again, and immediately had an answer to one of the messages sent to the customer service email address. They told me they would “take care of me” and asked me where I live. I responded the same day (17’th of October) thanking for the message and telling him where I live (which he could already have seen from the prior email), and asking how we go forward.

That’s the last I heard from them. I’ve sent a friendly query asking what’s happening on 6.11, 21.11 and 20.12, and in January a message saying this is not exactly the kind of service I expect from a company taking pride in their product…

You’ll find plenty of similar cases, and of course plenty of people saying how “they where taken care of right away so anyone complaining is a whining idiot”. Funny thing you don’t read about a lot of cases like this regarding other manufacturers… It’s a pity really, but I’ve already been looking at other frames on blow out since I don’t really know if this will progress any further.

My experience of Intense is via two good friends of mine, a husband and wife team, both of whom are die hard Intense advocates. Over five years they’ve had no less than six Intense frames between them, including Socoms, Uzzis (the second generation, not the current one) and Tracers.

All of them have ended up needing new bearing every six months; they aren’t hard riders; though they ride DH they certainly don’t race and they aren’t doing anything higher off the ground than a foot or two. And yet, within six months of a bearing/bushing replacement, their rear ends are baggier than a geriatric whore’s (if you’ll pardon the expression).

None of this even remotely bothers them. Every six months they send their bikes off for service, it costs around £100 per bike, they come back and they are happy as Larry. They have also had one frame crack and another one had a problem with the lower swing link. Both times they’ve been sorted out by someone, not sure who as they have a habit of sourcing frames in unconventional ways.

They couldn’t be happier with their bikes. They love the brand and have never once felt let down. The fact that their frames are likely to be a misaligned as the Catholic Church and Stonewall never for one second bothers them.

That’s brand loyalty. Fair play to them and Intense. Lovely bikes to own, lovely to ride, loads of prestige and boutique appeal, just don’t expect exceptionally high quality of finishing.

Toons – you at bar Le Sherpa there – my fave Morzine hangout:)

Yep we’ve stayed there the last two summers 🙂

I’d love an SS2 but sadly according to this it’s to be discontinued (no chance of any ‘smalls’ finding their way into UK stock then 🙁 ). I’ve owned an SS1 and Uzzi – lovely lovely bikes. I agree with the comments above re bearings/quality control to a certain extent. I am by no means a hard rider, weighing only 9 stone kitted up – my Tazer VP needed new bearings after less than a year, Slopestyle too developed bearing play, but the Uzzi, a rather battered Tazer FS and my Tazer VP FRO both remained play-free during my ownership – a bit hit and miss, I guess.

Put it like this, there are far more happy Intense owners than there are unhappy. For me, nothing else comes close (although those carbon fibre zestys do look nice). The geo, ride and look are all spot on.

dans160 has it.

RIP SS2 amazing bike.

The 2012 Uzzi is essentially going to replace the SS2. 6.5″ or 7″ travel with slacker geometry (more like the SS2) and designed to run a 180mm fork. And it can run a front front mech as well so its alot more versatile but still a DH ripper!
Also, Intense build quality and bearing life etc has much improved over the last 2 years. Some of the older frames did have issues but the newer stuff (Tracer onwards) is much better. They now have much better QC.

maybe its a recent or VPP thing…or maybe I’ve been lucky.

I’ve got a 4-bar tracer from 2000 that is still on its original bearings, tight as a tight thing and I’ve never had to do anything to it.

Also got a 4-bar Uzzi DH from 1999 that has just had its first bearings done this year, and that was only the main pivot.

To be honest, I’d not buy a current Intense, purely because I don’t really get on with VPP bikes, nothing to do with the brand.

poor customer service (not Intense themselves but the importers, mainly CRC)

CRC = crap.
Extra (the importers) = couldn’t be more helpful.

Some intense frames seem to eat bearings quicker than others. I know my 2nd front end seems a lot easier on the bearings (on par with any other bike really), but then I have ridden it a lot less.

On that note, I’m selling my socom if anyone’s interested 😉 Check my posts…

In my opinion not answering emails or taking months to answer them is bad customer service. They are really friendly, but the inconsistency between users experiences is far greater then other brands. Again, as mentioned there are surely more happy customers then unhappy ones, it’s just that the level of service you MIGHT receive is not something you expect from such a highly respected brand.

Also most people will never end up dealing with them as you are supposed to go through your dealer. This means the level of service is generally highly dependent on who that dealer happens to be. In my case the dealer got fed up with how difficult it was and stopped selling Intense at which point I’m supposed to deal with Intense directly which seems quite futile (the previous time I was dealing with a manager and emails where responded to within days not months, so while it took 6 months I always at least had a clue of what was going on).

Anyway, after 3 months I got another response. They said they had not responded to the previous messages because they have not had any Uzzi rears in stock, and asked if I’d now take a powder coated one instead of the raw since they still don’t know when they will have those…

The bearings in my SS seem fine. I replace the lowers once a year which doesn’t seem excessive to me for something that it well used. Trick is to use decent bearings, SKF not Enduro!

Agree re extra UK, very helpful!

Had an intense spider. Im a weekend warrior so the use wasn’t ever extreme. Seat tube cracked. Emailed intense and didn’t even get a response back. All I was asking is a.) if they could fix it and b.) if not, were there any front triangles/used/demoed/blemished frames I could BUY. The fact that they couldn’t even respond with a “no sorry” leads me to conclude that I will never buy or condone someone else buying an Intense bicycle of any type. Yeah it was a fun bike, but I expect them to have enough decency to respond to an email from a loyal customer, especially when it was their weak frame that failed on me. At least I didn’t end up in the hospital.

Anyway, after 3 months I got another response. They said they had not responded to the previous messages because they have not had any Uzzi rears in stock, and asked if I’d now take a powder coated one instead of the raw since they still don’t know when they will have those…

Well, they did end up sending the new rear end (two actually) to replace the unaligned one. Altogether it took over 6 months like on the first time.

I found it funny that they sent two, but it ended up being good because the first replacement was crooked too (original one the front end of the rear wheel was pointing left, replacement top of wheel was pointing left). Luckily the second replacement was straight so after owning an intense for well over a year I finally have one which is reasonably aligned. 😀