I know there are a few owners on here, but it’s hard to get a gist for the ride.

What I’m specifically interested in is whether you’ve managed to get a setup that feels playful and poppy.
I’m worried that it might be a bit of a sofa – like other Horst-link bikes I’ve ridden.

Particularly interested in the Warden and the new Endorphin 27.5.

The looks have really grown on me since the really ugly ones of a few years ago.

.

Because threads need pics:

Warden:

New Endo:

I’m trying to get a ride on one, but I haven’t managed to organise it yet, so any feedback would be great.

Ah well – I thought there were a few owners on here.

(friday afternoon bump)

I did have one of the old “ugly” endos. It descended like no 140mm bike had any right to. loads of traction on the climbs. Bags of fun, it’s persona is very Charles Bronson.
BUT, regardless of what the fanboys say; sizing is delicate due to the seat tube angle. Mine was a little small and as a result, had a lot of post showing and was too far behind the BB making it not the most efficient pedaller.
Ifa chilcotin ever comes up for sale cheap, I’ll be all over that shit. Perfect as a mini DH bike.

I have a 2013 Endorphin…

I’ve heard of the ‘poppy’ feel on here before but don’t know what it means! What I can tell you is that the bike does feel playful and seems to handle both little bumps and big hits/drops without any trouble. A few reviews I read said it feels like a bike that has more than 140mm and I’d agree with that, its very capable downhill.

Its also light, relatively slack and low. I was after a bike with no more than 140mm that would be capable downhill, but be light enough for longer rides and so far its hitting the spot. I would agree with the seatpost comment above also, that’s the only negative for me but its not too bad.

Thanks guys – I’m coming off a bike with an even slacker (offset) seat tube, so I’ll hopefully be fine. I’m right in the ‘medium’ frame’s sweetspot afaict, so hopefully ok.

Poppy – yes – it’s difficult to describe. All I can say is that the Specialized bike I’ve ridden, did’t have it. The old Intense 5.5 that was reviewed in ST had more pop than any bike I’ve ridden. The Cotic Rocket was pretty poppy feeling too. I rode a Yeti 575 with a 5th Element shock years ago that was the soggiest thing ever.

Have you tried a Transition? They are very ‘poppy’ playful, smile-inducing bikes.

When I got it, I literally couldn’t believe how poppy my TR450 is and owners say they Covert and Bandit are even better.

Had an older endo with the slack head tube that whilst I loved the suspension and the idea behind the slack angle being that when dropped the bike “shrunk”. When at full extension I was too far back over the wheel, sizing issue as said above.
Now got a chilcotin, angles work far better for me and love it. But set up with coil lyrics, flows and coil cane creek, so no lightweight. The suspension for what they are designed for could not be better, climbs and descends without fault. Not the fastest climber but the traction is incredible. My other bike is a 24lb full sus 29er that I race a bit so the Knolly always feel a bit sofa like but certainly can be tuned to provide plenty of ‘pop’ if you mean by that less rebound.. It’s the bike that I pick if I just want to have fun.

So…

First image, comparing the Yeti 575 to Cotic and Intense, shows that the Yeti is regressive overall, though regressive progressive in terms of how it moves through it’s travel. So on that basis you could call looking for a regressive shock as a thing that DOESN’T make a pop-y bike.

Second image sort of backs that up. A flat curve from the Specialized… progressive then regressive, but not much going down overall. Kind of flat.

Third image. Ah. The apparently poppy Transition shows a regressive/flat trend.

So – for me? Poppy – well – progressive bikes have slow bottom-out speeds on the shock movement. Which generates low amounts of damping force in compression and rebound, which means that they will spring back faster and be uncontrolled at the ends of their travel if you’re not clever and careful.

I’d certainly say that careful matching of shock to system and good tuning would make any of them ride in practically whatever way you want. The Intense shows classic VPP spring rate, with the regressive,progressive action that maximises damping speed at the sag point to control pedal bounce by damping, rather than by anti-squat as such.

But I’ve been drinking Lidl cider and I’m off to the pub.

🙂

Anti-squat is a strange one regarding pop, because I’m not usually pedalling when I bunnyhop or jump.
But that Intense 5.5 had the most chain growth of any bike I’ve ridden. It would literally throw the pedals back as you tried to ride up a large rock-step stopping you dead. I might have lived with it just for the sheer joy of the ‘begging to jump’ nature of it.
Shocks must have had a lot to do with it – someone at the time definitely blamed the 5th Element shock for the sogginess of the Yeti – you’d try and compress the bike to bunnyhop and it would just absorb all your energy and leave you stuck to the ground.

Quite a lot of what I’ve been thinking about Horst-links has been in my mind because of so many bike companies changing to them now that the patent has run out. Transition being the most eye-opening because of their ‘poppy’ reputation.

Yes – Intense has lots of anti squat

Any more owners about?

I’m trying to get a day off to ride the Warden, but struggling as have a lot of work on (Self empolyed – feast/famine thing)

I take it you’ve read the MTBR threads?
Pinkbike also wrote a good review on the 26 Endo.

Also this little bit from Eurobike:

Knolly’s decision to take the Endorphin from 26” wheels to 27.5” wheels shouldn’t come as a surprise given that’s the way that everything is going, but I’d be lying if I told you that I wasn’t just a little bit sad to see them change the bike. You see, I really, really liked last year’s Endorphin, and I said as much when I reviewed it back in August of 2013, so to see them make the jump to ‘tweener wheels is a little bittersweet. That said, the bike was already an immensely formidable machine on technical climbs (best in class, actually), and the truth is that those abilities have likely been improved upon by the better approach angle of the 27.5” hoops – I guess I’ll have to review the new bike to find out, right? Wheel size isn’t the only story here, though, as there have also been the expected changes to geometry and travel. The latter is bumped down to 130mm from the old bike’s 140mm, while the rear end gets extended by just a few millimeters, and the frame is also updated with an internal cable routing option should you decide to go for the clean look. Claimed weight for a bare frame and shock sits at 6.5lb, and the new Endorphin will be available early in 2015.

Yes, read about as much as I can on MTBR – including the Warden and Edno reviews.
But it’s still hard to get a feel for how they ride
Everyone keeps saying ‘active’ which I have to say is off-putting, but I don’t know whether that’s just because of my experience with other ‘ground-hugging’ bikes.

Another thing that’s got me thinking is the super-low pivot point compared to where Bird have put theirs.

I guess there’s no substitute for having a ride. Better get some work done so I can get a day off!

Have you had a chat with John at Shorelines? He would be better at describing how it rides that I possibly am as I am not the a-typical Knolly rider. John is super helpful.

I own a Knolly Warden having moved from a Yeti ASR-5. As regards playful and poppy, its certainly more playful downhill than my Yeti. but then you’d expect that with the extra travel. Went for the CCDB and Pikes. Its never going to feel sofa-like with my weight onboard though, I am very light! So I can’t really answer that.

I’m light too – 58kg.

The spesh still felt like a sofa 🙂
Fast though – very efficient – I was borrowing a friends so was a little protective yet still equalled my best Strava time on a fairly ‘benchmark’ local dh.

Sorry – to answer your question, yes spoken to John. He’s sorting me a demo. He thought maybe the Endo would suit me better, which makes me think the Warden might not be as supportive.

Can you pop off things riding along on the flat?
Does it feel nice to pedal along a flat technical bit. Sprint a bit, to then play on the next few rocks, bumps, etc?

I’m coming off a bike that has totally neutral pedalling, so it never feels like ‘too much bike’. I can’t imagine it feeling like too much bike even if it had 170mm travel – shame they never carried on making them (It’s a Maverick ML7/5)

Im still over a stone lighter (trying not to be though as I am too light). I probably don’t need so much travel but I like nice bikes and wanted something a little different.

Yes I can pop off things riding on the flat, and on flat technical sections the bike certainly carries speed nicely.

Great – thanks for the feedback.
Looking forward to my ride now!

I guess there’s no substitute for having a ride.

There is but with a modern full-sus there’s so much variance in how you choose to set it up. Last week I decided to tweak my Spitfire to make it less of a gnarr-flattening monster and more of a nimble airborne springer and it feels like a completely different bike.

The leverage curvy on that Knolly is near identical to the Spitfire so it will have a lot of pop if you tune it that way – but slow the high speed rebound down further and it won’t.

Thanks chief. I haven’t got a lot of experience with adjustable shocks.
My current one just has oil weight and rebound damping to play with.
But then I’ve not needed to do anything because I like the ride.

Hopefully John at Shorelines will be able to set the shock up to my liking.

Thought you might be interested in this. As you can see not like a specialized at all 🙂

This shows rrear wheel travel as a percentage not absolute BTW.

Hi Ben
Is that for the Knolly – or the Aeris?
Is that in comparison to the shape of the green line in Brant’s second graph?

Its the aeris (140 and 150 curves) Ive scaled them to roughly the same as brants so you can compare. Comparable to any of the lines on the first 3 charts. Its closest in ‘feel’ to the VPP but less agressively so. The problem (IMHO) with VPP bikes is that they wallow in their mid stroke too much. The regression in and progression out of the inflection point is too aggressive, and the inflection point is too deep into the travel (for such an aggressive starting rate- its actually a good position otherwise). Ironically, this also means they are pants with a Fox pro pedal air shock compared to something with constant adjustable LSC such as an O2 RCX or CC DB Air/Inline, and yet 99% of VPP bikes are sold with a pro-pedal shock. Go figure.

Thanks!
I’ll be riding a Bronson (with a Fox CTD natch) and a Warden (CCDBCS) soon, so hopefully I’ll be able to feel some of what you’re talking about.

Ha ha. Swap the CC DB onto the bronson for a chance to see what its really like! The VPP is the ‘fun’ curve I reckon, Ive had SC bikes and I love the way they ride… so much fun and they feel so alive, until I want to charge really hard, then I find they get out of shape too easily as you get further from the midstroke.

I got one of the first batches of wardens so have been riding it 6ish days a week for the last 4 odd months. Its a great pedalling bike it does bob a little bit on smooth fire road stuff but as soon as you get on to a technical climb it just keeps maintaining traction. As for poppy and playful it really comes down to your shock set-up but I have used it a couple of times in whistler bike park when I was doing some lift assisted xc stuff and on the smoother jump trails it was possible the most fun I have had. With technical stuff its really easy to hop rocks and manual stuff but if you want to just plough through stuff it never really complains either. Everyone I know out here who has ridden one has never really ever had a bad thing to say about it, thats from both sides of the coin “I ride park only” guys and full on xc racers.

Thanks Dunk – I’m hoping to get a ride next week, but work has been completely bonkers busy all summer.

So we managed to hook up a test ride for Alex at Cannock/stile… I think he quite liked it…
[video]http://youtu.be/UvUk264H144[/video]

Ha! I overjumped that second one and ran out of juice for the third!

Yes, did like it very much.

I’ll probably put up a thread as I don’t think there is a proper Aeris thread.

I love Horst link bikes, but when I looked at that Knolly I found myself trying to estimate how many bearings that bike has…but I rather like the look of it.

The Knolly Warden was interesting.
I love the look and it was the stiffest thing ever.

But I think it’s really reliant on shock setup and with the CCDBCS we struggled to turn my feedback into settings.

We did Cut Gate as an out-and-back and there was only really one place it came alive (moorland descent to North America) which was when it was fast, open, cruisy and jumpy. The rest of the time I found it difficult to manhandle. I wasn’t expecting it as I’d already ridden the Banshee Rune, Prime

When I rode the Bird Aeris (with a 66-degree head angle I believe) it didn’t feel half as big and awkward.
Knolly always say they make a bike you sit ‘in’ rather than ‘on’ and this is the first time that I’ve been on a bike that felt like a sled.

I’d love to try the Endorphin sometime though – especially the new 27.5 version.

I’ve put another post up about the Aeris now.

Here’s a couple of photos.
John from Knolly importers Shorelines very kindly skived off work to ride with me on a weekday on his Endo (which I really should have ridden thinking back).

Ah no it’s PI Magnum sexpest still at it! Lol

I thought I could be on the cover of Beta Male Magazine, ah well.

Is this what I have gotten myself into joining stw forum…

So have you decided on bird or knolly yet?