Circumstances have dictated that my high spec full sus has gone so I am now needing a cost effective bike that can be both commuter and trail bike. I am intrigued by the explosif. What are peoples experiences of them? Would it make a decent trail bike? Can they be built up light?

I don't know what you mean by 'trail' but as a cross country bike its, how do you say… 'OK'. They're not particularly light, but then I got rid of mine before I built it up to anything approaching a light build.

It didn't particularly inspire confidence in me at the time as its quite steep angled and long. But made for an excellent commuting bike with some semi-slicks!

With a bit more riding experience (it was my very first proper MTB) I might appreciate it, but at the time it wasn't for me.

Nice looking bike though… 🙂

I'm riding my old Explosif on the road at the mo (dinged rear wheel on the road bike) – I've got 25mm slicks on it and its only a teeny bit slower than the road bike. Its been a while since I rode it off-road, but I loved it when I did. Very stiff and responsive, not quite the soft steel that you might expect. Mind you, mine is the Columbus Max one which was renowned as a stiff and responsive ride.

I wouldn't worry at all about quick steering – that's a good thing!

I think they fiddled around with the explosif too much, it used to be an out and out slim-as-possible xc bike.

Are you looking at the slidy dropout one, or are they doing a normal vertical dropout one again? I still think its a perfectly good HT. They've made tweaks so you can run longer modern forks and discs, and still keep a flavour (for the most part sucessfully IMO) the legendary kona handling of old. I don't think they're 'too steep' – its not a slack 'ardcore HT nut bike, its supposed to be a warp speed singletrack grin machine.

Not too bothered about hardcore hardtails if I am honest, need a long cockpit first and foremost and want to try steel instead of alu. Anything else worth considering?

D'you I borrowed one once, and I wanted sooo much to love it, you know, it is after this iconic bike, and really, it was just OK, it didn't rock my world, or particularly have that whole zingy steel thing going on, it was underwhelmingly average…

There are better steel frames out there, the Inbred, the Soul, the Blizzard…loads

I've got a 853 Explosif from 93 or 94 I think (bought the frame from new). Used to ride it with Z2 80mm forks and it was great. Put some 100mm on and it wasn't as good; still a lot of fun though and I rode it for years. Eventually ended up getting a Soul but kept the frame and have now built it up as a single speed; still with the 100mm forks though. Great laugh around town and local easy trails.

needs to be a commuter & a trail bike? 😕

new Explosif frames are circa £500… if cost is a factor then the obvious choice must be an inbred – influenced to a degree by Kona certainly. Out of interest why not have a beater rat bike for commuting? Old rigid steel mtbs that are not kona still go for very little on ebay.

sorry, back on topic: Explosif were lovely before they mucked them up with, first, alu. alloy (for shame) and then steel, but hulking great pointless sliding dropouts. I bought a Voodoo partly 'cos of the Kona/Murray thing, so I'm defo a fan of that sort of thing 🙂

Needs to be both as I'm skint and not too bothered about specific bikes for purposes, bike will be used for north wales etc for occasional weekend rides and then some skinny slicks on and locked out forks for the week. cannot afford the luxury of two bikes at present and with two small kids wouldn't get the time to ride a decent full sus for the next year or so anyway. Didn't think of the Inbred and looks to be just what I need with some light kit on..