Got the same one (09 model) – very pleased with it…climbing in granny does take time to learn, but it climbs very well once adjusted, rides across things very well and down things even better. A very confidence inspiring bike.
I'm well chuffed with mine. I stuck a 180mm rotor on the front and stuck a short cage rapid rise XT mech on, some Conti Vert Pros and that is it…really nice bike*.
I don't use all 27 gears so I've no probs with loosing the top 3 and bottom 4 cogs when the chain is in big or granny.
* Although a very biased and predictable thing to say, I didn't pay much money for mine (sold my 05 Trance 1 and only had to pay a few hundred quid), so I'm not just saying that because I shelled out over £2k on a bike – I didn't…but I still think it is cracking.
Only drawback that I've found is when you want to transport the bike on the roof – the frame doesn't lend itself well to typical roof racks and the 15mm dropout doesn't lend itself well to many form-mount racks – Pendle single bike roof rack is the only one I found that works – hopefully likely to change but when I was buying (almost a year ago) that was it…a very good rack though.