I’ve been having a gander at the new Saracen range and some of them look great – the Kili’s are proper good looking bikes, at least, they are if you cut your teeth on mountain bikes in the 90’s. 8)

The full sussers look good too.

Has anyone ‘done the deed’ so to speak, and actually bought one? If so, what are they like? Cheers!

Saracen Ariel is getting some great reviews, can but hope they eventually put the supermarket POS rep behind them

saracen … Sadly the skoda of mtbs..

And how many STW forum folk now drive Skodas? Hsve you ridden the new Ariel? Or the Myst? Or the Zen? All get very positive reviews and the Myst even picks up a few podium places along the way too.

That 140mm travel one looks good

The ‘old’ one I have is an excellent all round bike, splitting the Areil range into 140 and 160mm models makes sence especially if the 140’s head angle is tightened up a little.
Build quality is very good and am still running standard spec aside of contact points and wheels and rotors.
The only issues I have is that the front end is a little slack for really twisty singletrack and tends to ‘push’ the front into corner (may drop the forks to 140 to see how that feels) and that it can’t take a coil shock, for more DH days, due to the linkage arrangement at the backend.

i bought a saracen 3 years ago when i started to do mountain biking. i was only 15 and didn’t know a great deal about bikes then and i only had a budget of £300. i knew what i could get would be limited but the spec on it was extremely good for the price. i got the mantra 2 for £330 and i have not found anything any better really for that money since and if i were to go back 3 years i would not hesitate to buy it again. the only downside is the 16kg weight but you’re not gonna get it all for £330.

mantra 2 2008

Loco, do you think it would be possible to run the Ariel 140 with a shorter i2i shock to lower the travel to 110/120mm? Or perhaps a same length i2i but a shorter stroke?

Yes, but reducing the eye to eye will lower the bb and slacken the head angle lowering the forks to match would end up with a pretty low slung bike.

Same length eye to eye and shorter stroke would be better, but depends on how the linkage is working at though the usauble part of the travel.

Strangly enough the RP23 Boost shock has just been sold, and was going to borrow a 50 instead of 57mm stroke shock for the weekend before I fit a 2012 RP23 with the Kashima coat and adaptive logic system.

The full susses do look and sound great.

Has anyone got any experience of the hardtails?

Anyone got a link to these new ones?
Saracen website doesn’t have anything new afaics

Met a lad on a Saracen (Ariel? I think it had an rp23 and 32s) out in France earlier this month, to be fair it looked like a well sorted bike.

Alex, I can see the new models on here: http://www.saracen.co.uk

I have the ariel2 and im very pleased with it. Frames come up quite small though. Given the choice I’d buy it again for sure, for some people there still a bit of stigma around the Saracen name but its not an issue for me I even buy things in Halfords.

for some of STW theres still a bit of stigma around the Saracen name but its not an issue for most ppl, who happily buy things in Halfords

FIFY.

Mister P – Member
And how many STW forum folk now drive Skodas? Hsve you ridden the new Ariel? Or the Myst? Or the Zen? All get very positive reviews and the Myst even picks up a few podium places along the way too.

I `m sure there are people on here that drive those little cars with the engines in the back that sound like 2stroke motorbike engines too .. whats your point?

Skoda knock out some fantastic cars. Saracen now do some very decent bikes.
Still, I `d never even think of buying one of them ..

z1ppy – Member
Alex, I can see the new models on here: http://www.saracen.co.uk

… I just looked through their bike range. They aren `t even cheap anymore.
If they going to charge serious money for their bikes. Probably would have been better to drop the Saracen name.
Its going to take some time to remove the stigma of the Saracen brand ..

and I thought all the trolls were on the supercar thread 😉

I don’t really think there is any stigma for people who understand the what Saracens used to be like. Some people are brand snobs I guess. (I’m not getting at anyone with that comment).

Hell, if Raleigh brought out an equivalent of the DHO these days I’d be tempted to buy one.

I think the new Saracen paint jobs look great too, at least they aren’t being boring.

Dunno if this will work but here’s my Ariel. ITS ACE!

They were never that bad anyway; the X-Cell was, for the money, a decent enough jump bike. Most of the negativity came from the fact that they were cheap and seen as a poor man’s bike, not helped by the legendary ‘UR Bik is Saracing’ comment made by some kid on a forum, who is now probably in his late teens / early 20’s.

Same with Marin; they have always been decent bikes but they somehow developed a really bad name for themselves. I remember when the Mount Vision was THE bike to have and you would see loads of them whilst out riding in the Lakes.

Sottidog – that just looks so ‘right’, if you know what I mean?

Cool bike. 8)

The Ariel gets good reviews everywhere. Looks like the ideal UK fun bike that can also go up hills. I will be very tempted in the future! Not sure about not the air-only shock though, I’ve never used an air one so feel I may be spoiled by the plushness of coil?

The Ariel X frameset looks tidy in black/red!

http://www.saracen.co.uk/bikes/framesets/ariel-x

I really fancy an Ariel actually. Somewhere (I can’t remember where!) is selling full build Ariel 3s for about a grand, which I’m tempted to buy, strip and put my bits on…

Stopadoodledoo – Member

They were never that bad anyway

We’ve got a Raw 2 Team and a Rufftrak in the garage that prove you wrong, both horrible. They weren’t even that cheap.

Aye, that’s right, they’re 90s Halfords Ur Biek Iz Saracins. But he said “They were never that bad”.

The new ones are fab.

It’s rides like a dream. With the 36s going up is a case of just winching away but if you’re into climbing you wouldn’t be looking at this bike anyway.

On the way back down it’s an absolute beast, just feels so composed taking in the bumps and extremely stable at speed. I need to re-adjust my idea of what fast is, I’ll be on the brakes thinking this is bloody quick but there’s no need because the bike is capable of going so much faster and still being in control.

Monkey- that’s what I did, bought a Ariel 2 for £1200 and fitted it out with the 36s, superstar wheel, formula brakes and bash guard. managed to do it very cheaply by getting the forks over from the states and dodging the tax.

My first ‘proper’ mtb was Sarcin. They made some of the best off the peg mtbs you could buy back then (late 80s/early 90s). Really well made frames with decent components, better value than most other brands, well thought-out designs, the rocked.

Then sadly something went wrong and the brand descended into cheap and nasty BSOs, mostly.

I think they’ve a long way to go yet to convince people they are a serious ‘player’ once more, but their current range is no worse than most other trendier brands, and they seem to have some people who know what they’re doing on board for a change.

I would love a new Kili Flyer frame; fillet-brazed loveliness:

As it happenz; I have a proper nice Tange Prestige Kili frame from the mid-90s just before they went crap, in my cupboard….

Scottidog, your Ariel looks spot on. If I hadn’t just brought a Mega I’d now be checking these out. The chaps at Dirt certainly seem to like theirs too.

Scott do you feel it would be strong enough to do jumps and drops on? Not proper massive ones, just stuff like at Woburn, Stile Cop red and FoD dh.

Skoda knock out some fantastic cars. Saracen now do some very decent bikes.
Still, I `d never even think of buying one of them ..

In these times when everything bike related costs about 50% more than it did 3 years ago, I think you’ll find even on STW there is a vast majority who just want good performance at good value and aren’t so concerned by the name on the downtube…

I remember back when the original Saracens were really good, and used to really lust after bikes like the Kili Team. I see what they’re doing re-introducing the name and line of bikes in their current range, and they will probably sell some, but for me that Ariel looks an absolute riot and a bargain to boot! Looks to me to have taken off where the Cannondale Prophet left off. I’m just gutted I don’t need (and can’t afford) another full sus bike otherwise I’d have one in a heartbeat.

The way I remember it – i was never a fan of the brand – late 80s early 90s, they were up there with the big boys. As desirable as Trek, Specialized, Marin etc in terms of quality and brand image. Sometime in the 90s they got left behind, still making bikes with very short top tubes, when the rest of the world was going for long top tubes and shorter stems. They ended up with tea trolley handling compared to the competition of the time. Then came the Halfords years, when it was all about looking good – appealing to kids, at the expense of quality, and making bikes that were simply too cheap to be any good. All mouth and no trousers bikes – looked the part, but fell to bits pronto.
Since Madison bought the name, no doubt the designs and quality are much improved. Madison don’t sell rubbish. But I still think they’ve got a lot of work to do to convince people to spend money on a Saracen.

I’m confused. Have the Ariels changed since they launched? They look just the same to me on the website.
Someone above mentioned a split between 140 and 160mm versions, but all the ones on the website are 140mm rear with 140mm front (apart from 150mm on the Ariel 3).

Sadly the ones for a grand have gone, gutted. Still on my shortlist though – my G-Spot was ace in the Alps, but I want something a bit more all roundy I think.

Scott do you feel it would be strong enough to do jumps and drops on? Not proper massive ones, just stuff like at Woburn, Stile Cop red and FoD dh

I reckon it will handle anything you can throw at it, it feels very sturdy and well built. definitely recommend putting some 160mm forks on, nice to have the travel and it slackens things out a bit.

Rode it at my local DH track on Wednesday because my DH bike needs fixing and it never felt remotely out of it’s depth. I’d be happy taking it over all the jumps and drops at Stile Cop, in fact I’ll probably use it at the next racer’s guild as I’m so smitten with it at the moment (new bike syndrome!)

Haven’t ridden any of the other places you mention but short of big jumps or drops with flat landings, which aren’t exactly fun anyway, I think it would be plenty strong enough

some images of new bikes in this thread

Great. Thanks chakaping. You have saved me from confusion.

Looking good – much more refined than current models.

I think the silver proto looks much better than the painted 141/2/3 models though. Still – reserve judgement on the looks until I’ve seen one built-up.

Looks like it might be worth waiting for the 2012 160mm version then! New shape reminds me of older spesh enduros.

There was an article in a magazine recently about the re-birth of the brand – same guys as make Gensis I believe and totally different group to the dodgy supermarket stuff, they wanted to revive the old 90’s brand, hmm, now what was the name of that magazine …. I think it began with an ‘S’ …