After 2 months of deliberation I am about to bite the bullet and go for an Orange Five frame.

However, I am wondering whether the maxle rear is worth having for £100 or should I go for a custom colour?

Can’t have both as I need to spend splash out for new seatpost, headset and rear pro II conversion kit. (Obvisouly latter not required if I don’t upgrade to the rear maxle swingarm.)

One of my resaons for buying the Five is that i have an 07 Attack Trail, but find the back end too flexy.

I know the Five is meant to be stiff but the trouble I have is understanding how stiff it is compared to other bikes i.e. the Meta 5 or Zesty.

If someone says that the head angle of one bike is 67 and another bike is 68 then the difference is easy to understand.

But stiffness is not measurable (i.e. think?) and is thus a very qualitative thing and at the mercy of the reviewers opinion.

You want a stiff back end then. So get a Maxle.

I’d get the maxle if I was you, you can always re-spray it in future when you’ve got the cash.

Get the maxle, get the maxle, get the maxle…….

It will look nice in Pearl white IMHO which is a standard colour, like Richyb says, you can always have it resprayed at a later date for around £100 whereas a maxle swingarm is about £500 i think.

the maxle is only noticable if your either a heavy person or someone who really pushes the bike all the time.
ive ridden both options and whilst you can tell the difference at wharp like speed ,for the mear morsal it is not essential.

i would go for a custom paint job especially as orange paint prices ie custom colours are set to rocket next year.

you can get Maxle replacement dropouts for the Attack Trail cant you?

The 2007 Attack Trail was the ‘old’ style, not the current shape, so no replaceable dropouts.
Could always still a 10mm bolt thru axle on it though…

“the maxle is only noticable if your either a heavy person… ” – that’ll be me then!

I think that most of the flex in the Attack Trail is due to the seat tube design. It has been shaped (i.e. has a concave cutout) to accommodate one of the swing arm linkages.

When you hold the backwheel and saddle and apply sideways pressure you can really notice the flex.

Maxle will not address this issue but believe that Five will be consierably stiffer all round.

Other issue with rear of 07 attack trail is that it will not accommodate anything bigger than a 2.3in tyre. If i a 2.3 at a low enough pressure to get reasonable grip then with my weight it pinch flats too easily.

FWIW i went from a 2007 Wolf Ridge to a Orange 5 with the standard QR and the 5 swingarm is ALOT stiffer. Not just between the drop-outs but along its whole length especially around the pivots.

Rear tyre room is not as good as you would expect. A 2.4 Mountain King was very tight, even with a Nevegal 2.1 the paint has worn slightly but that depends on how muddy your local trails get i guess.

The Wolf Ridge was basically heavy and flexy but did climb better. The 5 is just so much fun, accelerates quickly and is very stable on descents.

Maxle – you want stiff, and form over function any day.

Can Orange make me a maxle back end for my ST4, please?

I’d definitely get Maxle over a different colour

I have ridden both and at 12.5 stone can’t notice the difference. Maybe I’m just a cr%p rider !

I have an 08 with the standard dropouts (and custom ‘orange’ paint). I run 2.35 Rampages on it and clearance is fine on all but really muddy stuff, where it will scrape off on the swingarm

If I could maxle my Attack Trail 07, I would, function over form for me…

Looks like the Maxle it is then.

Now all I need to do is finally convince myself that there isn’t something else more suitable out there for the same money.