Hi guys, my bronson finally arrived last Friday but I had to wait till now to ride it because I sent it to invisiframe monday, I figured if I was gonna spend that much on a bike I should invest in decent frame protection. Lee fitted the kit and did a really fantastic job, you really can’t see it unless your purposely looking for it. My lbs also added an airtoken to my fork and rebled my brakes, the front brake was fine out of the box but the rear felt spongey. It is the c s am version with SRAM and SLX bits, not the all singing all dancing version.

Onto the ride then, I took it up to FOD today and rode two laps of the xc trails, the second was difficult because it was getting pretty dark and I didn’t have lights, remembrance day commitments meant I didn’t hit the trails till 1430. For me the bronson 2 is very confidence inspiring, it motored along the flat bits nicely, the climbing was really good, there are no difficult climbs on the way marked trails at FOD, they are neither steep or technical but there is a nice reasonable length one that snakes up the hillside. I was much faster going up it than I normally am on my trance, it also felt like a lot less effort than normal. I am not sure if this is due to geometry or just because iv come from a fairly weighty aluminium full suss to a nice light carbon one. I am quite small 5”4 tall and 8 stone in weight, the lighter bike made a world of difference to me and I enjoyed climbing much more. I am more of a sit and winch up type of climber, I do mtb purely for fun and although I do enjoy climbs I prefer descending much more. For sit and winch up riders it’s great it feels like the suspension is actually helping you to climb. I haven’t tried climbing stood up on it yet. I was a bit worried about going 1×11 but it was no problem here, I may find it quite hard doing cwmcarns climb until my overall fitness and leg strength improves though. I’ve ridden the v1 bronson and I think the new version is slightly better at climbing but will need to do some tougher climbs to be sure of that.

Descending is where this bike shines, again I was a lot more confident and faster than I normally am, it feels nice and stable going down and I had a big grin on my face doing the little jumps on the final descent, I’m not a big jumper but felt much braver than usual so deliberately tried to get as high as I could off the jumps. Again the light weight compared to my old bike made it much easier for me to chuck it around, for once my OH had a job to keep up with me. The only thing is you do have to watch for pedal strikes and think a bit more about when you will pedal.

Other than the increased chance of pedal strikes compared to my old bike the only downside I can see at the moment is the mudshelf above the lower link, I only rode the way marked trails which although very wet at the moment are nowhere near as bogging as the natural trails and there was a fair amount of mud on the mudshelf, it’s definitely an area that needs extra attention with the hose pipe. I’ll mostly be riding trail centres over the winter so I’m not massively concerned about it and the potential extra wear and tear on the bearings.

I’m planning on riding it at bike park wales on tuesday, hopefully it will help me feel more confident on the steeper downhill trails.

I took one for a demo in the Surreh hills on Saturday. I’ve come from a 180mm Nomad and I couldn’t believe how well it climbed even in far from ideal conditions. I also couldn’t get over the way it descended being only 150mm. I agree that pedal strikes seem more common but I think the BB is the same height as my Nomad. As a result of the demo, I’ve ordered the CC X01 which should be here for the end of the month.

The weather was atrocious on Saturday and normally I would have cancelled the ride, but I braved the weather and still came back with a massive smile on my face.

I’ve also ordered a 160mm air shaft for the forks, so hoping that helps with the pedal strikes!

I have a 2015 nomad, crank strikes wrote off a xx1 crank arm so I got another in 170 as opposed to the 175, I also stuck SRAMs crank boots on, now I get a lot less maybe once on a ride and it does no damage.

When I first moved to the Bronson 18 months ago I did strike the pedals, now never happens. I think you adapt over time. Great bike. Once you get it up to speed over rough stuff the vpp really sucks you onto the trail. It has a higher BB than the Nomad.

1 X 11 is brilliant. I started with 34, then 32 now 30. Try a 30t up front. I could get around Afan on 34 but 30 makes a lot more sense. Did the Trans Rockies on a 30t this year, perfect. Never felt under powered

Yeah I thought about maybe getting shorter cranks eventually, don’t really want to pay out anymore cash for awhile if I can help it though. The c s am comes with 760mm bars which I may cut down as they feel pretty wide although they were comfortable on this ride, I need to take it through some twisty single track and see if I have problems passing between trees first, also some longer rides to see if it gives me shoulder fatigue.

I’m really happy with it overall, I think its a great all rounder trail bike. Once I am able to do the black trails at bpw I might even enter an enduro or two. I’ve done all the flow trails there except dai hard, I’ve started trying the tech trails but struggled with Bonneville because it feels very steep and also has tight turns, I felt too high up and like I was going to go otb or topple off sideways on my old bike. It will be interesting to see how it feels trying the same trail on my bronson. It’s slacker than my old trance and it also has more travel, I’m sure my trance has 120 or 130 forks.

I picked the Bronson after a few demos specifically because it was so manoeuvrable. I’m FoD local. Before spending more I’d just take sometime to get really use to the bike. Tight switchbacks, as with everything practice