I_did_dab – Member

No love for an ibis mojo hd3 on here?

I’ll second that – rides like an XC bike uphill, and is more than enough bike for me downhill.[/quote]

Thirded here.. 🙂

Nomad seems out my price range, if i could get a Five which took 160 forks i think that would be perfect.

Failing that the others i would co sider are the Alloy Strive, Alpine and Alloy Bronson.

if i could get a Five which took 160 forks i think that would be perfect.

In that case, just buy anything. Get a cheap heavy Commencal, it’ll probably impress you no end.

Dango….

The travel mod is to replace the standard 200×51 shock with a 200×57 one.

Same eye to eye length so straight swap but the extra 6mm of squish at the shock translates to something like an extra 18mm of travel at the back end. With a 160mm fork it effectively gives you a 160mm Trance, clearance no issue, I’ve done it, once it’s back from the bike shop I’ll post some pics.

How often is the ‘odd’ downhill day? When you ride DH tracks, do you hit the big features?

A 160mm bike might be what you require for uplift days, but its a bit compromised everywhere else. of the current crop, the Transition Patrol looks very nice to me. I’ve got a Scout, so I would say that.

Banshee Spitfire is a 140mm bike, but takes a 160mm fork up front.

Shorter travel bikes are now incredibly capable. Some of them take longer forks so you could still use the 36 if it’ll space down to 150mm. I don’t know if they do that. So they’re worth looking at too.

Would agree with this.

I had a Banshee Rune (160mm travel) and it climbed really well for a a big, long slack bike but there was no getting away from the fact that it was just that – a big, long, slack bike. On the right terrain it was bloody amazing but on the stuff that I rode most weeks, it was a bit dull because it just battered the tamer trails.

In the end I ended up riding my hardtail more and more so sold the Rune. I may accidentally have bought a DH bike too, which if I’m honest isn’t necessary but is fun at places like Revo.

You mention that you do a fair bit of XC, so I’d be looking at something like a Spitfire as well (or other short travel bikes with big forks).

Another Spitfire fan/recommendation here.

I’ve had mine for 18 months now, currently running 160mm pikes (26″), superstar carbon wheels with Spec butcher/purg grid tyres.

I have a second set of wheels (flows on ProIIs) setup with dual ply tyres which I put on for uplift days and used for a week in Morzine this summer.

I’ve had mine in the 66 degree setting since I first got it – this matched the static HA form my blur – pedal strike was an issue so I switched to 165mm cranks. If you’re transferring a 650b buildkit over, this should be less of an issue as the BB is 12mm higher.

The suspension is very active, I regularly use the climb switch on the ccdb inline shock when climbing, but very progressive too, so nice and supple over choppy terrain but keeps plenty in reserve for the big hits, I’ve only felt it properly bottom out once, when I came up short on a jump and caught the upslope, the resulting impact was hard enough to bend the saddle rails and make my eyes water 😯

I’ve got a -2 degree angleset waiting to be fitted. I’m also hoping to experiment with a change to 650b wheels and fork this year, mainly for ground clearance reasons but also to see if the change in wheelsize really will bring my rides to life or whatever marketing junk it is this week.

V2 frames seem to be going for 6-700 depending on condition/shock, I think there’s one in the classifieds now.