Lusting after a bike from a brand i swore never to buy from.

bantasanta – Member

Why the hate on conti trail kings?

Despite the price of the bike, Orange fit the OEM spec ones- ****-all grip, they’re made of bakelite. When I testrode one in that spec, I crashed it on dry tarmac 😆 They are incredibly awful.

Real trail kings are good.

My first proper mountain bike was an original Clockwork. I replaced that with a Gringo in 1999. I replaced that with a R8 maybe 4/5 years ago. I went to buy another Orange this month. I wanted either a carbon hardtail or a FS XC bike. They do neither, not to modern standards, and the best Clockwork was well below my budget and BLOODY ALUMINIUM.

Lost customer!

Ton, if you’ve got £3k to spend and want to make a good decision, can you not go to some demo days and compare bikes ?

Orange themselves schedule demos at this time of year:

https://www.orangebikes.co.uk/demo-day

And I think you get demo days where you can try out different brands.

I’ve never had the luxury of buying a complete new bike, but if I did, I’d love the chance to try them out.

Oh no, here I go again. Admittedly it did take me a while to get used to my Orange. I was very lucky and had one on long term loan so was able to test on my local trails, enough to convince me to press the button. Then somehow I effed up the suspension settings and nearly sold it on cos I couldn’t get it right. Reset everything, started again and noted down all settings and bingo! I am now a fan of short travel 29ers.

I built up with a set of carbon wheels and this made a mahoosive difference – no rub on the swingarm and improved the ‘stiffness’ issue immensely. Expensive way to go though.

Slack head angle, 51mm offset Pikes & dropper post has turned it into a very fast trail bike indeed!

So to answer the question: try one (you may have to upgrade it as you go) you might like it!

Ive had mtbs as long as I can remember. I have never had an Orange until this year and I have never had a 29er.
Im not an Orange fanboy, but i quite like them. But, not enough to spend my money on one.

I bought a Gyro as it was too cheap to ignore, and im a hoarder.

I thought a low tech single pivot bike would be ok for the N Wales winter. I wasnt really expecting too much but thought that modern shock technology would help a low tech suspension design.

I must say im absolutely delighted with the bike. I am setting decent times and the odd Strava KOM and whilst im riding as hard as i can, i dont get any tyre rub on my swinging arm. I ride the OE Contis and they are decent, but some 600g Schwalbes await fitting to lower the rotational mass. I fitted a Reverb and a frankly superb -2° Angleset. This bike rocks.

I have a 650b 160mm carbon ‘enduro’ bike, and a 26″ carbon HT. At the moment the bike i take out is the Orange.

Try it…..you may like it!