Just had a go on my old mans brand new 45650b.
Handles better than his mk2 nomad, I reckon he’s going to end up not riding that or buying a new full susser. Low, slack, good standover in the 16 inch model. Feels longer than it actually is in the top tube, at 182cm it felt a pretty good fit for me! It felt almost exactly the same as my Medium Nukeproof Mega, except that the tail was hard! I guess it does have a 60mm stem compared to my old 45 mm stem, I was thinking it would be awful going back to a longer stem but it’s actually pretty good.
27.5’s definitely roll over square edge hits a little better and you definitely feel more sat in the bike – it feels like a mini motocross bike. It’s a bike that is going to respond wonderfully to being muscled around and cuttied with one leg out round corners.
There’s no vertical compliance that I can feel other than the tyre, it’s stiff as hell. Funnily enough it feels like it has some lateral compliance though when manual/wheeling out of turns. Could be the tyre rolling though but I never felt that in his inbred, his Nomad or any of my previous bikes. Only in his Ibis Mojo that he had years ago. It gives the bike a wonderful amount of contact patch feeling and confidence in the bikes grip.
The finish isn’t that great though, it’s a raw and it came with a couple of pretty big marks in the top tube. The wheel tension is **** shite (luckily we can both build wheels) and the brakes need a bleed.