Review Date
October 6, 2008

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Aerobic Difficulty
 5 of 5

Technical Difficulty
 0 of 5

Reviewed by: PlanetMTB ,  Cross Country Rider , from Adelaide, Australia

Favorite Trail:
Less than 1 month

Summary:
Not alot of info out there on these so I hope this helps, this info relates to the original steel frame in all black.

Yes they are light enough for the price, my large frame weighs less than 5.4 pounds. Build quality is very good. Not great but very good. The supplied brake bosses look nice and it's a nice touch being able to leave them off but the holes left in the frame are a great place to let water and dirt in, some plugs should have been provided (I ended up using black caulk). The low top tube gives a lot more standover clearance than most others. Bottom bracket is a normal height (not excessively high or low).

They are designed for a 29.8mm (or something like that, don't quote me) seat post but come supplied with a surprisingly effective shim to suit a 27.2mm post. I usually hate shims but this one's giving me no grief.

They are quite long but I like that, I'm 6'2" and the large frame fits me well with a 105mm stem and the seat somewhere near the middle of the rails (I usually run my seat all the way back but with this radically sloping seat tube you need to compensate a bit).

Rear tyre clearance is not huge but I can fit a 2.1" tyre in there, maybe a 2.3" if I pull the rear axle back a bit in the drop outs but it would be real close (I haven't tried this yet). A point here to note is that you really should use a high-mount front derailleur, preferably one that is top-pull only (or cut off the unused dual-pull arm), to acheive maximum tyre clearance. A low-mount dual-pull front derailleur can be made to work as a stop-gap measure by pulling the rear axle back ~10mm, but will still be the limiting factor for tyre clearance rather than the frame.

Handling is very nice. The shortened wheelbase (for a 29er) provides much-needed agility that so many other 29ers lack. The head angle feels like a nice happy medium, not overly steep like some 29ers... I rode mine down a black diamond XC track to test it out and came out smiling - this is not the bike's natural habitat but it is capable should the need arise. Felt perfectly "dirt worthy" where some other 29ers feel like hybrids.

An 80mm travel fork, like my White Bros BW 0.8, seems to suit the bike well. You might be able to squeeze a 100mm fork in if you want but that would be about the natural limit for this frame I would think.

All in all a great bang for buck frame. The geometry is just right (if you prefer a longer top tube). Definitely more at the lighter XC end of the MTB spectrum but with a slightly relaxed and more capable feel than some others. I think its the combination of medium head angle, medium bottom bracket height, ample standover, shortened wheelbase and long top tube (allowing you to run a slightly shorter stem) that all add up to make a great ride.

Hope that answered a few of your questions...

Strengths:
Cheap, dropped top tube, long, black, steel, light, versatile.

Weaknesses:
Nothing major

Other recommended trails in the same area:
Karate Monkey and a heap of 26ers