What is this bike actually for, was my first impresion when the guys at Pitsford kindlly (or stupidlly) offered me the use of the enduro for my Lakes weekend in the absence of my forks.To look at it was a dh bike with triple clamps, huge tyres & amazingly slack head angle, but on feeling the weight it was evident that it was a bit more.
Most of u know that I have had very little experience on any full sus bike so it was gonna be a good weekend. We headed up to Grizdale on Fri, & ignoring Tom's collegue's advice I had not looked at the spec website to set the suspension up, in fact I had done little more than bolted my pedles on (& swore a lot cos it had a 20mm axel & therefore didnt fit my vans bike racks), anyway my first impresions were not that good.
Of corse the north face trail started with a climb & I quickley figured out how to bring the front end down(still not enough for my liking as it is a bitch to stop the front wheel lifting on steep climbs), but it was not until later that I figured out the rear suspension adjustments,(a small quibble here is that the rear adjust is a pig to get at on the fly). Once up the climb we hit our first singletrack which was flatish & twisty, this is the bikes achillies heal, as it wallows round tight bits & trys to run wide on every corner, this plus the fact that the triple clamps limit turning anyway made this bit particually unpleasent, although given that I ride the hummer (rated one of the best single track bikes ever) I may be being a bit harsh.
Eventually however we started to go down & its fair to say you could see my smile stretching with every meter travelled, here the bike was awsome! The suspension I believe is 5" but I was ploughing through stuff that my 6" forks would not handle with ease.
On day 2 we did the imfomouse high street & even the (ridculoslly long) climb felt good & I was begining to learn how suspension can help uphill too, but again on the down its fair to say I was flying with no dabs on the 800m drop the bike was begging me to head straight into stuff I would normally avoid like the plague & once again the smiles were big. Of corse a bike tempting you to ride so hard all the time was gonna end in tears & sure enough on the (awsome, rocky tec) trail back along the banks of ullswater that Jak shown us I ended up coming down the bank (just a few yards along from where Rob was lying in the picks) & somehow the Enduro bit me with its chainring!
I continued to ride on Sun on some more great trails in Grizdale & although I was hurting I could not resist any hill on this bike (think if I was on something less plush I would of called it a day).
I have known for some time that a full susser is the way forward, but I dont think I could live with a bike quite like this, its a bit too clumbersome on the climbs & skinny stuff, but I have never had so much fun coming down.
So what is this bike actually for...A trip to the lakes of corse!!!

Well its only really my second ride on a full susser, but I was suprised at the difference between the two.
Big G's 5 spot was an amazingly smoth ride (well compared to what I ride a sherman is), it seemed to gobble up the bumps well & trully. The bike was not quick enough reacting for my ridin style though, even with a fairly short stem it wanted to take a wide line round every corner & more than once I found myself running too high in berms and having to slow.
The ride was set too soft for me too (Graham could hardly move my forks on my hummer) & I braked into one corner and thought the whole thing was going to wash out from under me!
I think for all day rides & bombing down hill though this bike would take a bit of beatin!

Plastic IS Fantastic!
Those of you out on fri night would of noticed the change to my race rig,
yes I was on a full susser & a carbon one at that. It did of course belong to Mr Smith and i liked it! I didn't want to but I did!
I found the bike easy to get on with although it was a little twitchey in the quarry but all in all a thourghly good ride.
I was suprised at first how little pedle bob there was, my only other ful sus experience being on a kona dawg. & just how easy it was to bring up to speed.
The other big suprise was that I didn't notice any real benifit in the rough quarry, but on the smoother wooded singletrack section it just seemed to fly with the turning ability of my hummer & the speed of my lobster!
So did it do me any good? well I'm not really sure, I finished 9th which was about right with the absence of Stu & Paul, but I did beat Graham & more unusually Dave Palmer!
One thing I do know is it must work for John cos seeing him suffer on his hard tail was quite shocking!