jock_tothe_reid said:
how many brodies are out there?
i've only ever seen them in shops never seen anyone actually riding them.
Are they any good?
Being from Canada, I've been a happy Brodie customer for years now.
Brodies have a cult-like status in Canada, where they were born and bred in BC. Paul Brodie welded some of the all time early shore bikes such as the Catalyst, eXpresso and the Sovereign.
Later, Brodie was the first company to market one of the true heavy duty hardtails to use Easton RAD (as in, downhill) tubing to create an indestructible hardtail, the legendary Brodie Holeshot. That's my current ride right now... I'm on my second since my first one got stolen.
Probably the last hardtail I'll ever need to buy.
But you're looking at duallies, right? I never rode a duallie until this year, when my wife and I had an opportunity to ride to Brodie FS bikes, the Thumper and the Devo.
The first one I tried was the Thumper. It's one of Brodie's lower end duallies. Had Marzocchi DJ2's up front (or were they DJ3s?), with a Fox shock with 5.5" in the back (sorry, can't remember which one). Rode it for my first time in Kelowna, BC. What an awesome bike! I had an absolute blast! The geometry on it made it easy to move around underneath you, the suspension let me take big hits like it weren't no thang, and the lock-out on the Fox shock on the back made the pedal back up decent. It's not a great climber without locking out your rear suspension, but then again, if you wanted a duallie to huck around that could still climb, you should be looking at an all mountain or xc fs bike.
I loved the ride on that bike. The fact that it was so affordable as well made me focus on riding and not scratching the demo bike! (as in, if I screwed up and hurt something, it wouldn't break the bank to fix it).
The Devo, was more of everything... Sherman Sliders up front, and 7" in the back with a Manitou 6-way Swinger. This bike felt a lot bigger, and not a lightweight, but more like a freight train that could plow through anything. And it did! I rode this in Squamish and Pemberton. I actually felt like I was cheating as I didn't have to be careful at all about my line choices, made so many mistakes, and this bike just sucked it all up and let me get away with it.
The Devo is probably Brodie's most popular FS bike as well, since it's good all the right parts, with a good frame design, at a good price for what you're getting.
If you want to see some photos of the bikes we rode, check out the article on the front called "A Day of EPIC Proportions", and you'll see photos of Penny on the Thumper (blue bike), and a couple of me on the Devo (red bike).
I fully recommend Brodie. A good, classic Canadian brand that isn't as widespread as Norco or Kona, and has a lot of history behind it. A "boutique" brand of bike, that doesn't get as expensive as most "boutique" bikes do....
And you'll be one of the few with them around here in Australia!
