Alright, just tried a Cannondale Prophet and a Mongoose Tecolai something or other... Neither was a particularly inspring ride and we did play with the shock setups a bit, so of all the bikes I've ridden if I was going to buy a full suss I'd take the Enduro. I'm deffinetly not prepared to buy without a test ride after today.
The cannodale felt like an XC bike with a "soft" rear end, didn't give me any troubles pedalling seated or otherwise.
The Tecolai was a bit meh, had the travel but had no life.
The Giant deffinetly seemed to lock out completely when you pedal hard and very active when you needed it. If I wanted more of an XC bike it'd probably be the one.
The Enduro was lively, probably not as pedal efficient as the others but on paper probably the heaviest, but if that's the case I had to much fun to notice. The Enduro just made me want to get out and ride, just like the Chameleon. To be fair it may have been a slightly better spec. Unfortunately it was also the most expensive...
Interestingly, I've never been that great at bunny hopping but I found it pretty easy to get both wheels off the ground and far easier than on any of the other full suss bikes...
None of the suspension designs really gave me any issues as far as pedalling was concerned, sure there was a difference, but the way all the bike mags make it sound you'd think it was a life or death issue. With so many variables between the bikes i tried it's hard to say what it was that made the Enduro feel so right, suspension design must have played a part in it but it's more complicated than that. I don't think you could ever choose a full suss bike going from the spec on paper.
Anyway, I need to make a decision in the next few days, if I'm completely honest with myself I don't think I'm going to use the the Enduro to it's full potential with my schedule the way it is at the moment, however much I want to.
But I think price is going to be the decider. With my latest quotes the Chameleon is coming in at 1k less than the Enduro with a comparable spec in terms of quality and durability, it's also got the Santa Cruz bling/bike porn factor
But I'm going to ring around a few more places and see if I can get a better price on the Enduro before I put down any money.
Anyway, at this stage I know whichever way I go it'll be a really nice bike and the best I can afford in either category.
It must sound crazy that I'm now comparing these two bikes.. But living and working near the CBD 80% of my riding will always be in the city and I'm not sure I can justify the extra cash when it's only going to make a difference 20% of the time, however big that difference is, I'm sure a lot of people are in the same situation. I'll be just as happy getting in to more street and learning a few new tricks as I would getting out in the country. Even in the country the Chameleon will be a sweet ride, just without the comfort or the confidence to go quite as big as you get from having 5-6" of rear suspension
When I think about some of the rides I did on my first proper mountain bike, a 30 lb Shimano ST spec steel rigid, with a 20" frame. I rode up a pretty massive hill near my parents, took about well over 4 hours to get to the with a pretty harsh half hour long descent on the other side... I kept having to stop because the momentum I was building up from all the step downs was insane, and the canti break really weren't up to the job
Hard tails are still pretty awesome bikes.
