It's time for me to start looking for a new DH frame, and I just got a job at a shop with access to a really good selection. Most of the stuff we cater to is xc/am stuff and it seems like trail bikes have made leaps and bounds across the board the last couple years.
I'll always be a racer at heart, but I'm more and more stoked on the idea of just riding as much as I can, including the ride back to the top (cause hiking kinda sucks). I have no illusions about turning pro late in life. The problem is, all the latest race bikes are just so much fun to shred on, especially in the rocks that I find in so cal. I rode a new DHR and it was super fun to just shred trail on all day, but it's a full-on high dollar race bike...
I've been looking at the tr250 and other mini dh bikes a lot, Seems like a perfect balance between race and fun, burly enough to hit big lines and shred the park season after season but still reasonably easy to pedal up fire roads, and fast enough for a race or two a year. Or I could have my logic completely wrong, and its just a heavy poor pedaling bike that's slightly awkwardly less capable than a full 8" travel "race" bike...
Or should I be looking at something more like a commencal meta, the blindside, yeti asr7? I just don't see the point in even entering a real dh race on any of those bikes, even if I'm not in it to win it anyway?
I'll always be a racer at heart, but I'm more and more stoked on the idea of just riding as much as I can, including the ride back to the top (cause hiking kinda sucks). I have no illusions about turning pro late in life. The problem is, all the latest race bikes are just so much fun to shred on, especially in the rocks that I find in so cal. I rode a new DHR and it was super fun to just shred trail on all day, but it's a full-on high dollar race bike...
I've been looking at the tr250 and other mini dh bikes a lot, Seems like a perfect balance between race and fun, burly enough to hit big lines and shred the park season after season but still reasonably easy to pedal up fire roads, and fast enough for a race or two a year. Or I could have my logic completely wrong, and its just a heavy poor pedaling bike that's slightly awkwardly less capable than a full 8" travel "race" bike...
Or should I be looking at something more like a commencal meta, the blindside, yeti asr7? I just don't see the point in even entering a real dh race on any of those bikes, even if I'm not in it to win it anyway?