¿Asesino De Cajar?

The blinking cursor demands that I start writing something here, but my brain is stuck in some white noise loop, simultaneously hunting for new adjectives while forcibly restraining myself from overwrought paella metaphors. After six solid weeks aboard the Mondraker Raze RR, I am still coming up short with the five word summation of the bike’s character.

Maybe it’d be best to start this in simple terms, cutting through all the metaphor and spec sheet navel-gazing, taking my assessment all the way back to the basic binary of good/not good. In the white hot landscape of 130 or so mm travel trail bikes, which run the gamut from leggy, overforked XC machines to short travel plows, with a whole host of 29 to 33 or so pound choices in between those two descriptive poles, the Mondraker Raze RR is good. Very good. It isn’t a nervy XC bike on steroids. Nor is it a mini plow designed to straight-line through chunder with the confidence of a battleship. It’s something in between, and that might take a bit of describing.

As an aside, I should probably confess at this point that I really like 130 travel bikes. IF I was to choose one rear wheel travel parameter for the rest of my life that I would have to ride everywhere and I could only have one bike, I think this is where I would make my stand. Enough travel to make things comfortable, but also the possibility of a light enough package to offer some real versatility. We probably all have our own personal vision of the “one bike quiver killer”, but for me, I keep circling around this as my personal sweet spot.

130mm Done Light, Done Right?

The path Mondraker chose with the 130/150mm travel Raze was to mix contemporary geometry with a playful suspension kinematic and sprinkle it with componentry that favors a light touch over brutal aggression. The result is a highly responsive, fun handling bike that shines when carving buff singletrack and racking up the climbing stats, is incredibly tractable and surefooted in technical jank, uphill or down, but starts to feel a little twangy when squashing the suspension into big rocks at warp speed.

This is a 29lb bike. Sure, it’s got a Fox 36 Factory up front with a Grip2 damper and 800mm wide bars, but otherwise one look at the spec sheet defines this bike as somewhat below the “Hulk Smash” threshold of abuse friendliness: the Fox Float DPS Factory shock comes with a light damping tune, the Maxxis Dissector/Aggressor tire combo features MaxxTerra compound and EXO+ casing, the SRAM Centerline brake rotors are 180mm front and rear, and the Mavic Crossmax SL wheelset is a sub-1800g aluminum pair that are clearly aimed more at the “trail” side of mountain biking than the “park” end of the stick. Meaning, this is a bike that weighs closer to the 120mm travel Yeti SB120 I just reviewed, or the Revel Rascal that Emma just reviewed, and is less burly in its intent than, say, a RAAW Jibb, or the Forbidden Druid that Tim reviewed a year ago.

Out on the trail, the light weight is a blessing when climbing, especially when plucking the Raze up steppy ledges or smearing it onto granite slabs. Conversely, there are times when loading it hard into G-outs or straightlining rock gardens that some more girth would be appreciated.

Zero-ing In.

I think I spent more than enough time talking about motocross in the preview, so will try now to paint a more relatable picture of what is going on with Mondraker’s Zero suspension as it applies to the Raze.

Shane Hensley at Mondraker recommended 30% “or a little more” sag for the Raze, and I experimented between 17mm sag (right around 30% for the 57.5mm stroke shock) and 20mm sag (35%). I weigh 190 ready to ride at the moment, 17mm took about 165psi according to my shock pump. I ran the fork at 87psi with one volume spacer, and as is typical for geezer riding, all compression adjusters were backed fully open.

There was a pretty dramatic difference in bike behavior between 30-35% sag. At the lower sag number, the Raze felt very light on its feet, lively, balanced but quick. Steering was light/neutral and getting the front to stick in corners required no more effort than tipping the bike in and pointing it where I wanted to go. Suspension was comfortable, on the taut side of plush, but it was not the hoverbike mid-travel smoothness that some might desire. Super spry climbing, indifferent to seated or standing effort, with just a hint of anti-squat feedback through the pedals to keep me informed. No matter how hard I tried to hit things, I never even came close to bottoming the rear suspension.

Deflating the rear to 20mm sag did not have much effect at all on pedaling behavior, which came as a pleasant surprise, but it really impacted the mid-stroke suspension feel and also had a knock on effect on overall bike geometry. This softer setting allowed a lot more mid-stroke motion, made the suspension super plush through most of the mid-travel, and the general stance became more rear-biased and stable. At high speeds, this made the Raze feel substantially more planted, but it came at the expense of the otherwise impeccable cornering feel; I found I had to consciously pull myself forward and ride the front with a lot more intent otherwise the front would push outward more in turns than I personally desired. Even with this much sag, I still never bottomed the damn thing. I suspect the combination of a smallish air can and some progressivity to the design are co-contributors to a generous amount of ramp up toward the end of travel.

My personal preference was to run the rear between 17-18mm sag, but I say this acknowledging that I’m not the most aggressive, front heavy rider. Mondraker’s Zero suspension and Forward Geometry are well suited to getting weight over the bars and smashing the front into the ground, and the Raze responds really well to this kind of riding. Riders who want their bike to plow more and have more straight line stability can run 35% sag and be stoked, and have rear suspension that’ll gobble up all that they throw at it. On the other hand, it was really gratifying to be able to fudge the rear sag in one direction or the other and have such a noticeable impact on front end feel, and be able find a place where the geometry and suspension felt, as Goldilocks woulda said, juuuuuust right. That was the revelation for me: I could set it up to plow, OR I could put a little more air in the can and have a super-responsive bike that absolutely sliced up the trails, albeit at the expense of a teeny bit of top end stability.

Recipe Ingredients

Piece by piece, the Raze RR is put together about par for the 7500 USD course. SRAM’s XO1 derailleur is nice, but a GX shifter isn’t quite as nice. Likewise, X1 carbon cranks are solid spec, but I am infatuated with the new XO1 aluminum cranks and think they’re a better call for smashing rocks around here. The Fox Transfer post only drops 150mm. There’s room at my seat height to drop it another 60mm into the frame before things get wedged – so a 170mm Transfer could fit in there with 30mm to spare, which might be awkward for people at the small end of Medium frame fitment. 180mm rotors front and rear are not problematic for me, but once big high country descents get more regular I might start pining for a 200 up front. The Fizik Antares R7 saddle is a quality piece of kit, but the last and my butt do not agree on many things, so this was not a case of arse heaven (see what I did there?) for me. YMMV.

Mondraker’s own house brand ONOFF 30mm stem, 800mm 9-degree bars and grips are well proportioned and worth keeping on the bike. Mavic Crossmax SL wheels, say what? It is kinda sweet to see the OG French wheel people back in the fray, and this set of hoops reminded me why I fell in love with their groundbreaking UST commitment 25 years ago. These will be getting a standalone review of their own here soon. They’re a decent weight wheelset with 30mm ID aluminum rims, spokes that thread in from the outside of the rim (leaving the inner rim bed completely solid, making for incredibly easy and consistent tubeless setup), bladed straight pull spokes that can be replaced without having to remove brake rotors or cassettes, and a DT-esque star ratchet freehub drive. It might be my imagination, but I swear they ride softer than most comparable weight carbon wheels.

Moscas En La Paella

Speaking of parts, there was some maintenance required during the past couple months of trying to break rocks. The upper and lower pivots all needed to be retorqued early on. After this was seen to with a reapplication of Loctite, things mostly stayed tight with the exception of the forward pivot of the lower link. This needed to be checked a couple more times. No big deal, just pop off the crank and have at it. NOT SO FAST, PAL. The elegant little upper chain guide, which really is a minimalist piece of awesomeness, threads into the pivot bolt. Not only does it make removing the cranks more of a task, but then it needs to be removed completely before the pivot bolt can be retorqued. I ended up just leaving it off the bike.

The waterbottle mount confounded me at first, since it was a plastic inlay into a molded channel in the carbon fiber downtube. Mounting a conventional bottle cage wouldn't work unless I found some screws that were a good 10mm longer than came with the bike. THEN I was informed that this recessed channel was designed around Fidlock mount - a magnetic locking mount that clicks in with proprietary Fidlock bottles. I was skeptical, having not used Fidlock stuff before. I'll get into this in a separate Fidlock review, but I'm surprised by how well it works. Sure, you gotta go all in on cage and bottle, and that'll set you back $40 or more. But that is about the same as what I'd pay for a stainless King Cage and a Specialized moFlo bottle. Sure, the Fidlock bottle I am using now looks a bit bulby and weird, but it holds 750ml and is designed to fit in less space than a similar volume regular bottle.

I mentioned the width of the seatstays where my heels meet them in the preview. The point of heel contact in this case would be when the cranks are at about 9 o’clock, and a spot 5” uphill from the rear axle. At this intersection, the Q-factor of the seat stays (for lack of a better term) is 190mm. I checked the Yeti SB120 and two other bikes in the back room, and they all measured 160mm at this same point. All that hand wringing out of the way, it turns out this was only something I noticed for the first couple rides then adapted around, in spite of my duck-footedness. Then I got some new shoes that set my feet farther outboard, and never thought about it again. Ultimately, a non-issue. For me.

I could say the same about the through-headset cable routing, since I haven’t had to replace any cables or hoses. Yet. But still, grumble grumble.

Looking at the Raze RR from the “flies in my paella” point of view, I went into this review thinking that those complaints above, along with the compliant frame/wheel ride quality, would be deal breakers. Instead, I came to appreciate a very well proportioned paella, where the bright flavors superbly complement the creamy texture. And the flies? There’s only one or two. They are small. They do not impact the flavor. We’re cooking outdoors anyway, shit happens. Pluck them out and carry on. This is a tasty bike, well worth a second or third serving.

Mondraker Raze RR