Devinci Chainsaw GX Part II - First Rides & Future Plans

In My Min-Max-Mix

Ignoring it's back-to-the-future High Pivot & Idler (HP+I) suspension design for a moment, the Devinci Chainsaw GX sits in a broad field of what I call 'realistic' bikes. To quickly explain, if it weren't for testing bikes and components, I see myself owning two rigs. My custom rigid single-speed and an N+1 full-suspension bike. And that full suspension bike would list for around 5K CAD.

If I had a significantly higher budget, then I'd be piecing together a custom bike from a frame-up. At a lower budget I'd only have my Waltworks with an extra suspension fork and multi-speed drivetrain to throw on when I fancied. But buying a complete bike at around 5K and selling the parts I don't want or need, often works out as a better min-max purchase than putting together a complete build.

I'd be swapping out the same parts on pretty much every stock bike no matter how much more than five grand I was spending. I'd be ditching the rear hub for one with much faster engagement and I'd be swapping the saddle, grips, and bar to my preference. When my budget allowed, I'd be buying a top-end set of after-market brakes.

This is a conversation I have with friends quite a lot and there is a range of bikes that are on my 5K list. I want to recognize that 5K, plus ongoing maintenance, is a privileged amount of money to be able to spend on a mountain bicycle, especially a second bicycle to pair with my rigid #1FG. But this seems to be the magic tipping point for a full-suspension rig where performance and durability stop improving exponentially by spending more cash.

My theoretical bike will have an aluminum frame with simple cable routing - internal or external - that does not interface with my headset and I'd like to be able to carry a water bottle in the front triangle. I'd prefer not to have in-frame storage but in most cases, it's not a total deal breaker. I've worked on a couple of bikes with storage hatches that rattle and all I can say is screw that.

I'm fairly suspension agnostic, I like what SR Suntour, RockShox, and Fox are doing in this price range. I'd plan to flip the brakes, but I understand that Shimano stoppers are the easiest to sell as take-offs. For drivetrain my first choice is Shimano Deore running on a HG driver, but I'm happy with the Chainsaw's GX drivetrain at this price.

Here's a short list of some examples of bikes that come up in conversation:

1. Specialized Stumpjump EVO Comp Alloy
2. Devinci Troy Aluminum GX
3. Marin Alpine Trail XR
4. Trek Fuel EX 8 Gen 6
5. Rocky Mountain Altitude A50 or A30 Shimano

It's Not A Troy

I don't know who all needs to hear this, but this bike is not a Devinci Troy. The Troy is a wicked all-arounder that mates a 150mm fork to a 140mm rear end. It has very balanced geometry and depending on brakes, tires, and maybe a centimetre of location-specific over or under-forking, I think it would make most riders happy in most places.

As my We Are One Arrival series suggests, I can't decide where I want to sit for a one bike choice between 140mm and 170mm of rear suspension. But, I know for certain that riders who frequent super-tight & twisty trails or are getting jibby-with-it on blue-flow trails are going to be much happier with a Troy.

As I noted in my first impressions piece, I was eager to write something about the Chainsaw, but more than a bit trepidatious about riding and reviewing it. It certainly doesn't look anything like the bikes in my short list above. After a couple of rides and a few key changes, I must admit I'm scheming to keep it longer.

Fit Bits

RaceFace 35mm bars don't work well for me, so I immediately swapped it for a smoother riding 31.8mm bar with a sweep I prefer. This also necessitated a different stem and as I'll discuss later I'll be jumping back and forth between 40mm and 50mm lengths. I swapped the saddle out to a WTB Deva, which I had on hand and which happens to be one of my all-time favourites. I also changed out the grips to ones I prefer. These are all changes I'd expect to make on any machine at pretty much any price point.

On a bike for 5K I'd also expect to be changing the dropper post remote, along with grips, saddle, and adding pedals. Contact points! It's remarkable how much better a budget dropper post feels with a nice remote.

I'm never chasing the longest dropper post options, but the 150mm that's stock on the Chainsaw this year is a bit short when the trails get slow and steep. I swapped it out for a 175mm dropper and I'm happy. There's plenty of room for a longer dropper post yet, even without switching to a Wolf Tooth or OneUp post to maximize the drop for a given insertion depth and stack height.

DH Bike Climbing Notes

I have no real complaints about climbing the Chainsaw, which surprised me considering the two extra jockey wheels on top of the rear derailleur and a bunch of travel. After a few trips up No Quarter, I can say that the riding position works well with sag, and the bike motors along admirably for a strongly DH-biased 170mm platform, but it's no WeR1 Arrival A170 in this regard. I questioned the lack of a lockout lever on the Select-level RockShox shock earlier, but I no longer lament the feature's absence.

I made one helpful change right away, which was to ditch the annoyingly loud and draggy e13 guide for a Deviate version that runs more smoothly. I was also happy to have the Deviate's bash taco. I know the e13 is a price-point choice, but I'd love to see Devinci spec. the new MRP MXg high pivot-specific guide, with bash taco, that comes on the Trek Slash.

With where the idler sits behind the chainring, a rider desperate to ditch the lower guide pulley could get away without it as long as their narrow-wide chainring is in good condition. The real negatives to running it, and the top pulley in the HP+I setup, is that they limit the length the chain has to bend through to interface with the Chainsaw's lowest gears. I'm already not a fan of the chain lines on most bikes in the lowest couple of gears on any 1x12 drivetrain and every HP+I setup I've seen makes it a little bit worse.

The Chainsaw, like most modern longer-travel bikes, pedals quite well seated. The uphill handling is what you'd probably expect from a long squishy bike with a <63° head tube angle that's only getting slacker as the climbs get steeper. Tight uphill switchbacks are, of course, the biggest challenge. I find moving my hands inboard on my bars helps reduce oversteering. Other than tagging my, thankfully armoured, knee on my shifter occasionally when the climbs get properly tight the Chainsaw and I are just getting it done.

I'm always wary of overstating the climbing chops of a DH-focused bike, especially as I know everyone's fitness, strength, and tolerance level are quite different. I will say that I came into this review assuming the Chainsaw would be an N+1 bike for most riders and that assumption was quickly disproven. I know several pedal-and-plunge riders on the Shore who could enjoy this rig as their only mountain bike.

One other note re. climbing. As is my preference, I'm running a much faster-engaging hub than what's featured on the stock wheelset. The Stan's/P321 M-Pulse hub collaboration in the Stan's Flow wheels I'm reviewing has 1.66° engagement.

DTFHFG?

The Chainsaw rewards a sit-and-spin riding style but between the weight and travel of the rig, and the steepness of my preferred local climbs, that has me using the lowest three gears a lot. With the chain captured by jockey wheels top and bottom, the chain is forced to bend aggressively with so much of its length being captured by the idlers making for an awkward chain line.

The simplest solution is to swap in a smaller chainring and spend more time pedaling in the middle of the cassette, but then I don't need the extra range and weight of the massive low gears, I just want a straighter chainline. The beauty of an HP+I design is that the suspension should be unaffected by chainring size, so when it comes to this Devinci, the answer to the question 'Does The Future Have Fewer Gears?' is yes.

I'm going to leave more discussion of my plans for the pending tenth installment in the 'DTFHFG?' series but to answer folks who are immediately thinking that a significantly smaller chainring would be fine for the Shore but limiting in the bike park, I'd suggest it's a fast and easy job to swap a ring and a chain for those two unique use cases.

Descending Notes

Pedaling up the trail on my first ride on the Chainsaw, I was convincing myself that I should be on a large rather than this medium. Not that the medium didn't fit per se, but that I'd be more aggressive climbing stretched over the extra reach of the large frame. With the huge difference in sizing between the medium and large, I started picturing myself on a medium-large that I would love to see the brand make.

On the way back down it only took a few sketchy sections to find myself singing a different tune. The medium Chainsaw is plenty stable with its 1257mm wheelbase and its elongating from static 430mm chain stays, and I have to actively work my 5'9" frame and T-Rex arms to weight the front wheel with the, again static, 62.9° HTA. I don't mean that in a bad way at all; the Devinci wants to be f*cking ridden. With a few rides under my feet, I'm confident that of the options available I'm wielding the correct size in terms of maximizing my fun and confidence.

It will come as no surprise when I say that the 'Hype Pivot' rig eats bumps. Especially, big chunky gnarly square bumps mixed with a bit of straight-line speed. The Chainsaw prefers to stay planted to the ground and go fast. I'll have more to say about this in my final review as I'm still playing around quite a bit with suspension settings.

On that note, where some bikes like to be run with a precise amount of sag, the HP+I and Split Pivot suspension on the Devinci seem ambivalent. I could see this bike working for riders who like to run a lot of sag and max out the tokens in their air spring, and it certainly works for me running a firmer setup. I'll come up with numbers for the final installment.

I'd love the opportunity to run a higher-end, more adjustable, shock on the Chainsaw but only because the basic Select-level Super Deluxe (SDS) feels fantastic on this bike and I'd enjoy making the comparison. The SDS is smooth off the top and from sag, and there's nothing weird happening at any point between the initial travel and a gentle bottom out.

A couple of notes on the fork. This 170mm Zeb is the most basic platform in the lineup and it uses the RockShox Rush RC damper. The Rush RC sits below the Charger RC but both are IFP dampers with adjustable low-speed compression and rebound. This is the first Rush RC fork I've ridden, but I've been on plenty of RockShox Zeb forks with the Charger RC damper and I can't tell the difference.

For folks that want more adjustment, it's easy enough to upgrade this chassis to the top-end Charger 3 RC2 unit that ships in Ultimate and Select+ level forks. I've also had excellent experiences with Avalanche DH Racing dampers in the past, though I haven't played with one paired with the latest Debonair+ air systems.

I am finding that balancing it with the rear end is a little bit of a battle. Rather than being a complaint about the fork I think it's down to how dialed in the Chainsaw's rear suspension feels when trails get hold-on-fast & rough. This may come down to the amount of travel rather than the sophistication of the damper and I wonder if bumping the fork up to 180mm or 190mm travel would make it feel more balanced.

Braking News

In my first look, I mentioned that the G2 RE brakes on the Chainsaw GX make sense from a cost perspective, 'feel' better than SRAM Code R brakes, and offer reasonable power thanks to the use of an older generation Code caliper mated to the current G2 master cylinder.

They're okay. But as with every bike on my list at this price, a brake replacement would be an upgrade that I'm keen to engage ASAP. For me, that would mean an investment in a set of Formula Cura 4 brakes with their 2pc lever upgrade or a pair of Hayes Dominion 4-piston brakes.

I've been thinking about reviewing bikes a fair bit lately, and I know brakes regularly come up as a detraction, and distraction, in my pieces, so to rectify that I have a set of Dominion brakes that I'll be using as a control with any bikes I review going forward, including this Chainsaw. In hindsight, I wish I'd done said swap with the Arrival as well.

Deep Cuts

With the relatively long wheelbase and truly slack HTA, I have to make sure I'm tuned in and focused on weighting the front wheel when I drop the Chainsaw into steep sections of trail. Well, at least it's not intuitive to date. Historically though it takes me quite a few rides to fully get in synch with a bike. The Super-Enduro or Enduro+ category, which are basically DH bikes that can be pedaled, isn't something I dabble in very often either.

Speaking of basic, folks keep telling me how complicated the Chainsaw looks, but it's just a linkage-driven single-pivot bike. Yes, with Split Pivot the seat stay pivot is moved to the axle, but otherwise, all that's extra here is the jockey wheel, AKA idler, at the main pivot location. Devinci has used big bearings that look well-protected, and there have been lots of articles about this rig, but if anyone would find a teardown helpful, let me know and I'll try to make that happen as part of the final piece.

In the meantime, what better mountain bike pairing in a stable than a fully rigid single-speed and an HP+I single crown DH rig?