The 2025 Propain Spindrift 5 AL Factory

The Whistler Effect

Crankworx is always a good time to get a spoohful of 'hey can you ride this bike a couple of laps and write a review' soup. The Whistler Bike Park definitely is an invaluable asset for a gear editor to bang out as many laps as possible on a variety of terrain, and get a good understanding of how a bike works. Tens of thousands of feet of descending in a day on some of the most demanding and changing terrain in the world is no problem.

Propain in Canada

The Propain Spindrift has been the company's long legged Freeride bike for some time. In Canada, our access to Propain's bikes has been quite limited. While they sponsor a very influential Squamish-based athlete, product availability has been near zero. While the rest of the world has been enjoying them, we have been watching from the sidelines, losing interest over time. The German brand's marketing team gave me the opportunity to ride the revised Spindrift 5 AL in the Whistler Bike Park and on Mt. Seymour to figure out the capabilities of the 180mm "freeride" bike.

Spindrift 5 CF, AL and Park

There are 3 new bikes actually. While my focus will be primarily on the Spindrift 5 AL Factory we are testing, it is worth mentioning that the platform is divided into 3 categories that are a little different from one another.

The Propain Spindrift 5 is a 180/180mm travel freeride, super enduro, park bike depending on the material and model you choose. While the carbon version can be purchased with mix wheel sizes in S, M, L and XL the Alloy version can be had with full 27.5 in S,M and L, mixed wheel or full 29" versions in M, L and XL.

This is most likely due to the completely different frame shapes and kinematics between the Carbon and Alloy.

While both frame options are 180mm rear travel, the alloy bike is also available in the Park version with a 200mm dual crown fork. There are no obvious geometry adjustments to be seen on the alloy bike, so the geometry numbers will be different for every iteration of the Spindrift.

Propain places the Carbon frame in a super enduro race bike box to differentiate the models. The slightly lower progression and higher anti-squat values produce a better pedaling and a more spritely platform compared to the highly progressive and lower anti-squat alloy bike. From the looks (and the trail feel) of it, the alloy bike has close to 40% progression for the 65mm stroke shock. It is no surprise the Spindrift is a coil shock primary bike that can tap into the high traction up top and resistance to bottom out at the end of the travel. The tester in the house had an air-sprung Fox Float X2 that may have been the problem for some of my rides on the long travel beast.

Models

There are quite a few models to choose from building these bikes up. The customising tool on the Propain website allows you to tweak the models further too for a seemingly infinite number of ways to get the right build. If you wanted to skip the a la carte option, there are 4 models of CF, 4 models of AL and 4 models for Park bike. The builds are named Base, Ultimate , Factory, and Swedish Gold.

Geometry and Setup

The Factory Spindrift 5 AL with the Fox Factory 38 and Float X2 shock weighs in at 38 lbs on my scale for a size medium. Not a lightweight bike but the intended purpose is 70% downhill and 30% pushing back up for another go at that big scary jump. There is no hiding the elephant in the room about its size and weight but I still did pedal this beast up Seymour Mountain to see how it climbed. Spoiler alert; not well.

Without many pointers on how to set the bike up, I put in a little over body weight at the lift line to get a feel for the bike at the bike park. With around 170 psi in the shock and 90 in the fork, I set off to do a couple of laps down Garbo Zone and hit some jumps on A-line to get the Freeride machine going. It felt good and pointed down some chunky stuff it did not bat an eye. This was promising. We may have a winner here I thought.

The medium bike that I stole from under Patrick, the marketing manager, was of promising proportions: 455mm reach, 445mm rear center and a healthy 636mm stack is within half a cm of my ideal. While the 29" rear wheel and a longish rear center may be playing against the freeride nature of the bike, I let it take control of the situation and show me the fastest way down the mountain. When the trails were steep, the initial setup worked fine. The 63.9° Head angle and long travel made for a confident descender. When the trails got faster and the berms flatter, I struggled to find traction on the front of the bike. Lowering the fork pressure to 85 psi for an increase in hand comfort and to weight the front tire more worked out well. I still struggled to find a sweet spot on the 180mm Fox 38 Grip X2 fork. It felt harsh and unwilling to go into the travel so I kept lowering the pressure.

Back on my home turf of Seymour, I decided the bike and my lift-taking-lazy-ass needed to pedal. Of course, I picked the heaviest, and the least eager bike to do it on and took the Spindrift up the mountain to more familiar and chunkier trails. I increased the shock pressure to 190 psi to balance the weight distribution. The singletrack climb was not fast. The higher BB was appreciated through the rocks as the fancy XX carbon cranks never made contact. The whole drivetrain is as fancy as you can get from SRAM and it shifted beautifully. While I don't see the point of it on an aluminum freeride bike, the XX Transmission is a thing of beauty.

Once I made it to the paved road as the climb trail ended, I headed higher up the mountain to tap into chunky, suspension testing terrain. CBC and Neds were on the menu as they are demanding, relatively fast and quite fun on a longer travel bike. The longer rear end was more noticeable on these trails than they were in Whistler. The big bike liked carving bigger arcs around corners instead of snapping into turns. Once I got used to the behaviour, I was having lots of fun. Ned's was especially fun on the big, squishy bike. While having lots of suspension travel to use, the Propain did not want to give up all its travel on demand. You had to pull for doubles and triples and land in deep pockets to access the bottom of the shock. I still felt unbalanced between the front and the rear of the bike. The 38 was not using its stanchions as eagerly as the FLoat X2. Hesitant to lower the fork pressure more or increase the shock pressure, I am chalking this up to an air shaft clogging issue on the fork. Without more time to play around, I can not address this. Which is why longer term reviews are absolutely necessary. The Propain will have to go back soon, but If it decides to stick around longer, I will service the fork and perhaps put a coil shock on the rear and run a heavier spring for less sag than the Air Sprung float X2 requires.

Factory Build Kit

This has been a summer of Maguras. The Devinci E-Troy Lite introduced me to the MT5s and the Propain comes with even better MT7 Performance brakes. While the master cylinder design of the MT5s has a snappier feel under your fingers, the softer but more powerful architecture of the MT7s is quite amazing. Paired with a 220mm front and 200mm rear MDR-P rotors, there is enough stopping power to throw an elephant over the bars. Riding some of the steepest trails in Whistler, I had no problem heating up the pads to operating temperatures and creeping down some impossibly steep rocks. The problem I found with Magura brakes is that I cannot stop them from rubbing. No matter the bleed or caliper adjustment, they will rub. Which is more troublesome when the floating rotors are bent. I find them difficult to re-align with the aluminum carrier. The power is great, but if you want rub free brakes, you may want to look elsewhere.

The DT Swiss FR 1500 wheelset with 240 hubs are trouble free tanks; heavy, aluminum and beastly enough to handle many short landings. I have no issues with them on this bike, even though I would not run them on my personal bike due to how overbuilt they are. Great spec. choice.

The wheels are wrapped in Schwalbe Magic Mary Super Trail Soft front and Big Betty Super Trail soft rear tires. I've had mixed experiences with the Super Trail casing tires as I managed to cut one in half 3 seconds into one trail and another 10 seconds in. This set has been trouble free since the bike was handed to me. I hate the feeling of having to go easy on tires. I think a Super Gravity rear casing would have been more appropriate. What's another 150 grams on an already heavy bike?

The Sixpack Components cockpit hasn't been exciting, in a good way. The last time I saw something from them was in 2014 when I bought a gold stem to match the stanchions of my Marzocchi 55. It's good to see they are making parts still. I could not get along with the Kamikaze ass hatchet of a saddle. But as the intentions of this bike points towards the lift line, I can understand it. It is narrow, it is long and it is entirely in the wrong shape for my derriere. The 170mm Fox Transfer dropper is sufficient and an uninterrupted seat tube may be able to handle a 200mm one if needed. I don't think the 170mm dropper gets in the way much.

Propain currently doesn't list Canadian prices on their website. Your purchase will be in USD and converted by your bank. There is a 250 USD shipping fee and possibly some duties as well (not confirmed yet) The 8000 USD price tag is less appealing when all that is taken into consideration. Direct-to-consumer brands at bike-shop prices are harder to swallow when you count the visits to a local shop to sort some kinks out. The bike I reviewed had no mechanical issues during testing. No loose bolts and no manufacturing defects were observed. Hopefully, this is the norm and Propain owners never have to reach out to Propain for help. There is a US office in California that can look after the issues in the lower 48. We Canadians may have to knock on Rémy Métailler's door for help.

The Spindrift 5 AL is an interesting bike that would do really well under an experienced rider on bike park trails. The bigger the jumps, the better the ride will be. When it comes to searching for traction and climbing performance, I'd look to other Propain models. If you are looking for a lift assist ride, do you really want an 8000 USD SRAM XX Transmission bike? The 3000 USD Base model maybe a better buy.

Have a look, find a demo day (they do exist) and decide for yourself.

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