Well now, I still believe in and love a good Steel, sliding/adjustable drop outs, Rigid 29+ capable bike, has to be one of the most versatile bikes you could own and I'll never get rid of mine.
This being said, I've been sitting on my OG Banshee Phantom frame since the BB developed a crack back in early 2018 with the hopes of maybe somehow figuring out a fix and Friday I decided I had the parts to build it back up and give it a spin to see if it really was as good as I was remembering and if it was worth all the effort to repair - thanks Andrew.
Unfortunately Friday was overcast and raining and it's continued on over the weekend, so no proper ride, but I did take it out as a commuter to pop to the store and, yeah, I wasn't having any of those "good old days", hyped up memories of the bike, it still felt as natural and good for me as I remember. The Reach is a tad shorter than I'd like, but not by enough, I can use a 70mm stem and the shorter wheelbase makes everything easier, makes stuff feel more nimble. I know a silly metric, but I can easily track stand with it, no front wheel "moving", stationary in one place, almost like if it was nothing and the turning and feel of it just feels so good, can't wait till things dry out to take it on a proper XC ride.
Here's the really cool/funny part...when I measured the front and rear centre and compared it to the Unit, the Unit is within 5mm of it in all aspects, so no wonder I love the Unit so much, although now I have rebuilt the Phantom, will say the 35mm longer Reach on the Unit with shorter stem, does make slow speed stuff require a bit more input, can easily feel the difference.
So in essence, if I could only have one bike, an original V1 Banshee Phantom with the adjustable drop outs, would be it. It can run regular XC 29x2.25" tyres on i30 rims, or you can run 650Bx2.8", or you can even run 29x2.8" on i35 using the long drop outs. With what I like to ride, the steep setting on the drop outs is perfect, but if I wanted to do more aggressive/steep stuff, I can easily flip the chips in the drop outs and be a degree slacker all round, If I wanted it even slacker, I could even replace the rear wheel with a 650Bx2.8".
It truly amazes me what a bike with such good, short (105mm) travel is capable of. Unlike a lot of people though who are clamouring at this new crop of bikes with short travel, but almost DHesque geo, I think that's a bad idea, because it encourages you take this bike in WAY beyond what it's designed to handle and I'm certain, that even with the modest 67.5": HTA, the hard and aggressive trails and riding I gave it are what led to the BB starting to fail, I know of several drops where there was always a hard bottom out, but everywhere else on the trails rode good, so no bump in sus pressure.
Feb. 27, 2022, 5:05 a.m. - Lynx .
Well now, I still believe in and love a good Steel, sliding/adjustable drop outs, Rigid 29+ capable bike, has to be one of the most versatile bikes you could own and I'll never get rid of mine. This being said, I've been sitting on my OG Banshee Phantom frame since the BB developed a crack back in early 2018 with the hopes of maybe somehow figuring out a fix and Friday I decided I had the parts to build it back up and give it a spin to see if it really was as good as I was remembering and if it was worth all the effort to repair - thanks Andrew. Unfortunately Friday was overcast and raining and it's continued on over the weekend, so no proper ride, but I did take it out as a commuter to pop to the store and, yeah, I wasn't having any of those "good old days", hyped up memories of the bike, it still felt as natural and good for me as I remember. The Reach is a tad shorter than I'd like, but not by enough, I can use a 70mm stem and the shorter wheelbase makes everything easier, makes stuff feel more nimble. I know a silly metric, but I can easily track stand with it, no front wheel "moving", stationary in one place, almost like if it was nothing and the turning and feel of it just feels so good, can't wait till things dry out to take it on a proper XC ride. Here's the really cool/funny part...when I measured the front and rear centre and compared it to the Unit, the Unit is within 5mm of it in all aspects, so no wonder I love the Unit so much, although now I have rebuilt the Phantom, will say the 35mm longer Reach on the Unit with shorter stem, does make slow speed stuff require a bit more input, can easily feel the difference. So in essence, if I could only have one bike, an original V1 Banshee Phantom with the adjustable drop outs, would be it. It can run regular XC 29x2.25" tyres on i30 rims, or you can run 650Bx2.8", or you can even run 29x2.8" on i35 using the long drop outs. With what I like to ride, the steep setting on the drop outs is perfect, but if I wanted to do more aggressive/steep stuff, I can easily flip the chips in the drop outs and be a degree slacker all round, If I wanted it even slacker, I could even replace the rear wheel with a 650Bx2.8". It truly amazes me what a bike with such good, short (105mm) travel is capable of. Unlike a lot of people though who are clamouring at this new crop of bikes with short travel, but almost DHesque geo, I think that's a bad idea, because it encourages you take this bike in WAY beyond what it's designed to handle and I'm certain, that even with the modest 67.5": HTA, the hard and aggressive trails and riding I gave it are what led to the BB starting to fail, I know of several drops where there was always a hard bottom out, but everywhere else on the trails rode good, so no bump in sus pressure.