2021 - Full Suspension Bike Thread

New frame day. Size L 2021 Banshee Prime.

Just waiting on the CC Kitsuma Coil shock to clear customs and be delivered. Build will be Cane Creek Helm fork, Kitsuma Coil rear, X01 mechanical groupo with Hayes Dominion brakes and RF crank. ¨Photos of the build to come in a couple of weeks once I've had time to put it together. With the long days, I'm really enjoying evening rides on my Banshee Titan and Knolly Cache and not wanting to spend less time riding in order to build the prime.

Posted by: rnayel

New frame day. Size L 2021 Banshee Prime.

....." With the long days, I'm really enjoying evening rides on my Banshee Titan and Knolly Cache and not wanting to spend less time riding in order to build the prime."

First world problems for sure. 

Those frames are super good looking. Nothing like aluminum done right!

Wow! That is a great build!

Congrats rnayel, what a beauty frame!!!! 

I’m looking forward to photos of it built

Posted by: olaa

Wow! That is a great build!

Posted by: Ddean

Congrats rnayel, what a beauty frame!!!!

I’m looking forward to photos of it built

Thanks!

I'll post photos when it's built. Since it's the same colour at my Titan, I'm going to post a family pic too.

Posted by: rnayel

Posted by: olaa

Wow! That is a great build!

Posted by: Ddean

Congrats rnayel, what a beauty frame!!!!

I’m looking forward to photos of it built

Thanks!

I'll post photos when it's built. Since it's the same colour at my Titan, I'm going to post a family pic too.

Hot. 

Going for significantly different builds? There's a lot of overlap between those (in my mind).

Posted by: velocipedestrian

Posted by: rnayel

Posted by: olaa

Wow! That is a great build!

Posted by: Ddean

Congrats rnayel, what a beauty frame!!!!

I’m looking forward to photos of it built

Thanks!

I'll post photos when it's built. Since it's the same colour at my Titan, I'm going to post a family pic too.

Hot.

Going for significantly different builds? There's a lot of overlap between those (in my mind).

You're right, there is some overlap. I have a preference for coil shocks and both bikes are running the CC Kitsuma coil. My titan has a 180mm Manitou Mezzer while the Prime will have a 150mm Helm coil (pretty excited for coil front and rear on that one). Zac of Smithtech has been good to me and kept my Mezzer running like butter.

So my Titan is 180 fork/155 rear, Prime will be 150 fork/135 rear and 1.5* steeper. Titan has DD maxxGrip Assegai tires while the prime will roll on exo+ maxxTerra DHF/DHRII.

The intention is to have the Prime as a climb friendly every day bike and the Titan for bigger trails and the WBP day bike. My go-to outing is to ride from home to the Fromme climb trail (from near Capilano rd.) and try to get in as many laps as I can before my wife gets fed up with parenting 3 kids and calls me to come home. I'm finding that climbing the Titan for multiple laps of Fromme gets pretty tiring and by the end of the second lap of the climb trail I'm just not motivated to ride any more. On the odd day that I take my Chromag, I get a much more enjoyable and speedy climb but since building up the Titan last summer, I love the descending so much more on the Banshee. Currently averaging 55 minutes to get up the climb trail on the Titan, while I'm sub 50 minute on the Chromag, I'm sure that lighter tires on the Titan would help.

Who knows, if there is too much overlap and I'm solely riding the Prime, I might sell either the Chromag or the Titan, but now that I have space (we moved last year), I'm happy to hold on to all the bikes.

Posted by: rnayel

New frame day. Size L 2021 Banshee Prime.

Just waiting on the CC Kitsuma Coil shock to clear customs and be delivered. Build will be Cane Creek Helm fork, Kitsuma Coil rear, X01 mechanical groupo with Hayes Dominion brakes and RF crank. ¨Photos of the build to come in a couple of weeks once I've had time to put it together. With the long days, I'm really enjoying evening rides on my Banshee Titan and Knolly Cache and not wanting to spend less time riding in order to build the prime.

Congrats!

I’m a proud Prime owner and I’m thoroughly impressed with mine!

You’ll find my build on a previous page of this thread but it’s a sort of between your Titan build and Prime build as it’s my one bike.

Posted by: DanLees1978

My new full suspension bike for this year...

Banshee Prime V3...

Appears to be brilliant!

We need to organize a All Banshee V3 Meetup Ride :D

Cool to see all of the primes, I'm looking at changing up my ripmo af and banshee prime and raaw jibb are high on the list (almost identical travel and geometry).

Where are you guys buying banshee locally?

Seems like there are basically no larges in stock anywhere so that may make the decision for me.

Posted by: Kenny

Where are you guys buying banshee locally?

I bought mine through the US, got on a wait list and waited 5 months for a frame in my size to become available. According to their website, Banshee only lists Spoke Heaven in Squamish as a local dealer, http://spokehaven.ca/

You can also email Banshee to see if they have someone elseto find out; [email protected]

Here's my 2021 squishy ride. Parts mostly ported over from a previous build. Geometron G1, size M, 170mm front, 162mm rear, 29/29 mode currently with mullet wheel setup and new sticky rubber going on later this week.

I knew they made medium Geometrons but I think this is the first time I've actually seen one that isn't L/XL/XXL. Which makes sense since they're really the only good option for XL+. Can you say more about how a M person chose a G1 over a more conventional option?

Posted by: craw

I knew they made medium Geometrons but I think this is the first time I've actually seen one that isn't L/XL/XXL. Which makes sense since they're really the only good option for XL+. Can you say more about how a M person chose a G1 over a more conventional option?

I’m 5”10 with short legs and a long torso. For suspension bikes I went from a large Hightower LT (443 reach) to a large SB130LR (about 476 reach). And on my hardtails I went from a M/L older Rootdown (457 reach) to a M/L new Doctahawk with a +5 mm reach adjust headset (about 480 reach). The longer the bikes got the more comfortable I got. I felt like there was too much overlap between my SB130LR and my Doctahawk, which were both sort of set up as trail bikes with 160mm forks. I wanted something with a coil, more travel, made of metal and have sort of lusted over the G1 for a couple of years. Something about the old school raw welded look I guess. I also wanted to keep trying longer and was attracted to the adjustability of this bike. It was a process getting here and I considered this build a bit of an experiment.

As far as fit goes, the M G1 is almost identical to the seated position on the Yeti I just sold and my Chromag. So the main difference for me is wheelbase (and head angle) and reach. Knowing how nimble my Doctahawk rides (and the Yeti I got rid of) I figured the extra length of the G1 would still be manageable but would be more stable in steeps, chunder and fast stuff. That’s basically how I got here.

I have 10 rides on the G1 now, all at Fromme, Seymour and Eagle. Not once have I felt like the bike was a handful. I haven’t found it difficult to wheelie or muscle around. I guess long story short I didn’t (and still don’t) buy into the whole “Geometrons are only for humongous people” thing. Interestingly the sizing / geo of the M G1 isn’t that far off from the sizing of a large Commencal Meta AM 29 Team (495 reach), large Knolly Chilcotin 167 (490 reach) and S4 Spesh Enduro (487 reach).

Also interesting is that at 5’10” I could have gone M or L G1 according to Geometron’s size chart. So far I’m glad I didn’t go any bigger.