2022 Knolly Fugitive

Hey all.

Thinking about trading my 2022 Spire for a 2022 Fugitive. 

Love the enduro rig but it’s too much bike for my local trails. I do ride a bunch some gnarly stuff around Chattanooga but nothing that warrants 170 front and rear. 

In my mind the Fugitive is a burly trail bike. I had a delirium and loved it. I just want something that’s good up and down and can handle the gnarly stuff. It’s set up 160 front, 138 rear. 

Anybody who rides a fugitive please chime in.

Had a fugitive and if I wanted to stay in the 140/160 area then it would be a bike for life. Great climber, great descender. You won't have to be on your A game every time to enjoy riding it either, but when you do it responds appropriately. I slowly added the things I love to it until it was as close to perfect for the rear travel as it could have gotten for me. I think if things have to calm down for me, riding-wise, I'll go back to that bike.
My only reason for moving to a different bike was the 140 rear suspension travel was a hard limit that I couldn't change.
Knolly are a great bunch of people to work with as well.

I’ve been on a Fugitive 138 since early this year and I really like it. I was instantly at home on it, it feels very neutral to me. I run mine in the non-slack position, 150mm Z1/FLOAT X Factory shock. Very solid, does everything well, very practical design (aside from the superboost but there’s good reasons for super boost). Faster up and down, less flexy and better thought out than my WILDCAT. I mostly ride in Victoria on lumpy trails without big sendy moves.  Not a particularly attractive frame shape, but the raw aluminum and straightforward design result in a very attractive bike IMO.

Mine basically looks like this: 

Do you have offset bushings in the shock?

For sure. 

I just destroyed my collar bone/wrist in a pretty gnarly crash out in Chattanooga and it’s kind of putting a few things in perspective, ha. 

I don’t really “need” a beast enduro sled and would love a do it all trail bike that can handle the harder hits when I feel like doing the bigger stuff.

Posted by: JoePalehorse108

Do you have offset bushings in the shock?

I have whatever comes stock.

I had the OG fugitive and now have a fugitive 138.  The Fugitive is a fantastic do-it-all bike for me and the trails I like to ride. For reference, I live in North Vancouver and ride the North Shore and Squamish all the time. I enjoy the climbs as well as the descents, and the Fugitive handles both very well. Loads of traction on tech climbs and very capable on steep downhills.  I prefer slower-speed tech trails which the Fugitive excels at. If I was a faster rider smashing gnarly descents I would likely choose the Chilcotin.

The Fugitive rides bigger and more composed than the numbers suggest, especially since it's not particularly slack or with a long rear-center and it's "only" 140mm. It's a really solid, well-built bike that feels super composed on rough stuff until you hit the travel limit. I bottom out on bigger hits (say 4-5' drops) but that's about the max I do so it works for me. I run mine in the high setting with a 160mm fork and feel this is the sweet spot. 

Fit can also be a little funky with a short head tube but it works ok for me.

I will say, maybe it's a setup issue but I do use the climb switch a lot on this bike. It is active when pedaling. Not a big deal for me but if you want something lively when you stomp on the pedals I'd look elsewhere. Great technical climber though.