Hey gents,
I'm looking at getting a hardtail to sit next to my Nomad Carbon as a little college graduation present to myself. I have a signing bonus that I can use to buy it, and I should be able to hang some pretty nice parts on it as long as I don't go too crazy. I've dreamt about owning a Chromag since the beginning of high school, and I think its time to act - the question is, do I want a Surface, Samurai or TRL?
I live in Seattle and ride a lot of, well, everything. I've been riding for over 12 years now and though I may be racing enduro a bit, I have a lot more fun pedaling way out into the woods and enjoying the natural features. I'll be tooling around on slalom tracks a bit and maybe hitting some smaller, smoother jump lines, but definitely nothing too crazy. My main intention for this bike is to have a reasonably light bike that I can take into the backcountry and just tool around on without feeling held back from hitting jumps and drops where I see 'em. Keep in mind, I have my coil sprung Nomad for the bigger stuff, but I'm looking for a hardtail to get back to my roots and make things both simple and interesting again.
Given that little description, do you have any advice as to which frame I should buy? The weight difference between the TRL and Samurai is supposedly around half a pound now, and though I haven't ridden the Surface I was pretty impressed by my dad's Banshee Paradox. At this point I'm leaning towards the 26ers just because of the stouter wheels and quicker handling, but if anyone could shed some light on the Surface too that would be great.
Cheers.