Being somewhat inspired by the mad souls of the downhill
fraternity on the gogglebox last night, I decided to go up
the hill this evening. And come down again. And being as how
the Mantra is at last sorted out and going well, I decided
to take it just to see what it could do.
Yes, I know the Mantra is notoriously _not_ a downhill
bike...
But it's a great uphill bike. It really does climb nicely,
very stiff under power despite the enormous rear travel, and
getting up to the 200 metre contour was remarkably easy.
Then turn around and come down again.
Whheeeeeeeeeeeeeee...
I mean, the hill track I use is not the Fort William course.
No jumps, and not that narrow. But about as steep and with a
couple of hairpins at least as tight. And plenty of rocky
bumpy bits.
And it's lots of fun. The Mantra does not like sudden
applications of brake because it does have brake-jack and
the geometry goes a bit wierd. This is slightly nervous-
making because where on the Jekyll if you've totally cocked
up the line and need to dump speed in a hurry you generally
can, on the Mantra braking has to be thought about further
in advance. And where I've learned to trust the Jeckyll's
front suspension to get me out of horrible situations
safely, the front fork on Mantra doesn't inspire that sort
of confidence. But the bike is so poised and steers so
nicely that I found I didn't have problems with my line (to
be fair I wasn't really powering down as I sometimes do) and
was able to do pretty much the whole run off the brakes,
just braking down in anticipation of the hairpins and then
accelerating out again.
Great fun.
--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke)
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