So S3 - Large in the numbers looks big, wheelbase if true to the chart is the longest ive seen for a while it’s actually longer than an XL Amflow but more importantly can anyone give a review on how its fits and feels in real life ?
I’m 185cm tall barefooted and pretty lanky , long arms n legs lol so I find myself between large and XL a lot on bikes and having an out of date 50 year old brain I still tend to default to slightly smaller when choosing which I know isn’t right but with this bike S2 is just going to be too short in the reach especially when seated and climbing so it’s S3 for me.
Hows the long wheelbase feel when riding ?
Is the bike still fast to turn and can you still jib about on it ? I like to pull up and manual and generally piss about but like a light front end when you have to suddenly pull up off an unexpected rock drop etc ……
I see the chain stay length on the website says 445 but Rob’s measured his at 455 ?
Been comparing it to the Forbidden Druid in an S3 that also has a long chain stay with the way the geo works on there high pivot but the wheelbase is definitely shorter …..
Any advice and feedback would be greatly welcomed
I’ll offer some opinions, as I’m not an owner, but in the interests of complete transparency, I do have a deposit down on one which was meant to be here by now, but is late, with no confirmed delivery date.
Ive been fortunate enough to borrow one for an extended period of time, which I have been riding alongside a similar travel Bosch Gen5 bike (With not massively dissimilar geometry, apart from the stack height). In total I’ve done about 500km on it and ~60,000m of descending.
Im the same height as you, and I would say, the S3 is a little on the big side, but the S2 would be too small. On paper, the geometry looked ‘ok’ to me, the only thing I was hesitant about was the big reach and high stack - which is a bit of an outlier, when stack increases, reach can get pulled back due to a similar span, but an 820 measurement is massive for an L frame size, it’s bigger than a significant number of XL’s. When you factor in the wheelbase, the extra weight of it being an ebike, it really is a big bike, full stop.
Unsurprisingly, it feels big on the trail - my riding is mostly S.Wales off piste, so, long fire road climbs, and steep, natural, techy downhills. I think after the amount of riding I’ve had on it, I can safely say that is not its strong point, it’s quite simply too big for a lot of the trails I ride, and that’s before I get into some of the suspension quirkiness. Where it did feel better was high speed, open stuff, and I would say it was one of the better bikes I’ve ridden at that, if you persevere with setup.
Probably the next point. I’ve ridden it with the stock Fox suspension, a Zeb Ult/Vivid Air & a Push SV8/9.1. I can safely say I have never ridden a bike where I have struggled to find a balance in the suspension as much as this one. I commented on this before, but it continued to be a challenge to set up. I’m not a wobbler on a bike, I race a reasonable amount still, and a quick check on the last 20 races I’ve done, I’ve podiumed 50% of them & won 20%, so I feel confident in settling a bike up to feel comfortable on it, but this one….. I think it came down to the very light tune on the shock needed, combined with a higher amount of sag & making that work with a fork that didn’t feel like crap, was not easy - the window of balance is really small on this bike.
Other things of note. A like for like comparison with the updated Gen5 Bosch, they are pretty similar in normal turbo now, the mega boost on the DJI was fun, for a while, but it absolutely slaughters the battery. Both in Turbo for me at 85kg with the same wheels & tyres are done with 1500M of elevation. The integration of the DJI looks better, of Bosch could make the CX motor in the SX sized body, it would be a draw, but it does stick out on the NDS a bit & doesn’t look as good. Obviously the DJI has a whole lot more customisation available, but once it got it set up so they were similar in power delivery, I never bothered with it.
Rattling. Cable rattle is real, I think it’s a combination of the brake hose & head unit wiring, but it’s annoying & I couldn’t complete.y silence it. Motor rattle is also very real. It’s kind of on a par with my old Gen4 CX motor - you get used to it, but it’s there and annoying. When I jumped back on my own bike (either a Gen5 Bosch or TQ HPR60) it’s only then you appreciate how utterly silent they are when descending.
Bottom out buzz. Seen a few reports of this & also experienced it - it’s actually quite significant & concerning, if you recreate it with a shock you can bottom out hard in a non riding test, it’s not just a little bit of buzz, the mudguard is getting crushed between the tyre and the back of the shock body, that to me is a bit of an issue, if it bottomed out real hard & caused slowdown at the wrong moment (or even worse, locked the rear wheel) it could pitch you forward, and that would get real ugly, real fast.
The rear linkage, when I saw it originally, I ad some concerns about surviving a UK winter, and I never really got to find out, apart from early September where we got a two week window of constant rain. It wasn’t a positive experience, I got some fairly significant clogging, and as the suspension cycled, it didn’t help. That would be a real concern for me.
My overview is ultimately it looks different, and it’s cool to see someone doing something like this, but, sounding harsh maybe, I just don’t think it’s that good a bike, or an ownership prospect. With the delays, the poor comms from Unno, and the response to actual issues like the bottom out buzz, I feel like it’s a hell of a gamble to take. I won’t be taking up my order, so if anyone wants a Race, which is was supposedly due last month, but may now be October or November, drop me a message.
I have managed to acquire a Druid Core (S3) to try for a while, which I am hopefully picking up next week, all going to plan, which will be interesting to compare.
