Intense Tracer VP

5.5″ to 6″ adjustable Trail/All Mountain

This is the bike I was most excited about trying. Since I competed in a super D/Enduro type race this year I’ve been longing for a bike that felt light enough and was efficient enough to hammer the flatter and uphill sections of the course yet still capable enough to blast the fast, rocky, steep, downhill sections without much compromise compared to my 6.6. With two bikes I’m forever trying to decide which one to bring. Could one bike really do it all?

Well the short answer is, NO. At least mot for me.

The long answer is that this is a really, really good, fun bike. For most people and the types of riding and trails that they do it will fill the bill between XC and All-mountain pretty dang well. It feels very light and efficient. It absolutely rules on climbs and it carves on par with my HH100x (no small feat) once you drop the fork down to 130mm. I cleaned the four foot step up ledge after the second switchback on your way up to Caldera first try right out of the corner no problem and climbed all the switchbacks up from the saddle at the top of Boy Scout to the top of Skyline cleanly. The combination of light weight and good suspension plus good sticky tires (Intense Edge FRO Sticky, I think) seemed to be a perfect combination for climbing. The 160 setting felt quite slack. More so than my 6.6 (which it is). It was a much better climber in the 130 setting. The new v.2 VPP is amazing. It stays still while hammering and feels pretty plush and reasonably active on square edged ledges and such while climbing. I climbed in granny quite a bit just trying to detect pedal kick back and could not… though it’s light enough and efficient enough that I would rarely need to use the 22 it’s nice to know it won’t sap all my forward momentum with pedal stall when I do. The new short stouter links limit the notorious tail wag inherent in this design but don’t completely get ride of it, though I only rarely detected it on the trail.

Now that I’m at the top of Skyline it’s time to point it down raise the fork up to 160 which slackens the HA to 67.5 and see if the Tracer is worthy. It was very capable but I was a bit disappointed. The 6 inch rear end felt pretty good and it definitely descends as well or better than the other 5-5.5 inch trail bikes I tried, but it ain’t no 6.6 or RFX. It just wasn’t quite as deep or as plush feeling as my Roco coiled bike. It also skipped around a bit when standing and pedaling over the Bootleg chunk on West Leg. A better fork and coil shock would likely solve a lot of this feeling…. but I’m not sure. It just doesn’t seem like it could be an adequate substitute for a big burly 6-7inch bike for super chunky steep, droppy trails like National to24th St, Holbert, and Goat Camp in Phoenix, Portal trail in Moab, Boneshaker in Vegas, etc. This is the type of riding I crave. If that’s not your cup of tea and you like a more tame version of “all-mountain” than this could very well be the one bike that does it all.

DT and I had a discussion last week about the oxymoron of lightweight 6 inch travel bikes and how you really need the extra weight to get the suspension to really settle in and plow through the kind of super chunk I’m describing. I likened it to my big, heavy, tractor like 525exc four-stroke KTM and how it just plows through whoops and rocks never getting off line or upset. Whereas my lighter 250cc two-stroke (with the same suspension) seems to dance around a lot more.

One minor quibble: I got the tire to rub on the chain stay (actually the velcro attached chainstay protector) in the 32/34 combo. Not sure if that was flex or just poor set up.

Bottom line: If I was absolutely forced to choose one bike and one bike only to cover all the types of riding I do (I love the faster, buffer, carvier stuff too), this would be close to it…… or maybe the El Bastardo.

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