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THE LONG TRAVEL HOLY GRAIL
What we look for most in a full-suspension bike is intuitiveness. When a bike simply does its job, no fuss no muss. Rare is the ride you just jump on and go. Rob and I share that appreciation for that particular underrated characteristic. Many 4" travel bikes deliver that "comfortable hardtail" feel, I'm no expert but I kinda believe that the drama free suspension experience of 4" bikes has something to do with the fact that, well... quite simply, there's less suspension travel... so it's more "buttoned down". Examples of solid, intuitive 4" designs are many including the Jamis Dakar and the timeless Rocky Mountain Element family of bikes.

Getting bikes with more than 4 inches of travel to behave in that efficient, solid, yet lively way is not that easy it seems. Very few "5 inch and up" bikes that we've tested over the years managed to deliver the feel of a 4 inch bike with one or two more inches of travel. Once you get up there it seems that many bikes get wobbly knees or either get heavy in order to counter that long-travel challenge... The less-than-perfect examples simply become "squishy"

When we find that rare combination of balance, poise, comfort and efficiency it's usually very subtle. These bikes rarely jump up and shout "HEY LOOK AT ME! I DO MY JOB INTUITIVELY!" When we find a bike that blows us away we usually quietly look at each other and go "pssst! I like this bike" and ride for a bit longer until we add "hey, I think you should try this bike out, I'd like your thoughts"... all the while smiling and simply enjoying the ride.

To say that 2007 and 2008 have been very good full-suspension test seasons would be an understatement. With 3 sweet new bikes recently inducted into Gord's Long-Travel MTB Hall-of Fame. The Jamis BAM, the Scott Genius and the very bling Commencal Meta 5.5... Joining such superlative squishy icons such as the stalwart Jamis XLT, the Ellsworth Epiphany, the Rocky Mountain SXC and the much loved Jamis XAM.

Life is pretty sweet at Gord's. How fortunate are we to have some of the very best long travel bikes that don't act like big fat spongy marshmallows. Long travel bikes that make you wonder why anyone would ride less.

Listen, if you ride any trail, flat as it may be or steep as you can find... If you're over 19 years old and you want to keep on riding into your sixties and beyond... if you're still riding that hardtail WAKE UP! Give your head a shake. Do yourself, your body and your ass a favor, get with the times. INJECT SOME FUN in your moribund life, get a full suspension bike and join the ranks of those who do more than just ride, join the ranks of those who are having the time of their lives on their bikes, join the ranks of the living. LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO RIDE A HARDTAIL. (We should make a T-shirt!) Check out our full-suspension page HERE

TEST IT
THEN SELL IT
It's a simple principle by which we live and die: "Only sell what you yourself would buy". After all, life's too short to sell crap, life's too short to buy crap. To make sure we're crapless we go through much time and effort to ensure that everything we sell is up
to our lofty standards.
 

GORDS DOES COMMENCAL
Attention all bike lovers! Gord's is very proud to announce that we'll be offering Commencal Bikes starting in the summer of 2008! Commencal is a very cool, forward thinking niche bike company from Andorra. (they also hppen to sponsor the ubiquitous Cedric Gracia)... Needless to say we're very excited about this news!

Here's how this came about: Robbie and I were in Vegas, testing our allotted complement of bikes... and since day two was simply overrun with testers, bike companies were struggling to keep up with demand for test bikes. During one lull in testing (while waiting for the Jamis Dakar XAM to become available) I glanced over to the Commencal booth only to see someone about to return a "Meta 5.5" in my size... And since Commencal bikes had always piqued my interest I decided to pounce on the poor guy who was holding said bike. When I rolled up to Catherine and Rob on the Commencal both looked at me puzzled, "but that's not on our list..." I shrugged, made up some story involving the French and off we went onto our favorite loop or Bootleg Canyon.

Once in a while a bike rides so well that you HAVE to reconsider stuff... This was one of those bikes. Not unlike Intense bikes in 2006. These Commencal bikes were NICE. So nice, in fact, that both Robbie and I felt it necessary to include it onto our respective TOP 5 BIKES lists.

The next step is the percolation, the mulling over of, the scheming, the math, the strategizing... Trying to find a way to get these sexy bikes on our floor for 2008. Gladly, with the help of the very nice and helpful Peter Appleton from Commencal Canada, we found a way... And man, are we stoked!

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WE LOOOVE SCOTT BIKES
When we insert an new brand into our mix, there's always a good reason. Sometimes it has to do with the culture behind a company, how passionate they are about what they do. sometimes it's the level of service and dedication to the sport and many times it's simply because the stuff just flat-out performs. Sometimes we select a product based on how technicaly excellent it is, how much homework, reaserch and development and attention to detail the company puts into the end product...

Scott Bikes would definately fall into the category labelled Technology Obsessed. The fine folks at Scott Bikes are clearly devoted to being technicaly dominant. Scott engineers are very serious about making sure every single one of their offerings is on the cutting edge of bike innovation. Take for example the Genius series of bikes... Brought to market in 2003 Scott Genius Bikes still have no equal when it comes to technical innovation on a 6 or 7 inch bike. For what it's worth, we're big fans. As a matter of factmost of our management team: Darci, Jared, JT and JF Ride Scott bikes... and there are a few reasons for that: Cool bikes, lots of innovation and serious performance.