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Two bikes with very similar approaches... does anyone have any opinions on which one is best?
Main use will be ITT, ultra distance stuff, bikepacking etc but with a leaning toward fast and fun, as opposed to touring.
Bike will be built up rigid but with a sus fork to swap onto it for some rides and general trail days.
Plus for Sirius, sliding dropouts for easy change to single speed. Downside, only one set of bottle bosses.
Exactly the opposite for the cotic
🤔
With regard to the Sirius... I’m talking about the new Sirius s5, not the older models
Based on a couple of weekends ago the solarismax is a perfectly comfy place to while away a couple of hundred miles over a long weekend. The fact you can mount two bottles or a bottle and a frame bag is bonus.
It took me a little while to really get to love it- it’s lost a bit of the racey vim I loved about the mk1 but the sheer grin inducing capability on faster, rougher or techier stuff is worth it. Either is fine for eating up the miles
Also consider Stanton Sherpa, essentially same geo as Sirius. My Sherpa is very comfy and nimble! Takes 2 bottles with space for a top tube frame bag.
Cheers all... only problem is finding any frame option in stock!
Stanton had a frame drop today according to IG.
@theghost... haha no thanks, I’m waiting for a nordest frame that may or may not ever turn up... useful communication has been slack, to say the least
Like swanny it is taking me a long time to learn to love my Solaris Max. I loved my Soul so much that I assumed the SM would be a bigger and better version. It's not, it is a very different beast, more like a tank than a nimble speed contender.
@fog that’s interesting, I want nimble and rapid over tank like, as I’m more interested in long fast miles on techy terrain, than descending (although still want to be able to hammer descents!
FOG- stick with it, it comes. I doubt I can say it without sounding pretentious but its nimbleness (nimblicity?) comes from balance, not because it’s racey. I think I had to chase some people and scare myself a little to get the feel for it and now I like it all round. That said, it absolutely can straight line tank it if you want. Out of curiosity, where were you on the sizing chart? I was probably borderline medium/large and went medium. A friend has a large and it probably felt more like you describe- if I was buying a bike for charging down rocky descents o’doom I’d probably have sized up.
Hooja- if you want a cross country race bike, it isn’t that, but for crossing country it’s just as good as the mk1. I even did a 40 lie road ride on it with a friend because it’s the bike I had with me and it’s perfectly fine. If anything I’d say ‘long fast miles on tech terrain + downhillability’ sounds like a pretty good tag line for the thing. Really I’d just love to have been able to afford the ti one.
I am exactly in the same size territory. My Soul is medium but always felt a bit small so I went large for the SM. Perhaps this the root of my lack of love! I do have another hardtail that is large and I get on with that really well so I probably need to persist with set up on the SM to learn to love it.
According to Hardtail Party the key is to steer it by leaning , not by twisting the bars, but I bought a Big Dog so what do I know...
Solaris Max also seems quite sensitive to tyre pressure: how hard are you running the rear tyre? Really flies when it gets going but downhill is more comfy slightly softer (22psi ish) than I had on an earlier version