Prototype #3 of Intense Spider 29er
March 7th, 2006 by Tim GrahlPrototype #3 of the Intense Spider 29er is pictured below…
Size: Medium
Color: Satin Black
Components: XTR
Wheels: Bontrager Race Lites with Jones XR 2.2’s
Fork: Reba Race @ 80mm
Rear Shock: Manitou Swinger 3way
More Stats: 23.75 effective TT, 18 CS, SA 74, static HA 73 @ 100mm fork setting. HA with 25% rear sag est @ 71.
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That head angle is mighty extreme. Looks like they ran it into a wall. I have a 71 degree on my 80mm corrected Wojcik and I thought that was agressive. The Intense is intense looking though. Should be a fun bike if they ever fix the rear pivot
…And why does it have last years Reba?
The pic is a bit deceiving, front wheel is lower than the rear in it, angles look more extreme.
Not sure how 25% of rear sag slackens angles by 2 degrees. I wonder whether that HA is with sag accounted for too.
It looks like the stem is flipped over too giving it that Cannondale look. Some of the other pics show a normal stem install and the head angle does not look as steep.
High potential for going over the bars in steep rough descents. Not a question of if but when will this bike with it’s 73 degree HA sends me OTB. I was seriously considering waiting to purchase the Intense frame since my LBS has ordered two of them but I have purchased an Asterix Monk 29er instead with a 70.5 HA for the safety factor. Monk frame is probably at least a pound heavier but the safer the bike is the faster I dare to ride. Hopefuly Intense will reconsider the geometry a bit befor full production.I am no expert but my experience is that a 73 degree HA on a trail bike is dangerous. Are there factors that I am not considering which make this bike safer than it appears to be? By comparison, Blur LT (26 inch) has a 69.5 degree HA.
catflopsy: Have you ridden any 29″ers with a 73 degree head angle? 72 degree? If not, you might be surprised to know that alot of 29″ers use a 72 degree head angle to achieve a similar trail figure as that of a 26″ bike. This is due to the larger diameter wheel. The 29″er also has less tendency to throw you OTB because the rider sits a little more below the axles than one does on a 26″er.
The Intense is only going one degree steeper, and test riders have all raved about the handling, to a man. Yes, 73 degrees sounds steep from a 26 inch stand point, but 29″ers require a whole different geometry.
5000 plus mile of single track and fire roads on a large 29er fisher hard tail and a Large 292. OTB only once due to over reacting to being charged by three dogs and hitting the front skids hard. Got a medium 292 with 100mm Reba and went OTB three times in three hundred miles on the same trails. There were no dogs or obvious opperartor errors. The Medium fisher 292 has a simular top tube length as the Intense and a slacker HA of 71.5. A medium with a 73 degree HT seems even more dangerous than the Fisher and the large would be a little large for a 5′10″ rider.
Hmm………”no dogs or obvious operator errors”? Seems almost….well, magical. One thing is for sure, you shouldn’t consider an Intense 29″er VPP. But, there are several other folks quite excited by the prospect. As they say, “Your mileage may vary”.
Here are some comments from a couple weeks back off of MTB Omaha.
My surly karate monkey has a 72 degree HA and handles well. The Spider has a 73 degree with the 80mm travel fork and a 72 with a 100mm fork. if you want to slack it out a bit more, thenjust run a 120mm and it’ll feel more trailbike oriented.
Its actually a more versatile design than most as setting up a 120 or more travel fork on slacker HA designs will make the front end feel very sluggish.