Heckler to 5.5...

I am in the exact same boat as you, I currently have a Heckler and plan on moving to a 5.5. Last month I had an oppurtunity to test ride a 6.6 and 5.5 for an entire day switching between the bikes throughout the ride. the 6.6 was set up with a fox 36 Talas fork and Fox DHX Air shock weigning in at 32lbs while the 5.5 was set up with the Fox Talas RLC fork and Manitou Swinger 4 way air weighing in at 28lbs. Just so you know, what I like about the Heckler is that for me it's geometry is spot on especially with the low BB making the bike corner well.

Generally what I found was that the 6.6 rolled over everything and pedaled extremely well given it has nearly 7" of travel, it was very smooth and pedals better than my Heckler on climbs. The best way to describe the 5.5 is that it felt like a slot car, that sucker accelerates and corners like no other bike. On long extended climbs the 5.5 is obviously the better suited bike although when it comes to short technical climbs on loose dirt the 6.6 outperforms the 5.5 (but please do not mis interperate this last sentence, the 6.6 is still a good climber).

To me because the 6.6 sucks everything up so well it was not very playful while the 5.5 was very playful and nimble. I did find the head angle of the 5.5 to be a little steep for my liking although I plan to put a Pike fork with 140mm of travel which I hope will slacken the head angle slightly. The head angle of the 6.6 felt spot on for my liking, probably because I ride a Heckler.

At the end of the day both bikes can be what you want them to be although the only thing I can suggest is if you have a FR/DH background the 6.6 will be more of your liking if you come from more of an XC background the 5.5 will be more of your liking.

If you want slacker angles you have 2 options the way I see it.

1. Run a longer AC fork on the 5.5 (what I did), this raises the BB and slackens the HA and makes the 5.5 a ripping bike all around bike.

2. Get the 6.6 and run a longer AC fork on it. Intense seems to like steeper HA lately, it has it's benifits, but I prefer slightly slacker angles. The good thing about Intense's stand on steeper angles, is you can usually slack them out, and gain travel by doing it, where if they built them with slacker angles, you would have to lose travel to steepen it. I prefer what Intense does now.

SC makes nice bikes, but they are not in the same league as an Intense IMHO.

Choose wisely.

B