[MTB1989]

I currently ride a TREK Slash. Great bike. I met the owner of a new shop here at Ray's and he got me thinking about Knolly. So here I am digign around looking for information on the Warden. That seems like the best upgrade to what I have now.

My Slash does not want to run trails all that well. It is great going down, but many of our trails are not always down. I understand from talking to the owner at Shore Line that the Warden is an extremely good climber and won't give up anything on going down either.

I would like to know what this forum has to say? How does the Warden compare to the Slash?

Any information is greatly appreciated.

Steve

 

[Jayem]

You may find this helpful: Linkage Design

Linkage analysis of various designs. Shows that Slash has significantly more anti-squat than Warden, so up a hill Slash should pedal better (less torque pulling the rear axle up and keeping the rear shock compressed). But, the Slash isn't necessarily the most efficient either, pretty good according to the charts tho. Many people like the Knolly because it seems to dig in well uphill over rough terrain, the disadvantage with low AS is when you put the power down, it will sink the rear end and lift the front, which uphill and in technical terrain can make it more difficult. That said, you can often significantly change this effect by running different size chainrings, like say a 22t granny gear on the knolly, which would usually significantly increase the AS.

It's not exactly a "rule", but a lot of single pivot bikes tend to pedal well with a one-ring 30-34ish setup. A lot of horst link bikes tend to pedal well with a granny-gear 22t ring.