Where Turner ought to be.....!
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2,649 Posts
Did you buy one?
No, this is where Turner should be:
https://www.ibiscycles.com/bikes/ripmo
-or-
https://store.pivotcycles.com/en/bike-switchblade-1
Having ridden both, I’ll be ordering a Ripmo frame that I’ll slowly build up, which I won’t get in till December. As good as both are, I’m pretty sure Dave would have made a superior version. Dave would have also made his bike more reasonably priced. Ibis and Pivot price their bikes ridiculously.
https://www.ibiscycles.com/bikes/ripmo
-or-
https://store.pivotcycles.com/en/bike-switchblade-1
Having ridden both, I’ll be ordering a Ripmo frame that I’ll slowly build up, which I won’t get in till December. As good as both are, I’m pretty sure Dave would have made a superior version. Dave would have also made his bike more reasonably priced. Ibis and Pivot price their bikes ridiculously.
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3,365 Posts
I've been thinking of updating my mountain bike quiver, and would like to stay with a DW Link design. Between the Pivot Trail 429 and the Ibis Ripley, do either of them come close to the Turner "not too squishy, not too firm" kinematics?
Also, what are people's impressions of bikes with the new generation of geometry with the long front end and steep seat angles, compared to the Turner geo?
Also, what are people's impressions of bikes with the new generation of geometry with the long front end and steep seat angles, compared to the Turner geo?
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120 Posts
Would be interested what people thoughts are on this. Would have another Turner at the drop of a hat when it's time to retire the old ones. Something modern that rides and feels like a Turner, with the same great customer service.
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5,999 Posts
I ended up getting a Ripley to compliment my old 5-Spot and it is a great bike. Very fast but also very playful and stable. Honestly, my 5-spot has a firmer peddle feel but the IBIS is not bad in any way. I still actually ride my 5-Spot a lot as my son rides the Ripley when we ride.
Honestly, the geometry changes are not as dramatic as you would imagine. Might require a little less body movement to climb and might descend a little better but honestly, feels just like a well sorted bike. I will also say that nice fat 29 X 2.6 tires really work for me - which feels like of more of an impact than a degree change in head or seat angle...
Turner can be where Turner wants to be. Kicking myself for buying a stupid carbon road bike instead of their new Titanium ART. Nice looking and versatile stead.
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3,365 Posts
Thanks for the feedback. As I ponder updates to the MTB stable, my skinny-tired bikes still keep me in good standing as a homer. The ARTi frame is really well made, and I already have 2 sets of wheels for road riding, and gravel-lite riding. My biggest challenge has been to get the parts I need to build it, and finding a new home for my old Lynskey road bike so I have room for the new one. I'm hoping that later this year I can update my Cyclosys to titanium.
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5,999 Posts
Yeah, I have been road riding a lot more. I have an old Tommasini that I still ride and love (almost 21 years old!). I got a carbon Cinelli recently but that cracked within a week of ownership and is in the process of getting repaired - Cinelli-USA is a terrible company and offered no support whatsoever.
I seriously thought about an ARTi as I have both carbon wheels for the road and gravel wheels that would work perfectly. However, I went with a Campagnolo groupset and dealing with the bottom bracket and 160 rotors front and back on the ARTi seems like too much of a hassle at the moment.
If you are looking for a dw linked bike, I do recommend IBIS. Good solid company with good products. The carbon is strong and well thought out. The Ripley is fast and fun. Highly recommended.
Personally I'd look at the Banshee Titan. I loved the DW suspension of my Turner Sultan.
=sParty
I may be in the minority, but I think they’ve gone a little too far with “modern“ geometry. Bikes are unnecessarily long and slack. They’re great for monster trucking through steep rocks, but lose the agility in the tight stuff. A little more slackness and reach would have been ok, but I feel everyone has overshot the mark by 10-15mm and a degree of slackness. There is no reason a trail bike should be any slacker than 65. The reach on a size large doesn’t need to be 480mm. Size down you say? Not so simple, then your sitting too close to the bars because the stupid steep seat angles. A size large in 455-460 reach (27.5 or 29) with a 65 degree head would be the sweet spot for me, I’m sure there are bikes out there like this, but very few, mail order, not DW. I’m not an editor at Pinkbike or Vital paid to shill a brand, so what do I know.
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2,649 Posts
Hey Vespa... the ARTi takes 140 on the rear and Enduro make Campy compat BB for T47
VMaxx, you're right, you are in the minority..
VMaxx, you're right, you are in the minority..
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3,365 Posts
Looking at the geometry of modern bikes, I feel the same way. I like the idea of a bit more reach than I have on the Czar (and especially the Sultan), and maybe a slightly more slack head angle. But a 2 degree slacker head angle and short offset fork is great for stability, but I ride a lot of tight singletrack and am concerned that it would be less-than-ideal for that.
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2,682 Posts
It's interesting to see how different people interpret things. One persons "playful and nimble" is anothers "twitchy and nervous", or "stable and confident" could just as well be interpreted as "sluggish and boring". I think people read too much into it sometimes, and also don't take enough time to adapt to a new bike with different geometry.
People also focus on individual numbers too, getting freaked out that the [stated] reach is 10mm longer than they think they'd like without considering the bigger picture of the effective reach when stack height is taken into consideration. Same with the difference between "effective" and "actual" STA.
I generally like the way geometry has progressed over the past few years, and love the idea of the latest wave of short-travel-aggressive-geo bikes like the SC Tallboy or Norco Optic. But at the same time I think we're probably at the point of diminishing returns, and even the two bikes I mentioned won't suit everyone. I certainly don't think things will continue to progress at the same rate they have, we won't see "Grim Donut" style trailbikes in 5 years time.
As an aside, the two fastest guys I ride with both ride bog-standard Treks (2019 Fuel EX and Remedy) and neither one could tell you what the STA or HA of the bike is. One of them didn't even know what setting his flip-chip was in because he'd never bothered to look int he 18+ months he'd owned the bike.
A long bike is a long bike, any way you slice it. It’s not as easy to throw around as a shorter bike, it’s physics. Throw in these slack angles, and it’s even less nimble. Bikes like this are great for fast, technical downhills, not so much for trail riding. If you live somewhere like these reviewers in the magazines, where you climb 8 miles of logging road with the suspension locked out, to bomb down a 30min technical descent, that’s fantastic, but that also represents a small percentage of what everyone else is doing. And these short travel bikes with the aggressive geo are stupid. Why have the geometry to go fast, but not the travel to back it up? They’re great on flow trails, but the ones I tired were a little outgunned in the tech. The suspension couldn’t cash the checks the geometry was writing. Also, most riders that I see have a hard time loading that front wheel. Only the most skilled riders can get the most out newer bikes. If you want to get agility back, reducing travel is not the answer, but reducing length is. You can still have a stable bike without making it a mile long. Make the reach more reasonable, lengthen the stays, then you have a bike that you are centered on vs. riding the back wheel.
It’s all a moot point though. Almost all Bikes are like this now. It’s like politics, you pick the lesser of all the evils. I’m getting the Ripmo because I love my RFX. At least I’ll have another bike to beat on where I can get parts when I break it. If I break my RFX, that might be it.
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Yes, but "long" and "slack angles" aren't fixed numbers across the board. What one person considers "long and slack" is just normal to another. And what one person considers perfectly normal now they probably thought of as long and slack 4-5 years ago.
To me flow trails are the one place where the long and slack geometry is of little advantage. Trails that are like a big BMX track are best suited to bikes that are like big BMX bikes.
Short travel + aggressive geo is a much better combo than the opposite IMO, and as close as you get to a "best of both worlds" compromise. Sure it's good to have both if you're bombing high-speed chunk or huck-to-flat drops, but if you like riding technical terrain but not at EWS-speeds the aggressive geometry helps keep you confident on steeper terrain and at speed while not feeling like a soggy couch on the more mellow trails. Obviously you do need to be realistic about what the suspension will absorb and not treat it like a point-and-shoot enduro bike. But hey, maybe your "tech" is different to my "tech". What works for me might not work for you.
As someone said in another thread, it's the key to being adequately-gunned even when under-gunned.
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817 Posts
Well, I added to my collection this year.
After riding my 08 RFX for the last 11 years I finally decided to replace it.......sadly might I add. I liked riding a retro bike!
Took awhile checking numbers, comparing all the info I could including price, availability, material choice..... and seeing how it would work for me.
(Also, local or close by is a plus in my opinion.)
Being 6' 7" it is a bit of a roll dice if the bike will fit.
I finally settled with a 2020 Knolly Warden.
I will add that building up a bike during the Covid 19 time made it interesting.......luckily I did most of the searching/ordering of the big items in January and February. Also I worked with the owner of my LBS, who is awesome, super nice and the worst/best/dumbest/smartest business man ever.
So........
Loved the bike 10 minutes into my first ride. Awesome first day of riding! Riding that bike put a smile on my face just like the first time I finally rode my first Turner. Climbs very well and wants to just go on the down.
(The only problem right now is that I am the weak point in this whole story and need to let some parts of me heal up........as my dad says "Getting old sucks!")
I will say I have no regret so far!
I see a lot of similarity with my new Knolly and my old Turner.
(It is hard to explain but the bike just feels right and I am not fighting it.....
Will add, love the raw aluminium and did not want carbon!)
Cheers
Kevin
After riding my 08 RFX for the last 11 years I finally decided to replace it.......sadly might I add. I liked riding a retro bike!
Took awhile checking numbers, comparing all the info I could including price, availability, material choice..... and seeing how it would work for me.
(Also, local or close by is a plus in my opinion.)
Being 6' 7" it is a bit of a roll dice if the bike will fit.
I finally settled with a 2020 Knolly Warden.
I will add that building up a bike during the Covid 19 time made it interesting.......luckily I did most of the searching/ordering of the big items in January and February. Also I worked with the owner of my LBS, who is awesome, super nice and the worst/best/dumbest/smartest business man ever.
So........
Loved the bike 10 minutes into my first ride. Awesome first day of riding! Riding that bike put a smile on my face just like the first time I finally rode my first Turner. Climbs very well and wants to just go on the down.
(The only problem right now is that I am the weak point in this whole story and need to let some parts of me heal up........as my dad says "Getting old sucks!")
I will say I have no regret so far!
I see a lot of similarity with my new Knolly and my old Turner.
(It is hard to explain but the bike just feels right and I am not fighting it.....
Will add, love the raw aluminium and did not want carbon!)
Cheers
Kevin
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1,480 Posts
I can weigh in on “New Geometry”. After selling my 5Spot and Highline I waited for the RFX Enduro That was never to be. I moved on to a Firebird then to a Banshee Spitfire. Both great bikes for their time. (DW and almost DW style KS link bikes). They both left me wanting a longer reach. I just moved to a Pole 158 Evolink. It’s super LONG, slack HA and steep SA.
After a few rides it feels as good or better than any other bike I’ve owned. My buddy, also a Banshee fan just got a new Titan. The long CS and reach bikes give you great stability while the steep seat angle centers you over the bike and pedaling is easy. I recently did a 26 mile XC ride on the Pole. Bend Or to Sunriver Or on the Deschutes River Trail. This is not a XC bike by any means but it ripped it up. If I had lighter tires it would have been even better. So the new Geo is coming fast, more and more companies are buying into it. Pole, Cotic and Nicolai are just a bit ahead.
This all said if Turner ever does come back with an Aluminium RFX with modern geometry I’ll be in line, the quality of my 5Spot and HL were second to none.
Do it Dave!!!!!!!!!!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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1,854 Posts
A long time forum member thought I was on a Turner this past week. Does anyone think the Nicolai Saturn looks like what could be a modern RFX?
truth be told, I tried to get a raaw madonna before the v2 came out, but they were sold in the size i wanted, ordered a nicolai saturn and G1 instead. guess I'll find out if they have gone too far on the G1...first ride soon, the saturn st rips, a little heavier than I thought it would be -would go for just the standard saturn if were to do it over again. this rigs built like a tank...
imo newish geo is great, feels like now we are riding lower, and more centered b/w the wheels, like you are 'in' the bike rather than up on top of it. I just want to ride faster and harder and sliding without skidding if you know what i mean. sure my wheelbase is long but i'll make my bike turn, its not holding me back from riding any certain trails
Add One more to the list of those who would put money down on a current gravity oriented climbable smasher from DT.
If we put $1k down each would that do any damage?
I thought the carbon material was great, but aluminum and even steel all are great as well. To me the bike market is overpriced and a very nicely made Turner in alloy with a reasonable price would sell very very well.
Turner VS. banshee, cotic, stanton, last, raaw, comenncal, ripmo af, BTR, Kona, Nicolai?
For the record, my wife is on a v1 ibis ripmo : )
Cheers for a Genio built, Turner designed Coaster : )
truth be told, I tried to get a raaw madonna before the v2 came out, but they were sold in the size i wanted, ordered a nicolai saturn and G1 instead. guess I'll find out if they have gone too far on the G1...first ride soon, the saturn st rips, a little heavier than I thought it would be -would go for just the standard saturn if were to do it over again. this rigs built like a tank...
imo newish geo is great, feels like now we are riding lower, and more centered b/w the wheels, like you are 'in' the bike rather than up on top of it. I just want to ride faster and harder and sliding without skidding if you know what i mean. sure my wheelbase is long but i'll make my bike turn, its not holding me back from riding any certain trails
Add One more to the list of those who would put money down on a current gravity oriented climbable smasher from DT.
If we put $1k down each would that do any damage?
I thought the carbon material was great, but aluminum and even steel all are great as well. To me the bike market is overpriced and a very nicely made Turner in alloy with a reasonable price would sell very very well.
Turner VS. banshee, cotic, stanton, last, raaw, comenncal, ripmo af, BTR, Kona, Nicolai?
For the record, my wife is on a v1 ibis ripmo : )
Cheers for a Genio built, Turner designed Coaster : )
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