There’s currently only one in the world and despite being designed around Tim and Jordan’s 5’8” frames, it boasts a wheelbase of 1,355mm – that’s roughly as big as the biggest Pole and the Extra Longest Geometron. Bear in mind the original sketches had the bike at nearly 1,500mm – Reynolds just simply don’t makes tubes long enough to accommodate it.

Riding the Gnarcissist on flat ground, it feels cumbersome, nigh-on impossible to manual and like a sit-up-and-beg bike to pedal around on. I was left thinking: “What on Earth have these jokers dragged me out to the middle of Kent for?”

On the trail, it starts to make sense. Yes, you still know you’re riding a hardtail but the violence is taken out of landings and there’s not much that will knock it off line. The prototype we rode with Hope wheels was still a little flexy in the rear end (what do you expect with all that length?), but this is set to be sorted with twin braces on the stays for the production model.

More than anything, it really is fun – stable and forgiving there’s an infectious giddiness that takes hold, a twenty minute session on an unremarkable bombhole had us all trying to send it as deep as possible. At Dirt we’ve long since consigned hardtails to the antiques bin, but the Ganrcissist did more than enough to pique our interest.

The Gnarpoon

We’ve already had a quick look at the Gnarpoon, it’s not been fully built yet but the idea is for it to be a 171mm, plus sized full suss that Sick are hoping will create the new blueprint for downhill bikes (told you they had big plans)… oh yeah, and it’s got a bottom bracket for a pivot.

We’ve got first dibs on a ride on this steel machine so expect to see more of it coming soon.

The “Have Blue”

6 // 22

A post shared by Sick! Bicycle Co. (@sickbicycles) on Jul 3, 2017 at 10:57am PDT

They’ve not even formally released a bike yet but already Sick are teasing their third frame. This is the Have Blue and we’re sworn to secrecy on most things except it’s made from carbon (gnarbon?) and titanium and it’s being built right now.

Also, seeing as we’re well past the 22nd of June now, we’re pretty sure that isn’t a date…

So how big can Sick get? Tim says: “We want to rub shoulders with the big boys. We don’t want to be some niche, cliquey brand, my aspiration is to be something like Specialized, or Trek, or Brooklyn Machine Works without the stopping.” Big dreams, but ones that have been shared by many a mountain biking start up. We’ve no idea if Sick can pull it off but they’ll probably have more fun than most giving it a go.

For more info on Sick Cycles, click here.