Adjustable between 8.5/9.0 and 9.5” the Intense is available for £2499 with a Fox shock (a hundred pounds less than a standard Santa CruzV10, a V10 carbon in standard colour sits at £2899 but I guess it is half carbon), whilst a Cane Creek M9 rolls in at £2499. You can make comparisons on their Californian locations alone.

The M9 has modifiable wheelbase and shock progression. With the Cane Creek Double Barrel and Fox 40 fitted that is some amount of adjustment to understand. Find a person that can put together and balance each of those options/equations in a week and you will probably find a liar.

What’s it about then? Well its key strength is high–speed stability, low and squat, unyielding to whatever lies ahead. Find a flat out root and rock section of the highest fertility and you have a bike that will dive in like a rampant Venice Beach whore; not sure where that came from…still, what I’m saying is that the M9 is very much ‘up for it’. At speed. It’s not a slag, but you can get loose on it. I know, I’m digging myself a hole here.

Maybe that’s the reason why the Chris Kovarik/Intense partnership worked so well, that less than subtle approach, he was after all the man that put the M into places and podiums most people feared to tread. It was an utterly compelling affiliation that should have yielded more than it did in terms of podiums. World Cup downhill is lesser for it.

Kovarik – charismatic, athletic. It went with the brand. Yet it may be the strength of the M9 that knocks its pace back slightly, you need the explosion, the fast twitch and I’m not so sure the M9 has yet to explore this territory. Cane Creek compatibility is another, I simply failed to achieve the very characteristic CCDB smoothness on this bike. It was only until we bolted a BOS shock into it that we got any fluidity to the rear damping.

More than this, whilst the Intense is always committed in the ugly, stable through express sections, I can’t help but feel that even though it’s now the ninth incarnation, that the neighbouring V10 (not version ten) has definitely evolved to a higher level than the M9 since 2003. You simply cannot get away from comparisons with the similar VPP design a few hours north.