Issues, we had a couple including a pivot problem, but as this was pre–production we sorted it, putting it down to a heat treatment issue and lack of bearing clamps. I was also meant to be reviewing the Cane Creek DB air versus coil but don’t feel I’ve totally got to the bottom of it just yet. There’s a slight ‘bump/step’ in the air spring of the DB air, which Cane Creek say can only be felt when off the bike. This is the ‘flat spot’ in the air spring curve where the negative and positive air pressures are equivalent. I’m sure it doesn’t affect performance, but I’m just not convinced it should exist. I also found the compression circuits slightly weak on the coil in comparison to the air. Further work is needed on this before we can fully report back.

Up front the Fox 34 did a reasonable job although on a bike of this travel and speed it cannot be long before we see and need a sturdier chassis with more travel up to 150mm. That said, we’ll be needing stronger wheels as well by that point. I had no need to pour in more oil to the 34 to add progression/lose travel but was running pressures some way over 100psi. Away from the damping the front end needs to be slightly lower on this bike in line with the smaller version, just to get a bit more pressure on the front tyre. High pressure in the forks doesn’t help matters. In short, lower front, bigger fork, more travel please. We’d have run a wider bar also on this bike – around 780mm.

Verdict? ****ing bonkers to be honest. It’s big, long and fast, and you charge into sections far quicker than you should do for a bike of this nature. Big tyres take away manoeuvrability, quality wheels are even more necessary than on the 26” version. A simpler and cheaper RockShox damper set–up on the smaller bike proved more lively at slower speeds but offered less muscle and stability on the fast stuff. Both are very good.

We’ve become used to weight transfer issues on a lot of trail bikes when pushed hard. That simply doesn’t happen on this bike, however it still lacks the travel to cash in that stability, so get good wheels and go steady.

It could possibly do with being a shade lower and a touch stiffer, and I wish I wasn’t in between sizes, nevertheless this Five has dealt with the enduro race environment well here in southern France, and would have absolutely no issue competing on it for that purpose. That’s probably not what it was built for, but that’s what it wants to go and do!

Production Orange Five 29” (with different spec to our version) £2999.99 in limited custom black/gold

www.orangebikes.co.uk