When the Transition TransAM. turned up I was relieved to find that this little green beauty had a tail that would bend…

From Dirt Issue 115 – September 2011

I like hardtails. They give you feed back from the terrain you are rolling over and you can’t (well most of the time anyway) 50/50 anything when your tail is hard, 30/70 is about the bare minimum. Most people appreciate a hardtail, for some the harder the better, but in my opinion (and actually my wife’s also) a tail that can bend a little this way and a bit the other way, is the tail that everyone is looking for, particularly when you are ‘tailing’ it down the woods (if you know what I mean?).

When the TransAM. turned up I was relieved to find that this little green beauty had a tail that would bend. Flex. Take the sting out of things and not send me to either:

a) The chemist (for a dose of cod liver oil for my joints).

b) The dentist (harsh vibrations would rattle my fillings loose).

c) The doctor (as a tail that’s continually hard can be a worry and can make some of the important parts of your body feel like they are falling off).

However, just because the frame is made out of the material you want it to be made out of (on this occasion steel), it doesn’t mean that you will suddenly fancy blondes, when most of the time you go for brunettes.

Unless you’ve been having your breakfast for the last ten years with Robinson Crusoe, you’ll already know that for the type of riding this bike is made for, the angles are the secret to its success. In other words, crap angles = a crap ride. But here’s the tricky part for any bike manufacturer who builds a bike of this nature. It needs to tick a lot of boxes. It’s relatively easy to build a bike that can go down, but what about a bike that needs to go up also, as well as jump, manual, change direction like a gazelle and rip through turns (flat and bermed).

So, let’s tell you about boxes and the ticking of them…

Click through to keep reading…