Intense Carbine 29er

sparksy

sparksy

Likes Bikes
Hi Riders

I'm looking for some feedback on an Intense Carbine 29er.

Pushys.com.au have mega discounts on Intense, and the Carbine seems to fit what I'm looking for.

The chain stays are a little long at 451mm, which comparing to a Santa Cruz Hightail which uses the same VPP link has 435mm and a Specilaized Stumpjumper (without VPP) at 437mm.

Have any of you out there ridden a carbine, and does the longer chain stay feel noticeable?

Also, what happened to Intense, and how did Pushys end up with what seems like a couple of containers full of bikes and frames?

Looking forward to your responses

Sparksy
 
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Big JD

Big JD

Wheel size expert
go for it

Intense are great frame. Pedal well, descend great, light and real all-rounders. My friend just picked up a Spider on closeout.

I have a similar frame - SCTBLTc with similar length chainstays. While I would prefer slightly shorter stays for the tight technical stuff- it amounts to 1.25% of my total riding. The advantages - more stable at speed and climbing outweigh the slightly awkwardness in the tights. In saying that - I ride an XXL 29er - aint nothing going to be nimble in my stable.

I like to have a FS I can flick around and chuck wheelies on. Your Intense chainstay length will not be a problem buddy- go for it.

My understanding is Monza is no longer the distributor- there will be a point of contact for Intense in each State and they will deal direct with USA.
 
JTmofo

JTmofo

XC Enthusiast
hifiandmtb said:
It's a lot of bike, that seems to be the problem:

http://flowmountainbike.com/tests/tested-intense-carbine-29/

Think long & hard about where you will be riding it...
Click to expand...
This is good advice. A lot of people get drawn in with the idea of a long, slack (65/66deg HA)Enduro bike...only to realise they ride mostly single track that a 140mm 67+ deg Trail specific bike would slay.

Long travel bikes are hard work to get the most out of...and unless you ride them hard they will frustrate you.
 
moman

moman

Likes Dirt
The option of running a 140mm fork with a 125mm rear end could be interesting. Wonder what that would make the head angle?
 
caad9

caad9

Likes Bikes and Dirt
JTmofo said:
This is good advice. A lot of people get drawn in with the idea of a long, slack (65/66deg HA)Enduro bike...only to realise they ride mostly single track that a 140mm 67+ deg Trail specific bike would slay.

Long travel bikes are hard work to get the most out of...and unless you ride them hard they will frustrate you.
Click to expand...
What JT says is the most important part, you've gotta make sure the bike fits your specific needs and encourages you to ride it.
If this is the case and a 160mm 29er is exactly what you are after, damn those prices on Pushys are good!
 
Mr Crudley

Mr Crudley

Glock in your sock
caad9 said:
What JT says is the most important part, you've gotta make sure the bike fits your specific needs and encourages you to ride it.
Click to expand...
What JT and Caad9 says.
Seeing someone that had to have the big arsed long travel bike that looked great in the shop then having to push it up hills on National Park firetrail-ish terrain just isn't a good idea. Must suit your expected terrain.
I like more travel as most of us would but need to still be able to climb and not overly heavy or complex. I could not be arsed with an lockout buttons for suspension or anything either. A smart, minimal design will do it for me over many pivoted rotating suspension thingys.

damn those prices on Pushys are good!
Click to expand...
I am getting carbon Tracer Envy. Quick, hide the credit card .............
 
F

Firemanmikey

Likes Dirt
re carbine

I purchased said bike in XL from Stu @ DEFCON in july. I have a stevens hardtail and a jet 9rdo and needed a bike to make the nz trip and Thredbo trips more enjoyable. well, the carbine is great for what I want it to do. procrastinated for ages over the stumpjumper, hightower, sb5.5, etc but when the deal came on for this I couldn't pass it up. I have no probs with the ups as the downs are so much more enjoyable now.
I'm only an average rider that errs on the side of caution, but I feel a whole lot more confident on this bike. I saw the deals at pushys, similar to what I got so I would suggest go for it!!!
 
sparksy

sparksy

Likes Bikes
Thanks Riders

Riders

Thanks for your feedback here. I'm close to being sold on the Carbine. With no one that I am aware of locally with a Carbine to have a look at, I'm going to Pushy's warehouse this week to "kick the tires" as the final step in the selection process.

Also for any of you interested, I'm considering doing the following:

#The carbine standard is 160mm front with 140mm rear, with the ability to change the shock position in the rear to give 127mm. This wold make for a pretty unbalanced bike at 160/127!

#I'm considering buying the bike as well as a 140mm pike air shaft (and additional bottomless tokens) to drop the fork to 140mm, giving a 140/140 bike. This will steepen the head angle slightly (67 deg standard), and lower the bottom bracket (349mm standard, a touch on the high side) as well as reduce wheel base (although probably only a few mm's). This may balance the bike out nicely for my local trails, plus give me the parts to refit when I take it to the bigger riding trails (or enduro races).

#With the 140mm fork, the 127mm rear setting might make more sense for the occasional XC ride over trail chasing.

#I'm going to see if I can have a bit of a play with the suspension settings etc. when I kick the tires, and measure the head angle (as long as I can get an inclinometer from Bunning's) and the bottom bracket height to see what the delta is.

Let me know if any of you are interested in the results and I'll update in this thread.

Sparksy
 
sparksy

sparksy

Likes Bikes
Update Post Tire Kick

OK Lads, I kicked the tires today (Rad Bike, Rad Price), plus checked out the geometry changes from dropping the fork to 140mm.

#With the rear set at 140mm, and the fork compressed 20mm to 140mm, the bottom bracket height dropped from 349mm to 340mm. This puts it only a few mm above the Spider (335), Stumpjumper (336mm), Enduro (336mm) and Hightower (337mm).

#With the rear set at 140mm, and the fork compressed 20mm to 140mm, the head angle increased circa 1 deg to 68 deg. It was difficult to read any more granular than this as the inclinometer that I used didn't have a large enough dial to get a finer read. For comparison the Spider is 68.5, Stumpjumper is 67.5, Enduro 67.5 and Hightower 67. In real terms, the change could have been anywhere from 0.5 to 1 deg.

In a lot of the credible test ride articles that I read on the Intense Carbine 29, the long chain stays (451mm) copped a slaying, with a few commenting that it was difficult to wheelie and manual the bike, and this transferred to handle-ability on the trails in tighter stuff. I took the bike to the car park for a wheelie and manual test, and guess what, it wheelies and manuals easily!

There were a couple of negatives with the set up. It is very tall in the front end, but the bike also had 2 x spacers under the stem, a 60mm Stem with + rake, and riser bars. I think that a 40mm stem slammed down to the head set, with a flatter bar would improve the cockpit (and make wheelies and manuals even easier).

So the synopsis, I think that I have found my next bike, and will go ahead with dropping the fork to 140mm. It seems like a slightly whittled round peg, for a round hole.

Thanks for the feedback and discussion lads.

Shred trails.
 
H

haltz

Likes Dirt
With my tracer the bike handles great dropped to 140mm but the rear is no where near as progressive as when I have it in 160mm. There's no difference in the way it pedals besides having a little bit more clearance having raised the bottom bracket but I think if you go for it you won't even feel the need to change it for xc rides, the bikes are that fun and playful that even on my backyard xc loop which over 14km only has about 150m elevation in 160mm I can run a muck and even clocked a few sneaky koms up against the mad dog Lycra bandits hahaha


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
sparksy

sparksy

Likes Bikes
I think that you are on the money Haltz. I followed a mate around Awaba XC yesterday (on a Specialized Epic), with him riding a Santa Cruz Hightower at 140/140mm, which will is very similar to what I'm planning with the Carbine in suspension and geometry. His bike ate it up, and blew away the XC bandits (with a look of confusion on their face!).
 
K

komdotkom

Likes Bikes and Dirt
I've got both a Carbine (27.5 though) and Spider 29C.
If I had to have one as my only bike, it would be the Spider. The Carbine is a bit too slack for day to day stuff and is terrible for steep climbs as it's nearly impossible to keep the front wheel on the ground. Don't get me wrong, it's a cracking bike and if you ride at Buller all the time then it's perfect; but if it's just your average XC and light AM stuff - Spider all the way.
 
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