Having had a chance to ride a full suspension bike has got me wondering if I should sell the hardtail and get a full suspension.
I love the hardtail, it feels like an almost perfect bike. The attraction of the full suspension became clear at the weekend when riding some of the lumpier stuff at Mākara. I could go faster, felt much more in control, it was not as jarring and it was less fatiguing. Climbing is a little more effort, but not as much as I had expected.
If I do upgrade I would ideally keep the hard tail, but in reality this won’t be possible.
One of the bikes I am considering is the Meta SX or the Meta AM. At the top of Mākara there was a chap with one, and he kindly let me jump on and take it for a quick spin. The thing looked huge, I initially thought it was an XL, it was in fact a medium, he’d gone down a size, which after looking at the geo data I was considering doing anyway, but the chance to actually see one and hop on was incredible.
It doesn’t really solve how I’ll afford another bike, but it does help understand what I might get should the opportunity arise.