![]() Finally, there’s room for a full-sized water bottle on all sizes, which go from small with a 430-millimeter reach up to XXL with 515. The fit and finish on the Mega is just as clever. It is a brilliant idea that, hopefully, will catch on. Norco has started doing the same thing, but without using the “saddle offset” metric. In practice, this lead to actual seat tube angles getting steeper as bikes went up in size. Starting with what they decided was the optimal saddle offset for each frame size, Nukeproof chose the seat tube angle that would achieve it. Nukeproof found that, for many brands the rate of increase in saddle offset varies between frame sizes, even though the effective and actual seat tube angles may stay the same. The way Nukeproof does it creates a far more real-world impression of how far behind the pedals you’ll sit.Īnd more importantly, going by this number allows for far better consistency between frame sizes. It’s like measuring reach by downtube angle or something. Suddenly, this idea made our focus on seat tube angle feel a little ridiculous. It’s the horizontal distance between the center of the post and the point directly above the bottom bracket, measured at a given saddle height for each frame size. Nukeproof is the first brand I know of using something called “saddle offset” to measure effective seat tube angle. Part of that, of course, is the steep seat tube angle. It doesn’t sink too far into its travel if you’re just calmly pedaling up a hill, minding your own business. It loves to sit and spin, which is what I want out of a bike with this much travel. It really came alive when smashing through stuff, where that predictable feel helped it manage big and small hits consistently.Īll that support did great things for how the Mega 290 climbs. Even at the just-over-30-percent sag I landed in, picking my way through stuff at moderate speed wasn’t enough to get the suspension moving. That works well with the Mega’s preference for riders with a heavy hand and a lead foot. I always had something to push off, and it always felt like the same bike no matter where I was in its travel. When I would compress the bike before jumping or unweighting through a section, I didn’t slide into a valley in its sag. There’s nothing all that revolutionary, just a leverage curve that stays straighter for longer. Just as orderly is how the Mega’s suspension behaves. I felt like I could bring order to the chaos. ![]() That’s when the Mega 290’s predictability made it stand out. Trails where the level of force it takes to initiate a slide changes twenty times every second. I’m on a mess of loose small rocks scattered over a mess of loose large rocks with the occasional exposed root stretching across at exactly the wrong angle. But I’m not cutting a big ol’ Nike Swoosh into every mirror-smooth decomposed-granite corner. I had an unusual level of control over when and how I’d let the rear wheel loose. That’s a rare thing on a 160-millimeter 29er. On the Mega, I felt like I was one with my rear tire’s contact patch. Megasync review Offline#A bit of lateral deflection can help you keep from getting knocked offline in a chunky, rocky section, but it makes for a vague boundary between grip and slip. There’s less guesswork involved when things go sideways-in-a-good-way.īut I get more of a kick out of what a stout-feeling frame means on natural terrain. One of my favorite trails has a sharkfin lip cut into the highside that allows you to send it into a downslope out of a turn, and there’s something about how the Mega handles it that almost makes it almost feel straighter. That’s also true on the sorts of jumps that involve any side load. If you dive into a berm with moderate speed or too much speed, the Mega will always have the same reaction. ![]() The obvious benefits emerge on feature-packed trails. I happen to weigh 190 pounds, so I might notice it more than some riders, but this bike likes to hold its shape, no matter what I tried to toss it into. On the Mega 290, one of those choices was about lateral stiffness. Nukeproof has a reputation for serving aggressive riders, so they tend to make deliberate choices about ride quality. I was worried that the Nukeproof Mega 290 Carbon would be that kind of good bike. Bikes have made it especially hard lately by being so damn good that “good” often becomes the overwhelming theme. Enough to make for an interesting, enlightening review. Get access to everything we publish when youĮvery time we bike testers pick an assignment, part of us worries whether there will be enough to talk about. ![]()
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