ATTACKING THE CLIMB WITHOUT SACRIFICING THE SHRED.
The Offering began when we finally figured out that we were wrong. There we were thinking we nailed all the categories perfectly. The Following MB was the short travel trail slayer, the Wreckoning was winning monster truck rallies, and all was right with the world. It turned out we weren’t as smart as we thought we was, so we started thinking about the idea of having a tweener. A bike that logically split the difference between the Following MB and the Wreckoning. We asked ourselves, why have a 120mm, 140mm and 160mm 29” wheeled bikes? Wouldn’t this 140mm bike cannibalize the Following MB and Wreckoning sales? After enough beers we started to realize that this line up allowed us to focus more specifically on each category of bike. Despite hearing rumours of the Following MB shredding the Whistler Bike Park and the Wreckoning being used as the all-day trail weapon, the Following was initially conceived as the all-day trail shredder and the Wreckoning was designed to shake the forest. We had it backwards all along…. A common theme. As luck would have it, the Offering ended up being a unique specimen featuring some attributes and ride qualities we have been wanting to add for years but needed to wait for the right moment.
The number 74.8° has been the seat angle that has spanned our entire bike line up. When paired with the appropriate travel front fork, 74.8° was a climb friendly seat angle, but as usual we had things wrong. Many of you wanted to ride longer travel front forks and when combined with the lower (X-LOW) of our geometry settings, it slackened the cockpit and reduced the climbing ability that we initially designed into the bikes. With the Offering, we steepened the seat angle 2.2° which lengthened the reach 25mm, putting the medium Offering at a 77° seat angle with a 461mm reach, while increasing front to center by 14mm from 759mm to 773mm over a Wreckoning. We have effectively made the medium Offering use a 7mm longer reach than the large Wreckoning while having a similar front to center. What does this all mean for you the rider? It means that the Offering has all the same popertunities and corner shredability that Evil bikes are known for with an increase in stability and climbing ability.
That’s great, a bike that climbs you say? But how does it handle? Glad you asked. With the seat angle out of the way, we moved onto the bikes handling characteristics. As most of you Evil riders would know the core of the Evil DNA is our love of slashing turns, monster-trucking rock gardens and sending every side hit we can. The Offering keeps this dream alive with a few important tweaks that resulted in a feeling of increased stability at speed, increased traction in the rough and the ability to brake later into turns… even at race pace. For those of you looking for a more traditional, snappy feel, both 43mm and 44mm offset forks also work well. We could have called this the Variable Offset Option but at Evil we have created drinking games based on over-used bike industry acronyms and terms like optimized which we used in the first sentence above, capable, confidence inspiring, and advanced.
During the development of the Offering we noticed how forward the climbing position the 77° seat angle provided. The Offering encouraged you to WANT to climb rather than just accept it as a necessary evil. The longer wheelbase, increased reach and front to center, created a platform to push off and attack with riders noting the increased speed and traction while crushing rough sections of trail and braking late into corners at race pace. We went through 8 different tunes on our trunnion mounted Rockshox Super Deluxe RCT3 before choosing the LLC 380, lowest compression and rebound tune with 380lb lockout force, with no tokens and 30% SAG. This tune balanced the pop with the plow while remaining lively. We chose to keep the low-speed compression (LSC) wide open because the bike pedals higher in the travel and we preferred 4 clicks of rebound from full counter clockwise.
Up front we ran the 140mm Pike with 25% SAG and 15psi more pressure than previous versions of the Rockshox Pike. For compression settings we found 9 clicks of low-speed (LSC) from full counter clockwise, 2 click of high-speed compression (HSC) from full counter clockwise and 6 clicks of rebound from full counter clockwise worked best for us. Our choice to go with a 140mm fork to match the rear travel came to be because as we grow our range of bikes we can really dial in our kits to play to the character and strengths of each model. 140x140 is how we start but if you’re looking for something to handle the bigger stuff then go with a 150mm Lyrik or 160mm Fox 36 up front and the Push 11.6 on the rear. They have a similar axle to crown and won’t disrupt the geometry much, while adding that extra cush to attack all the rocks and roots. Remember to lower that stack height, roll the bars and tilt the saddle down a bit to compensate for the change in geometry. Along with geometry changes and seat angle we also worked on our details, adding a lower shock-mount drain to allow water and dirt to escape unhindered.
We ran our cockpit with Raceface SIXC 35mm bars with 35mm rise, cut to 780mm and rolled back 5° with a 15mm stack height. Our seat was centered on the rails in the LOW geometry setting and slightly forward in the X-LOW geometry setting to account for the 0.6° change in seat angle. We also rolled our bars forward approximately 1° in the X-LOW setting.
(Pickup In Store Only)
