Our friend Coda just took delivery of a slightly customized size M5 GoodOnYa. Here he is at corporate HQ.
Today he went for a short local ride and posted this in an MTBR thread.
Well, here it is. It looks like a DH bike and a hill climb dirt bike had a kid. It doesn’t ride like anything else I’ve ever ridden. Lee may or may not be crazy, but he’s definitely not wrong about bikes.
Lee was great to work with on the design. We talked back and forth a bit and landed on a 1334mm wheelbase bike. 460mm reach, 718mm stack (!), 525mm chain stays, 66º HTA, 72º actual STA, 74º effective STA. For reference I’m 6’4” with long arms.
The build is SRAM XX, Lyrik 160mm, Super Deluxe, Mavens, OneUp bar/stem/dropper, Berd wheels, Conti tires. Total weight is 37.25lbs, which feels bang-on for a >1300mm wheelbase metal bike with DH tires. Build quality is solid, nothing super fancy, alignment is good, paint is great, welds are good. Build was pretty straightforward: the dropper housing is a pain to route, everything else is externally routed and delightful, the rear brake needed ~1mm of spacers. Setup was also straightforward — running the SRAM recommendations for pressure in both fork and shock. I’m using the progressive air can for the shock plus max volume reducers to counteract the linear kinematics of the single pivot.
To be up front, these ride impressions are based on a shortish ride today. I’m nursing a sinus infection and rocking some wild toddler-molar-induced sleep deprivation, plus it’s a deload week for me, so I wasn’t out breathing fire and setting PRs. Anyway.
Seated climbing and low-speed tech stuff is just incredible. I’m not terrible at track stands, but this thing pretty much stands up on its own. Transitioning from sitting to standing is really easy and standing climbing up steep stuff feels incredibly natural. I’m used to having to lean forward and scoot up on the saddle and hang off the handlebars on steep stuff, but on this you just stay upright and keep pedaling. The steep HTA and the short reach make it feel very nimble despite the wheelbase, with the rear sort of floating along behind you.
Descending and cornering are really good. It’s weird to feel like you’re riding aggressively over the front wheel without actually putting much weight on the handlebars. Makes it very easy to react to terrain and just sort of float over stuff. I didn’t get a lot of descending in today, but I did send it on a rock garden feature and it felt really calm. Likewise, I slow rolled a drop during a shakedown ride that was high enough I scraped the chainring protectors but I felt really centered and stable the whole time. The short reach and high stack mean you can really push into drops and steeps without getting pulled forward. I’m used to running 30mm of spacers under my stem, so having a single 5mm spacer made for a really precise-feeling front end. It felt stiff without feeling harsh.
Suspension performance was pretty good. The progressivity of the air shock made for good small bump performance but with OK mid-stroke support for pumping, and the hydraulic bottom-out does wonders for bigger hits. I’ve got a Linear XL air can on order to see how more progressivity feels. There’s a bit of bobbing under movement, but with a little more LSC it felt pretty comparable to linkage-driven single pivots I’ve ridden. Under braking, either it got a little stiff or I’m just not used to having less weight on the rear wheel; either way it skidded a little more easily than I’m used to. Nothing major, and honestly a good reminder to stop dragging my rear brake.
I’m not sure how much more riding will be possible this winter, but I’m definitely blowing up my indoor training mesocycle in favor of getting out and shredding on this thing. Happy to answer any questions.
— — —
I’m happy to answer questions too.
Lee