This relationship is still very new and we are still finding out more about each other, so I don’t want to jump to early conclusions. I don’t want it to be like when you find a seemingly suitable partner and it’s all rosy until you find out she snores like a old dock worker. Will this geometry work for me day to day? Only time will tell.
They say that you should never judge a book by it’s cover, but who reads a book with a boring cover? The Pole certainly does not look boring, it’s like nothing else I have ever ridden. As I built it I worried that it may feel crazy, it’s so long I did not even have to cut down the rear gear cable! However, as soon as I hoped on board it all felt pretty balanced. Yes it is wildly long for sure, far longer than anything else on the market, but the steep seat angle means the reach feels natural and comfortable. With 456 mm chainstays you are certainly aware that there is more bike behind you, but the effects were not as I expected.
Climbing
I have to admit to being a bit dubious about our relationship here, with such a long front centre and steep head angle, surely the Pole would punch uphill with the accuracy of a floppy eel. I needn’t have worried, the very central riding position and long chainstay keeps plenty of weight on the front wheel and there is little flip-flop or hunting from the wheel, no doubt influenced by the trail-reducing 51 mm offset of the Ohlins fork. The steep 77.5 degree seat angle feels brutally efficient under power too, you sit high over the bottom bracket rather than in the back of the bike and you feel that all your power goes into forward momentum rather than that ‘pushing the bike’ feeling you get with some bikes on steep climbs. The long wheelbase also seems to help with traction, and early testing has revealed that you can tractor up surprisingly rough terrain with ease. Simple physics dictate that a 1314 mm wheelbase needs more space to negotiate uphill switchbacks, but they don’t feature much in my winch and plummet riding so it’s no big deal.
Descending
With DH bike geometry, I guessed that this is where the bike would be strong, and first impressions here are very good. Despite being hugely long, it doesn’t feel lazy into the turns and carves steep turns with ease. An unexpected bonus is that the long wheelbase gives you much more room to move inside the bike, perfect for when you have to throw some theatrical shapes, and the long chainstays help keep the front wheel weighted without having to hang out over the bar. For sure it will probably be rubbish at super tight switchbacks, you know the sort where you have to hop the rear round, but for me super slow speed switchbacks make up about 0.00001% of my riding, what’s more important is how it handles fast hard turns. There is still a lot of setup to do, bar height, fork compression and tyre pressures, and I have not run it against a stopwatch yet, but at the moment it feels fast, very fast, but hugely composed and stable, like it’s just ticking over. It will be interesting to see how it feels on faster trails. I just need to figure out if I want to go as fast as the bike seems to want me to go!
Coming next….. The next installment of the #thegeometryaffair will deal with setup and timed runs against a more conventional bike. You can follow the build and behind the scenes testing of this bike through the season using the #thegeometryaffair tag on instagram. Check out Part 2 of the #TheGeometryAffair here
For more information about the Pole head to polebicycles.com
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