Good questions. I’ll do my best to answer.

But oh God. Where to start? Maybe at the end. Or ends. The rear one has a frankly ridiculous 170mm of travel which leaves me short of adjectives to describe that 180mm fork.  In between sits a carbon frame strong enough for the worlds rowdiest riders to plunge it into some terrifying freeride abyss.

It’s obviously very slack and noticeably long*. What may be less obvious is what the hell is in doing transiting the one-way departure lounge that is the ShedOfDreams(tm)? It’s akin to handing an automatic weapon to a toddler**. Clearly inappropriate and someone is going to get hurt.

Let’s rewind a bit. Remember this?

http://s921463159.websitehome.co.uk/?p=4900

The SlackMo was awesome in Spain. No that’s not quite true, Spain was awesome. Probably my favourite ever trip for all sorts of reasons, many of which had nothing to do with riding. We’ll be back to that when my to-do list fucks off and leaves me in peace for a few days.

Anyway the bike was faultless, but not perfect. I kind of felt like I’d – if not ruined it- pushed it a bit too far from its design parameters. It still saved my arse from many full-pucker moments, and sped a whole load of perfect memories through dusty optic nerves.

But it lost a bit of the RipMoNess which is hard to define, and seemingly impossible to replicate***. I would really like my fantastic trail bike back and that’s a problem. As the Rascal has taken top spot in that category. Which made em-biggening the RipMo a logical evolution. Shame it didn’t quite work out.

Which is kind of where we came in. What started as a desultory search for a new rear shock to take the RipMo further into Full Enduro territory somehow morphed into ‘well that looks interesting, mm only full bike that’s no good, oh here’s a frame only in my size, I wonder if there is a deal to be done, Hey Carol I’ve got an idea……’

There was indeed quite a deal. Fellow keen-of-eye hedgehogers will endorse their spotters badge cataloguing familiar parts recently attached to my forever bike. Apart from the bars, stem and pedals because, I dunno, let’s go with a schism in the space-time continuum.  Better than anything I’ve got.

I don’t know what was worse burgling the RipMo for parts or washing the Spanish dust of its blameless tubes. No I know what was worse, the frame abandoned in the rafters glaring balefully at the back of my head. I’m sure I can hear whispering ‘after all I did for you, THIS is how it ends, you ungrateful bastard‘. I mean harsh, but it’s a fair point.

There’s a very good chance it’ll get rebuilt. I have many parts and a desire to ride it again in stock configuration. I might have to dig down – Batcave style – to carve out sufficient space to store it tho. It’s getting a bit crowded on the workshop side****

Having decided to go big and then go home, we had a couple of freezing nights in Matt’s unheated garage to build the Green Monster. The Pistachio Princess came together with little drama, other than Matt fixing the many and varied issues created by yours truly not really being on the RipMo disassembly ball.

The frame is really nicely finished. It shares its brand name with my 2014 Mega but not much else. Composite curves have replaced brutal industrial design. Clever details  take precedence over lowest possible production costs. Really this frame has a close equivalence to all my boutique Ibis’s, except for the price.

So how does it ride? This was very nearly a review of riding it along a freezing river towpath after we built it. It’s debut on the Wednesday night ride was raincheck’d by a 90 minute deluge flinging freezing rain at the windows. A collective ‘fuck that‘ saw those of us with ‘something of the night about them‘ heading straight for food and booze without passing any sodden trails.

Dark clouds and a misty head greeted the morning as I trudged out to this shed. Work needed to be done. Deadlines to be met. Commitments to be honoured. Adulting absolutely required. Luckily I’m not the man for that job, so I waved a couple of fingers at the Mac and, instead, wrestled the shiny bike onto the trailer.

Trail conditions rocked that lethal combination of still hard dirt covered with about an inch of rain filled slop. Known locally as ‘Greasy Snot Death’ they are without doubt my least favourite way to crash horribly. And yet nearly two hours later the only thing needing plastering was the shit eating grin on my fizog.

The Giga is like a very capable trail bike. Until it isn’t. In trail bike mode, it’s super supple, finds grip everywhere and has exactly one speed going uphill. It’s an efficient climber, but not a fast one. Downhill tho, you have to recalibrate exactly what a modern mountain bike can do.

Then you let the brakes off and it becomes something else again. I’m not sure what that is as the experience left me a little shaken. I’m probably going to need some faster eyeballs to do this bike any kind of justice.

We’ll see how that goes. Modern bikes are all pretty much brilliant. The RipMo is one of the best in that trail bike category. The Giga feels like it can do that and quite a lot more. And if it can’t, well I know the old stager won’t ever let me down.

Let’s find out shall we?

*just fits on the bike trailer without needing a wide load warning. “Just” is doing some heavy lifting here.

**unless you’re a certain type of US citizen. In which case that’s called a 2nd amendment birthday gift.

***I’ve tried a few times. Fair to say mistakes have been made.

****Somehow a broken road bike has slipped into the shed. There are reasons and most of them start with ‘that bloody turbo’