My Unprofessional and Premature Niner One 9 Review

This coming review is highly unreliable. I have only really ever ridden one other 29er single speed in my life. It is now my long lost love. A 2007 Raleigh XXIX. Rigid and single. Another reason you should disregard most of what i say is because i have only ridden my new bike once. Indoors. For a few hours and even less miles. So think of these coming words as a First Impressions review comparing my old bike to my new. Here it goes...

First thing i noticed was actually during the final stages of the build up. The EBB. Those stupid things are just a pain in the butt. Seriously. To shift the EBB to the right place you have to put an allen wrench in the hole in the hole in the side of the EBB and shift the crankset abound so it actually pushes on the allen wrench. There has got to be something i am missing? Perhaps a tool? Anyways, this is just the one thing that bothers me. But everything is just awesome.

Needs Some Of These

The second thing i noticed while riding the bike is the acceleration. HOLY CRAP the thing moves. Just about flipped over backwards. Now this is mostly because of the fact that the bike weighs probably close to ten pounds less then my old Raleigh (by "my old Raleigh" i actually mean "my Dads Raleigh i sort of borrowed for an extended period of time"). Most of the Lbs coming from the massive WeirWolf 2.55 up front and the Maxxis Ardent 2.4 in the rear. Both with heavy tubes. Compared to the light wheelset and light Schwalbe Racing Ralph 2.25's on my new bike, they are beasts.

The third thing i noticed while riding was the feel of the suspension fork vs. the rigid fork. Now this took me some time to get used to. The Raleigh had a non-suspension corrected fork. Real low and real agile and real clean. The first time i went out on my Niner it felt a bit... sketchy. I really wasn't used to the extra few inches you sink down and when your weight shifts forward. Kinda made me nervous about everything. But after an hour of riding it around Ray's Indoor MTB i started thinking it was the best thing ever. It really made me excited for the Brown County Breakdown this year, becuse last year i did it on the Raleigh and after 40 miles thought my hands were going to just fall off (really wreck my career as a hand model). Maybe to the 60 or 75? Just have to wait and see.

Whelp time for me to go to class. Hopefully this shed just a shard of light on those who are thinking of purchasing a Niner One 9. I highly recommend it. And in a few months when this snowpocalypse is over, i will write a review when i ride it on some good old dirt.

Vid stolen from BikeRumor