![]() ![]() The suspension has an easy-to-find balance, front to rear. I swapped to a 45mm stem, and rolled the handlebars back which helped with balance and moved my hands further behind the front axle, a change that allowed me to weight the front wheel more in turns and when braking with less of an over-the-bars sensation. I'm a sub-50mm stem kind of guy, on any bike, and don't like heading into corners or steeper drops and chutes with my hands so far over the front axle. The first thing that had to go was the 60mm stem. I spend most of my time riding long travel bikes over the 30-pound mark, so that wasn't an issue just don't expect this thing to race out of the blocks like some kind of sub 20-pound XC whippet. The weight isn't a hindrance if you put it out of your mind and get on with the job. Sliding the seat to the front of the rails helped, but for the L/XL sizes, I feel this could be sharpened up with a steeper seat angle. I found that my tall seat height, combined with the slack seat angle and short chainstays, added up to a compromised, seated-climbing position and front wheel wander when compared to some modern, forward-geometry bikes I am used to. The Hawk Hill is fairly efficient considering the weight and does a good job of munching up the miles. It's hard to judge a $1,500 bike against carbon superbikes costing four to five times as much.the kind of bikes we test riders are often fortunate enough to test. That said, both of these adjusters stayed wide open for all of my riding. The same is true for the fork, which has five clicks of rebound over a wide range, and five clicks of low-speed compression, which takes it from open to near lockout. The clicks aren't very pronounced, but after finding a base you are happy with, you should never need to move more than one click either way. I found I had to drop from the advised 132 psi in the rear shock down to 115 psi, and add an extra 10 psi in the fork (up to 100 psi) to get the sag and balance I preferred.ĭialing the rebound into the X-Fusion shock is simple, as it features a wide range of adjustment over its ten clicks. X-Fusion recommends starting with 80 percent of your weight in pounds, RockShox's air pressure guide is located on the back of the fork leg. Preparing the bike for its first ride was a cinch and simply required setting the air pressure setting and adding a few clicks of suspension damping. And, yes, there are water-bottle cage mounts.blessedly located on top of the down tube. Though the bike doesn't come with a dropper post, there's provision here to run one. The rear brake is routed externally and the rear derailleur routing is internal. These inserts, however, can be removed to upgrade to a 142mm x 12mm bolt-thru hub. Rear dropouts begin life with inserts to create 135mm quick-release spacing to match the supplied wheel. The bike also features a tapered headtube, 73mm, threaded bottom bracket and 30.9mm seat tube. The Hawk Hill is constructed from Series 3 6061, butted and hydroformed aluminum tubes. 135mm Open Dropout (upgradeable to 142x12mm Thru-Axle).Serbutted and hydroformed aluminum frame. ![]()
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