A flat-bottomed down tube uses almost all the available width of the bottom bracket shell for stiffness. The head tube is a conventional straight pipe rather than tapered, but that’s not at all surprising at the price. It’s a colour scheme that is likely to divide opinions, although for what it’s worth we quite like it. We like what’s underneath it too – a low-slung, compact frame that’s been built for some abuse. While it doesn’t have any effect on performance at all, the first thing you’re likely to notice about the Ramones is its bright green paintjob. It is a heavy bike, but not offensively so given its intended use and price.Ĭommencal ramones al2: commencal ramones al2 Steve Behr/Future Publishingįrame & equipment: Low slung and great looking despite entry level transmission If you’re massively into climbing you probably won’t be buying a bike like this anyway, but with a decent low gear, a stiff frame and grippy tyres it’ll winch up most things if you’ve got the legs for it. As it stands, the Commencal really likes slow, steep, nadgery stuff, but a fork upgrade would be the first thing on our list – even an entry level aftermarket model would make a huge difference. It gets bouncy at speed though, lacking any noticeable rebound damping. There’s bags of grip, the geometry works really well and when you weight the front in corners the fork feels okay. On a lesser frame it would be less noticeable, but the Commencal’s chassis is sufficiently stiff to throw a bit of fork twang into sharp relief.įundamentally, the Ramones offers great handling. It’s not the stiffest thing out there either. Unfortunately, riding like that exposes the weakness of the fork, which exhibits a top-out clunk every time the front wheel leaves the ground. The layout of the bike makes you want to pop the front off pretty much everything and also makes it easy to do so.
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