Believe the hype; 29er’s rule!
I posted a picture of my new Niner EMD9 a couple weeks ago when the build was finished and this morning I got it out for the first ride. The trail is only one mile from my house and half way there I turned around to pump up the positive air on the fork; way too soft. No time to fine tune it, it was almost a rigid ride. But…right to the single track; this thing slices and dices, points and shoots, cuts to the chase and gets you in and out of the turns! I went right to a nasty, rooty downhill to uphill switchback and it went around and back up no problem. The only issue I had was that I could lean the bike over so far in the turns while pedaling that knocked my foot out of the pedal once or twice, got to watch that. I’m sold; Niner really has the 29er geometry dialed. It doesn’t ride like suspension, but it rides like a hardtail with a Thudbuster. Everything is smoother and jumping over large logs is like with suspension. This thing is great! I can’t wait for Niner to release the carbon fiber fork so I can try it and drop the weight down to 21.something. Hope it’s here before Xterra’s start.