“Dude, the parts for your Blindside are in, come to the shop.” Nathan called me when I was at work. I had plenty of things I probably should have done before clocking out and driving like a mad man to Urban Downfall. One of them was probably telling somebody that I was leaving in the first place.
I walked through the heavily stickered door, and lo and behold! My blindside was being held up in there air by a stand, like a giant, black, gleaming trophy. All of my parts were scattered in boxes on the floor; Saint cranks, Avid juicy sevens, MRP G-2 chainguide, Transition Revolution wheelset, Stan’s no-tube kit, SDG I-beam seat and seatpost, everything I would need to create a masterpiece.
Despite a few set-backs, like not being able to figure out the spacing on my MRP chainguide and having to grind it a bit, everything fit perfectly. The whole bike is black, with little red anodized flares: the hubs, the ODI lock-on clamps, the Marzocchi Roco, SRAM pg-990 cassette, and the adjust knobs on my Marzocchi 888 RC2X. AMAZING!
The finishing touch was to put the decals of my choice on the frame. Transition includes a bag of decals that you can choose from with the colors black, white, green, and of course, red. They aren’t too hard to put on, just have to be careful not to get bubbles. Once the decals were on, the bike was complete. It looked amazing!
Sitting on the Blindside for the first time sent chills up my spine. I hadn’t sat on a big bike for almost a year. It felt plush, smooth, and ridiculously bombproof.
The time had come to weigh it. I strapped it on the scale, and hoisted it into the air. Once the bike settled, I was very pleased. My goal in building this bike was to keep it under 40 pounds. The scale read exactly 39. Not bad for a full-on downhill rig without using carbon fiber components. I could drop this thing off a cliff and it would come out unscathed, and that’s exactly what I did the next week.
I figured that Moab would be the perfect testing grounds for this bike. Moab has perfect natural drops, technical and fast downhills, and also some climbing. Our first stop for the day was Bartlett Wash and the Mushroom Drop. I figured that if I was going to crash or hurt myself and be out for the rest of the day, I might as well do it there. I’ve decided that Bartlett Wash is one of the neatest places in Moab. The mushroom drop isn’t the only reason to go there. It’s literally a giant slickrock playground. It’s like undulating waves of concrete as far as the eye can see. There are tons of little drops, and natural lips to get air off of and throw some style into.
The Blindside was plush and felt very progressive, but when the time came to climb, it stiffened right up. I was very impressed. I figured I would end up pushing it up every hill I came across, but I rode all the way up to the mushroom drop, passing some XC guys. Here was the real test for this shiny tangled piece of aluminum. Standing at the edge of the 25 ft. mushroom drop was a little scary, to say the least. Riding on a new unfamiliar bike is hard enough already! I had set my mind to doing it, so nothing would have talked me out from it. After scouting out the approach and the landing a few times, I was ready.
Everybody was in their place to take pictures. The moment of truth. The Blindside felt stable in the air, which was good because it felt like I was in the air for an eternity. Hitting the landing was smooth; I could hardly tell that I made contact with the earth again. I thought I loved my Blindside before, but after doing that drop, and feeling how much confidence the bike gave me, I was verging on idol worship. Doing the drop the second time I came off the lip a little too slow and nosed down and landed heavy on the front tire causing me to crash. Crashing from 25 feet onto slickrock isn’t the best feeling in the world, and my bike definitely came out better than I did. I was glad that my bike was built to take, not only a drop from 25ft, but a good crash too.
Next was the Moab municipal dirtjumps. Of course it wasn’t as good as doing dirtjumps on a hardtail or a short travel full suspension bike, but it held it’s own. The Blindside really is just a beefed up version of the Bottlerocket. After messing around there for a few hours we headed to our last ride of the day, Amassaback. Amassaback is a famous cross country trail, what you want to ride down, you have to ride up first. Pedaling up on a downhill bike isn’t the easiest thing to do, but the Blindside was one of the best downhill bikes on an uphill that I’ve ridden. It’s not so important to be able to ride a downhill bike up, but I have been in the situation a few times where I’ve had to go uphill on a DH bike.
The ride down is what really counts, right? And the Blindside delivers. Pedaling efficiency was great, the floating disc brake was awesome, and the Marzocchi suspension made all the difference. Flying down the trail at about 30mph, rolling over big rocks, and dropping off random 4 footers everywhere, I felt more confident and stable than I ever have on that trail.
I’m not going to say that the Blindside is the best DH bike that you can buy. It’s not. But for the price, you can’t beat it, and that’s a fact. I absolutely love everything about this bike. The company is great, the geometry fantastic, and it rides better than any bike I’ve ridden to date hands down. To anybody looking for a great DH bike on any budget, this is the one.
Nate Dorsey