I've had mine since March and have ridden it round Swinley, on local trails and at Trailbreak's Big Wight Navigator (the old Wight Diamond).
I changed the Nevgals after Swinley as I found it was sliding on the corners too much in the wet and they were a bit slow on hardpack and tarmac. I ran it with 2.1 Conti Vapours, tubeless with Stans Liquid and they are fine, cornering much better and providing predictable grip in most conditions.
In the Isle of Wight I had 1.5 Conti's, again ran as tubelss with 'Stans' in, as I needed to cover some road miles fast and the trails were dry and hard. Using the lockouts on the road, coupled with the bike being very light made it very fast and quick to pull away/accelerate. The gears are crisp and positive - but then most are when new. I find the Avids a bit snatchy compared to the Hope Mini mono's I have on my other bikes. The forks are about the best I've ridden, no 'stiction' and very smooth through the entire travel.
Off-road it climbs very well and the Maestro does keep the back end pretty stiff if you keep good pressure on the pedals. Flag a bit or relax and the back starts to move more, but then there's always the lockout if things get very steep. The stem fitted is fine for fast riding and less testing stuff, but for tight single track it's a bit long. I tried it with a shorter stem for Swinley and it felt better so I shall probably make the swap permanent.
My only critisism of the bike is pretty fundamental, in that I have found the BB seems to be very low – even with 200lbs in the rear shock to minimise sag. I am 12.5st / 175lbs / 80 kilos. Over rough ground I clip the pedals a lot more than on any bike I had in the past and I've had a few. Riding ruts is a lot trickier than on previous mounts too. I find the rear seems to squat in cornering (adding to the risk of clipping the pedals on the deck). I've tried the 3 way rear shock in pretty well all its settings and still feel the back end is too low once the suspension gets active and you keep pedalling. Level the pedals and point it downhill and it's quick and fairly steady. In these situations the low rear doesn't seem to cause any problems.
This is my only gripe really and I'm still looking into why the back end feels the way it does. Everything else is as the review. It may be a bit tame for some but it can probably handle anything I'm going to put it through.
