Here’s what I think, overall the is a good bike to get you into the sport, but there minimal parts that may be upgraded in the future, 1st the drivetrain, it makes lots of noise, but for just 140 your could get the MicroSHIFT one that works really well, but make sure you can just buy a new front chainring, not a new bb and crankset (about 80), now on some of the older models, the brake and shift lever are combined, so if you have cable brakes I would get hydraulics also. Lastly I suggest a rockshox Judy air fork, just so that it’s more soft and to get you a more durable and better fork. Other than that, it’s about what you would like, (grips and pedals) and after that, it’s a very capable bike, that could ride ride roads, dirt jumps, I’ve even done 5-6 foot drops with very small chainslap, and speed down double blacks without a problem!
I have rode the bike for around two years. I have replaced rear brake pads but I can’t break traction on the rear tire while breaking. Almost every big jump makes the chain hop off.
So we haven’t found a super great solution yet but here’s an idea that we’ve seen done and have done on some of our older bikes. It’s sort of hard to explain so we’ll do our best. You can take a piece of plastic or cardboard and make a loop with it using duct tape and connect it to the chain stay. Have the chain go through the loop and make the loop small enough and tight enough so it pulls the chain up a little bit. This will make it so the chain doesn’t flap down as much and will make it a little less likely to fall off. Sorry this explanation was super confusing and we hope it helps. Perhaps we’ll make a video on it sometime.
They are both great bikes however, we like the brakes and geometry of the Pitch a little more than the Talon 2. The drivetrain on the Talon is MUCH better than the pitch though. Overall, we’d recommend the Talon 2 as (for the most part) it has better quality parts.
Haha, good question and we feel your pain! We have another bike review of the Giant Talon 2 and we noticed with that bike, the chain falls off a lot less often than with this bike.
We might upgrade the drivetrain (derailleur, cassette, chainring). As for the specific chain, we may need to lengthen or shorten it or just get a new one.
Ahhh. Ya it’s very possible. The demand for bikes sky rocketed during quarantine so it’s fairly likely that the prices will go down after it especially once the supply of bikes gets back to how it was.
Huh, that’s interesting. We never had any of those issues. I guess we’ll just keep riding it and possibly do an updated review sometime if anything happens.
