Review: The 2019 Banshee Legend 29" Rewards Aggressive Riders

Contents

Note: We typically do not test prototypes at Pinkbike. In this case, we received this bike earlier this year when production 29" DH bikes were nearly non-existent. Publication of this review was delayed due to injury and other commitments, and now falls at a time when there are numerous 29" bikes available from other brands.

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Construction and Features


The Legend is a complete alloy construction with a mix of hydroformed tubes and forged chunks. Banshee says 'the components are net forged and then post machined. This aligns alloy grain structure to increase material strength by almost 10% and significantly reduces waste.' The belly of the bike uses a huge cradle to connect the bottom bracket to the seat tube and down tube. This cradle also houses and protects the shock which is mounted to keep the center of gravity as low as possible. More machined components connect the cradle to the seat and top tubes, as well as providing mounting locations for the 'KS Link' suspension.

There is no bottle cage mount and all of the cable housing is kept external; Banshee feel that a downhill race bike shouldn't use internal routing to cut down on wrenching time at tightly scheduled events, especially for privateers. There is no adjustment on the frame except the tapered headtube, which could give slight reach or angle adjustment. There are no flip-chips, and the rear axle is fixed, unlike many of Banshee's trail bikes that offer different dropouts to change the geometry or hub size.

Suspension Design





Unlike some brands, Banshee were happy to share their data and the kinematics of the Legend, which has some interesting design points. Keith Scott, the head engineer, says they wanted to build a downhill race bike that would generate and maintain speed, and be stiff and accurate, with comfort being a low priority.

The first point is that the bike has high anti-squat values to increase pedaling efficiency, but also to help generate speed when pumping terrain and landing jumps. To offset some of the harshness from the AS characteristics, the initial part of the axle path is rearward (-7mm from static to sag point), and the leverage ratio is very progressive to the sag point, starting with a very supple initial stroke and ramping up quickly.

Past the sag point and the anti-squat starts to fall away quickly along with pedal kickback to absorb big hits better, and the leverage ratio falls away and really drops away at the end of the stroke, the point where progressive air shock will start to compensate and where coil shocks will gain some extra end-stroke ramp up from the bottom out bumper.

Build


The Legend 29" will only be available as a frame kit, and various complete bikes will be available depending on global distributors. Our test rig was built by Loam Distribution, the French base for Banshee. Suspension was taken care of by Fox and their 2019 model 49 fork with the latest Grip2 damper and DHX2 coil shock. The rest of the build was completed with SRAM's X01 DH 7-speed shifting, Spank Spike 350 Vibrocore wheels, and parts from RaceFace including SixC cranks, and Atlas bar, stem and grips.

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Earlier this year, my tire pressures were set at 22/24psi with DH tires, but after lots of riding, getting stronger, faster and more confident on downhill bikes, I have now upped the pressure on all bikes to 24/26 as a baseline for better support.

I kept the fork stanchions at full extension and the bar as high as possible - this was the ideal height for me, but taller riders may want something more than the 20mm rise SixC bar. The SixC bar came in at 820mm wide, with a few extra mm's added from the lock-on grips, this felt great on really wide open terrain, but I cut them down to 800mm to be inline with other test bikes and make tight trees a little less scary.

Testing took place on a variety of trails, from Finale Ligure, Pila, Les Gets, Verbier and some of Piemonte's best kept secret bike parks.

Riding

The first thing I noticed before even hopping on the bike was the insanely supple first few centimeters of rear suspension travel. The bike would sag under its own weight, and needed hardly any pressure to get it moving further. On the trail, this gave incredible tracking and grip in the first part of the travel, and rolling speed down the trails seemed massive, as you can barely feel the initial hit of the bumps trying to slow you down.

On small bumps, the rear suspension really did outperform the front end, and the change to a 203mm air spring from 190mm later in testing helped to equal this out. To really equalize the performance, I think a change of fork could help to give the same incredible traction in the beginning stroke, something like a Formula Nero or the Ohlins DH38 with multiple adjustable air chambers could be tuned to give a super light initially stroke to match the rear. The 49 is a fantastic fork, but the tuneability to match this style of bike isn't quite there.


I have been waiting to try a downhill bike with a truly long chainstay length for a while now, and the Legend didn't disappoint me. Yes, sometimes it feels like a monster (and doesn't fit properly on to most ski-lift racks), but in reality, the long chainstay puts your center of gravity more into the middle of the bike. This makes weighting and steering the front easier, and the 'Holy crap my bike feels massive in this tight corner' goes away, as that is caused by being too far off the back of the bike and the light front wheel starting to get away from you. Planting the front wheel into the turns and staying central allows the back wheel to lose traction slightly and oversteer around the corners. Secondly, on fast sections and especially off-camber and flat corners, moving your body weight fore and aft is de-sensitized, making it much easier to add or subtract body weight to adjust grip between wheels as you feel the tires tracking then sliding.

On long corners the Banshee corners like a demon, too; the achievable lean angle is more than anything else on test before breakaway. Do you need to lean over more to be faster? I don't know, but it makes you feel like a king. The massive wheelbase, centralized position and low bottom bracket height are to thank for this. If those corners are rough and loose, the supple initial stroke of the suspension really keeps the wheels tracking the ground.




As suggested by Banshee, this bike does pump and generate speed better than the high-pivot DH bikes with idler wheels to generate more speed, and I think this could be an advantage depending on the track, if you were racing at Leogang, for example. The midstroke support that helps with pumping also helps to hold the bike up in its travel when pushing hard into berms and trying to increase exit-speed. The downside of this characteristic is that the bike is harder to hold on to, and absorbs less in the midstroke in rough sections like rock gardens. But on a track like Andorra or Val Di Sole when bump absorption and scrubbing off speed is the priority, then the full high-pivot bikes will offer a less fatiguing and easier ride.

Despite the falling rate of the leverage ratio at the end of the travel, the Legend took everything I could throw at it in its stride, although the production version will have slightly increased progression at the end of the stroke, as requested by some of their team riders.

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Technical Report


RaceFace SixC 35mm Handlebar: These handlebars are really stiff, and combined with lock-on grips they are not for me: too much feedback, arm pump and sore hands. For heavy riders who charge really hard they may work, but I will take a 31.8mm alloy bar every time.

Fox Suspension: The Legend came with the 2019 Fox 49 with the Grip2 damper that has high and low-speed rebound and compression adjustment. The Grip2 damper is much less harsh than the RC2 on high-speed impacts and makes the HSC adjuster more usable than on the RC2, which needed to be left fully open for many riders. Fox's setup guides on their site have also been updated for the 40/49 and the X2 shocks, which should get most riders very close to ideal settings before getting out of the garage.

Is this the bike for you?

The 29" Legend is ideal for tall riders who want an XL bike with a matching XL chainstay. It's well suited to riders who want to push hard and generate speed in bike parks and downhill tracks, but are strong enough to hold on, and for people who want a bike that is fast, stable, and a break from the norm.

Pinkbike's Take

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Reviews and Tech Reviews DH Bikes Banshee Banshee Legend