jng7000

It will definitely depend on what trails you ride and how aggressive and fast you ride downhill. I have a new Blur and on my local trails here in Northern California I often use the entire rear travel, front shock not very often though. But honestly the only way I realize it is looking at the ring on the shock after the ride. I've never really felt a hard bottom out necessarily. Compared to my 5010 the blur is definitely more of a 'hold on tight, baby jebesus take the wheel' descent on the blur if it's steep and techy but I don't find it to be that big of an issue. I'm very happy to give up a little on the downhill for the speed and lightweight feel of the blur. I really love my Blur but If blasting downhill for the KOM on steep techy trails is your main focus then this is not the right bike.

@tommyrod74: Admittedly, calling it a gravel bike was a bit of an exaggeration on my part :) But I did feel like most of the rides I did on my gravel bike I'd be better off with straight bars and just a little bit of suspension. But maybe if you put a roadie on a mtn bike and the same trail they'd think the bike would be better and faster with drop bars and without the suspension. Totally agree with you, much of the right bike comes down to what trails we ride in our local area too. Beyond that, I personally think most of us are over biked and this whole 'downcountry' thing is people slowing realizing this. Like you, I started riding mtb in the early 90's and many of the same trails we do today we all did on hard tails back then and never thought twice about it. But it sure didn't take long to get used to a little bit of cushion for the pushin'! However somewhere along the way people started buying 170mm travel bikes to use on the local bike path.

I picked up the X01 blur a couple months ago and absolutely love it. Good spot on review from the PB guys. I bought a gravel bike a year ago because I loved the idea. Then I found out I hate gravel bikes because I'm a mtn biker. The blur is sort of like a gravel bike for mtn bikers who hate gravel bikes except it's way more capable on trails. Feels super light just as advertised which makes it easy to throw around and really excels on climbs & long days. Downhills are not a problem at all on the blur but for sure there are much better bikes for downhill. I'll give up a little on the downhills for the quickness and light feel this bike has though. Is it a single quiver, do everything bike? Not really, but for a lot of us it's probably good for 70% of your rides. You just have to hang on a little more if you want to mach speed that downhill on the other 30%.