nwfreeride

@big-red: Propain Spindrift Park

@Kilian1b15Gt: you are correct about the shape of the leverage curves. You are exactly incorrect on what it means for the rider.

This is a good, objective review (Thanks, Matt). Despite my username (thanks 2006!) I'm no longer a freeride guy but love reliving the early glory days of Blackrock, Post Canyon and sketchy trips to the North Shore. Now, I'm a late 30's avid mountain biker who still loves riding steep and technical terrain all around the PNW as my escape from corporate work, kids, yard work, etc. Life is good, bikes make it better. I also own a Sresh SL. I'm not sure how many people in the comments have actually ridden Propain bikes, so I thought I'd chime in. After decades of owning enduro bikes from Santa Cruz, Yeti, Ibis, Pivot, Transition, Turner, etc., I rode a few Propains and added a Sresh SL to the garage replacing my full-power enduro eMTB. I wanted a lighter eMTB which could be built burly, push my fitness a bit, and provide an analog feel on steeper descents and technical trails. My Sresh SL is built with a Zeb 170, Vivid Ultimate, 580 battery, big brakes and heavy tires. I think Matt did a good job highlighting the TQ HPR60. It's not a full power eMTB, and for what I wanted it's great as I can get a 5k day in and still feel good about it. I personally like the suspension performance of the Propains I've ridden (Spindrift, Tyee, and Sresh SL) as it pedals similar to the VPP and DW bikes I've owned, but has quite a bit more progression which is something I loved about my Transitions but could never get out of multi-link bikes. To me, Propain balances anti-squat and leverage rate progression well. It's not perfect, but with a bit of suspension tuning and proper sag, I'm really happy with it. I'm also not a discerning professional mountain bike editor, so take it all with a grain of salt. Lastly, it feels good to support a company actually building high-quality bikes bikes in the US at reasonable prices. That's not something many companies are willing, let alone able to do.

You can build any configuration you want on the website - the models are really just a starting point.

Very likely selling that oso at a loss to burn through remaining drive units and batteries. That oso price is basically mfg cost.

ICR is not that big of a deal and these are really awesome bikes. I'm amazed how quiet the Tyee CF is.