Product Review: Giant Trance vs Surly Krampus

I thought about reviewing the Giant Trance 2 and the Surly Krampus individually, but it occurs to me that they aren't so different. The more I thought about them, and about mountain biking in general, the more similarities I discovered; they're both basically the same thing: bicycles designed to ride on all terrain – road, trail, or otherwise. When ridden by the right type of cyclist, their capacity to move from point A to point B is less a question of mechanical superiority, but mental and physical willingness.

The key difference between the two bikes is, therefore, one of ideologies. To compare these bikes is to assess the concept of mountain biking and recreation in general. The question at the heart of this review is one posed by the machines themselves. Each bike asks its rider: what are you?

First, let's examine the Surly Krampus

The Krampus falls into a recently invented category of mountain bike called "29+." It is a bike designed around its tires. Big, fat, tall tires. The Krampus is the baby of a farm tractor and a BMX. 

Rugged durability, low maintenance, and versatility are the Krampus's selling points. I used it for rock crawling, snow-commuting, trail grinding, hill climbing, chill sliming, wheelies, and as a monster truck. My attitude on the Krampus is the attitude of a tank commander: roll over everything. With the tires pillowing at around 12 PSI, traction is a guarantee in nearly all situations. We'll get at the "nearly" in a bit. 

Where it succeeds: 

Uphill. The Krampus climbs not like a mountain goat, but like a wildebeest. Point it in a direction and charge. The huge tires aren't great for wiggling around rocks and roots, or for sticking to a technical line, but they excel at going over. Under a rider who can keep momentum, the Krampus becomes a trampling juggernaut. 

Where it lags: 

Downhill. Have you ever been playing basketball near a hill, and then a shot goes wide and the ball bounces like a mad boulder down to the bottom? Imagine trying to coerce the random lope of that ball to turn left and right, to slow down at moments, to not bounce. That's the Krampus, it descends like a basketball.

For the urban rider this can be an advantage: by hitting a speed bump just right, somebody who likes defying gravity can soar as high as a garbage can. 

Now, the Giant Trance

The Trance isn't so much a bicycle as it is a whole-body mechanical augmentation. To ride the Trance is to bond with a machine in a symbiosis that allows a human to do what only gazelles can. This isn't strictly an attribute of the Trance – all full-suspension mountain bikes at its price range ($2,700 yikes) can give even me, the most slack-jawed muppet of a rider, super-human abilities. 

Where it succeeds: 

Everywhere. I worked in a shop on the South Side of Chicago. My 13-mile commute took me from the commercial North Side, through downtown, and into the post-industrial shadow of the University of Chicago campus. On my road bike I could do this commute in 45 minutes. On my Trance, I did it in 40. The reason? On the Trance I didn't avoid, I went over. Curbs, rocks, stray children: up and over I go. The Trance is slower than a road bike on a paved trail, duh, but paved trails tend not to go exactly where a commuter wants. When the option is to fly like a crow or follow some urban designer's approved route, we all know which is the better. 

Where it lags: 

In the work stand. The Trance has lots of moving parts, and every one of them needs maintenance and every one of them is a potential failure point. Hydraulics, air-inflated multi-link suspension systems, springs, pivots, levers, pressed bearings, asymmetric rear triangles, exotic materials – esoteric technologies, all. Do you trust your mechanic? 

They who enjoy riding the Trance must, as a consequence, enjoy tinkering with the Trance. WARNING, BORING EXPLANATION OF SHOCK ABSORBER SET UP TO FOLLOW. IF YOU WANT TO GET INTO FULL SUSPENSION, GET USED TO THIS SORT OF THING.  Think about the rear suspension alone. There are three riding style adjustments: open (for bumps), medium (for whatever), and closed (for climbing). These settings determine, in essence, how much bounce the rear shock will absorb. The open setting is soft, but that robs the rider's pedaling efficiency, closed does the opposite. Oh, but there's more. What rebound setting you running? How about your PSI? You know you have to air it up before every ride, right? Some full-sus bikes even give a rider the option to move where the shock connects to the frame – thankfully, the Trance is not one of these bikes. Oi. How much of your life do you want to spend fussing with gear? If you want a good guide on how to set your suspension up, check out Seth's Bike Hacks.

Though, there is one bit of arcane componetry that I must thoroughly endorse. 

Ode to the dropper post!

How can I justify my miserable joke of a life before the dropper post? Everything I do is better when I can avoid the fear of castration-by-saddle. Hit the switch and it falls away. Then, when I want it back, the switch goes 'boing' and there it is. The dropper post is one of the greatest performance enhancers of the modern cycling era. I don't ever want to own a mountain bike (or any bike really) without one again. Hell, I think road bikes should have them. A seat that goes away and re-appears on command, what divine sorcery! What if you could make the handlebars rise and drop with a button? The dropper post is just the beginning, think of it; right now the rider has to adjust to fit the bike and adapt that to riding conditions, but what if the bike could change on the fly to fit what the rider wants? Welcome to the future! Though, oddly, I don't really use the dropper much on most MTB paths–adjusting seat height annoys me when I'm trying to focus on the trail. In the city, where I'm required to suddenly shift way back to hop up and down stairs and loading docks, the dropper post shines. 

I'd also be remiss if I didn't say something nice about the Shadow derailleur that comes with both the Krampus and the Trance. The Shadow-D makes use of a one-way clutch that works like the seatbelt mechanism in a car. It allows the pulley to swing under regular slow/gentle actions, like shifting, but locks up with sudden jolts, like landing after a backflip. This reduces chain-slap and improves shifting. Cool.

Where the Trance and Krampus meet and diverge

If the goal of mountain biking is to have fun, test one's limits, explore, etc, then a reviewer has a hard time telling the subjective difference between either machine. They both have equal potential for fun and excitement. 

Objectivity is also a quagmire. Though the Trance has many, many more do-dads that can enhance the riding experience, those do-dads come with a price. The Trance is more expensive to buy and maintain, and upkeep must be done before and after every ride. Because of that, the Trance is more likely to be treated as a prized object, and that mindset is anathema to the concept of mountain biking–one must get dirty and dented to appreciate the nuance of enjoying the act of overcoming the physical and psychological obstacles inherent to the sport. 

So I propose a new measure of quality that blends what the bike is supposed to do with what it actually does, set within the context of what the rider is capable of.

Promises made and reality:

Starting with the Krampus again, the thing I get stuck on is the wisdom of designing a bike around the wheels. What if the rider goes places that the wheels aren't comfortable on? My problem with fat tires is that although they get great traction on loose and uneven surfaces, in slippery conditions they stick like motor oil on a hot Teflon pan. More than a few times I turned a nondescript corner on my local trail and felt the bike come out from under me. In the winter I took to riding flat pedals for quicker dismounts on uneven snow piles. The tires float, you see. While that's great on sand and dirt, on ice or wet mud I need a tire that bites. Traction is a precarious thing; you can't buy it with a guarantee, so the ideal 'float vs bite' ratio can be a delicate balance, and the Krampus weighs heavily on one side of the scale. 

To that end, the Krampus can be boring at slow speeds, and harsh at high speeds. The big, fat tires soak up little bumps and undulations, but there's no defense against sharp hits from rocks and roots. On a long day of riding my hands gave out while my legs were still warming up. The ideal environment for the Krampus would be composed, mostly, of loose gravel, sand, or slightly wet grass–but that negates the ideology of Surly, that they make versatile, utilitarian, do-it-all bikes. The Krampus is a specialist, a niche machine, masquerading as a free spirit. 

Though, with a good front fork I might change my mind. Double though, a new 29+ fork costs $400. Add that to the asking price of the Krampus, $1600, and you can buy a Giant Trance on sale instead.

***

The Trance comes with a different set of promises. Giant sells its full-suspension bikes for a lot of money, and with that financial sacrifice it's fair to expect a life-altering ride.

And it delivers.

But, at what point does the bike overshadow the rider? In my neighborhood there are a few stair sets I was afraid to go down on the Krampus, but I hit them on the Trance without a second look. On the trails, I ride at full-speed whenever I can, and hit every obstacle with nary a thought to what might be the correct line. The suspension just soaks everything up. When I ride it I feel like superman, but is that because I'm a good cyclist or is it just a really good bike? I want to believe the former, but I worry it's the latter. The real concern here is that with my machine-enhanced ego I might be convinced my skills can take me places they really shouldn't. The trails that provided a challenge on my old mountain bikes are tame on the Trance, and so I have to seek out gnarlier terrain and faster speeds. With that comes danger, but it's the creeping kind of danger that I can't see until I'm upside-down in the air thinking, "That was bigger than I thought." The Trance hides risk like a card shark hides aces. 

And then, of course there's the matter of fussiness. I'm rare because that, to me, is a selling point. I'm a bike mechanic, I enjoy messing with shocks and adjusting ratios and taking things apart. I enjoy ritualized before/after ride upkeep. I enjoy using my tools and problem solving. I like the Trance partly because it's fun even when I'm not riding it. But to everyone else, necessary labor can be a frustrating hidden cost. 

Also, I don't want to ride it in the snow. Even if it gets more traction than the Krampus, I don't want to risk corroding any of the nice parts. Maintenance is fun, but spending hundreds to replace rusting components isn't. As much as I like the Trance, I have an ethical problem with this. If I can echo my earlier sentiment, when a bike is too precious to be ridden, it might as well be replaced with what its owner really wants: a painting.

Conclusion:

If I were forced to buy one bike or the other, and I would have to live with that decision for the rest of my life because I could never buy another bike again, I would choose the Trance over the Krampus. The Trance is MORE, more in every way: more expensive, more speed, more fun. 

Even if it's a false feeling of superiority, I like how capable I am on the Giant. I can do things on a full-sus that I can't do on any other bike. The Krampus, for all its traction and ruggedness, goes through the world in 2D; the Trance lives in 3D. Where the Krampus rolls over everything, the Trance flies. 

Liftoff

Though, this is assuming that the bikes exist for recreation. 

If it's a zombie apocalypse, I'm taking the Krampus, no question. The hoard would have a hard time stopping them monster wheels.

And hey, if you like the post and you're into mountain bike reviews, check out this one on the Surly Karate Monkey. In the mood for MONSTER CROSS? Check out this one on the ALL-CITY Gorilla Monsoon. Or hey, here's one on the unboxing of the Giant Anthem.