From Downcountry to Enduro | Trading a Trek Top Fuel for a Transition Sentinel

     For the past two years I’ve been pedaling around a Trek Top Fuel. A “down-country” bike with 120/115mm of travel and 29" wheels. For those not familiar, down-country bikes have slightly longer travel and aggressive (longer and slacker) geometry than a typical XC bike would, making them descend better but still climb super well. Just search downcountry on Pinkbike and you’ll figure it out real quick. I *had* the shortest travel bike in the shop by far, but it really fit my riding style at the time, long pedal days with loads of climbing and descending.

    I found the Top Fuel to be easy pedaling and very capable in most applications but I definitely pushed it beyond what the engineers in the corn fields of Wisconsin designed it for. I rode it as if it had longer travel and on trails more suited for bigger bikes. Aggressive is a good way of describing it. Was it fun to ride? Definitely, but riding that soggy fall day made me say “enough is enough, it’s time to make the switch to a big bike”. Fast forward a couple months and I now have a Transition Sentinel hanging in my garage.

    This is the first long-travel enduro bike I’ve owned with 160mm of front end squish and 150mm in the rear. I’ve gotten a handful of days on it so far and I’m beyond stoked. There are a few reasons why I decided to get the bike I did so let me dive into them more.

More Travel: I thought my 120mm Fox 34 was enough for the vast majority of trails I rode but having a Fox 36 with an extra 40mm of cushion is pretty wonderful, especially for those “oh shit” moments as I start to push my riding and hit bigger features. Not only that but more travel has made it feel like I'm not riding on a packed up fork with just the last ~20mm of travel available. The packed up feeling was most notable on fast, steep and rough trails which I have been seeking out more recently. Another reason is I get more suspension options with a longer travel bike. With numerous offerings from Rockshox and Fox for both air and coil shocks, I can experiment with different setups to find what I think rides the best. I’ve been curious about trying a coil shock so one might be in my future soon, especially given Transitions have fairly progressive leverage ratios. I’m excited about this because I was pretty limited on what I could do suspension-wise with the Top Fuel. More travel, as I’ve also come to learn, is simply more fun for going downhill.