Intense 5.5 evp

I owned and rode an Intense 5.5 throughout the period March 2004 to February 2006, this review can be classed as a long term ownership experience of the bike.

Firstly, the 5.5 is a hell of a lot of fun, it has the geometry of a XC trail bike with 5.5 inches of rear wheel travel combined into a pretty lightweight package. On the trail this means that the bike is very responsive in singletrack, accelerates easily and rapidly and can swollow any kind of rough ground that the general rider will encounter. It absolutely flies around the north and south downs and totally levelled all the trails we have visited in Wales. However the 'racy' indestructible feel does have a downside, the bike has to to be ridden hard and concentration is required; therefore as a cruising bike for south downs way type of rides it becomes tiring after approximately 3 hours.

The rear suspension is the VPP design licensed from Santa Cruz and it is fantastic with super smooth bump absorbance together with a real 'dig-in' when climbing. The bearings lasted pretty well and only required one change after riding through a south downs winter. The frame is very solid with zero lateral flex when riding. I built mine with Fox Talas 125mm forks, Hope m4 (180mm rotors) disc brakes and Mavic 717 rims. This build suited both the frame and my riding, it was light enough to accelerate hard yet it is burly enough to take my weight and riding style, large brakes were essential as it is very easy to get out of control at high speeds.

The 5.5 is a fantastic trail bike if you want to hammer the trails (no matter how rough) for a couple of hours, it demands and encourages hooligan behaviour which in turn requires and rewards maximum concentration. However it does get tiring after 30 miles of gentle riding as basically it is very difficult to relax when riding it. If these descriptions match your riding style then you will either love or hate this bike, make no mistake, if you love it you will fall head over heels for it and nothing else will come close.