Banshee Season 3 Review
Melissa Hassel
My buddy calls me up this morning and tells me one of his buddys from work is coming over with his 04 banshee and to come over and see what my 96 had on it. I get over there and its a pretty damn good looking banshee. He had Fmf fattys and power core 2 silencers, cool head 21 cc domes and k&N pods. He said he was jetted at 330 mains 27.5 pilots.
He was about 180 maybe 190 lbs and I am 240 on a light day. So I figured he would hand me my ass. Both of us left in 2nd and got great starts, by the time we hit 3rd gear I just walked away from him. Dead even up to 3rd then from 3rd to 6th I gained 2 quads on him. This was the same result 3 times. I got a bad start once almost wheelied over and still got back in it and passed him just before the finish line.
They even sound a ton different. My old style sound a little deeper and it seemed they stayed on the pipe a good bit longer than his new style. He said he only had 1/2 a season on his rebuild and mine had about the same .
I was a little leary of getting old style pipes because I thought the newer ones made more power unless for some reason my quad is a factory freak of sorts. But if you see a set of these check em out, they rip pretty damn good. I will admit the newer ones look alot cleaner but the old ones arent for looks, they are for go!
The results you got between the two bikes could very well be a jetting problem, with the other one. I'm not saying that's it, but I used to have a set of Fatty's, and they ran great. Improper carb tuning will kill the performance.
Theres no jetting problem, I used to run Gold Series pipes on my old banshee. They are by far my favorite twin pipe setup for a Banshee. They worked awesome on my dune play/ race bike. I have ridden a lot of bikes with different pipes, the only other pipe I like as much as gold series pipes is my current dyno port 2 into 1 pipe. Do yourself a favor and dont ever get rid of the gold series pipes.
Was the other bike yours? If not, you don't know whether or not, there was a problem with the jetting. Personally, I liked the newer Fatty's better than the older series Gold pipes, but to each his own. My point in this whole post was this, there are too many other factors in a drag race, to say this pipe is better than another. Rider experience, state of tune, and several other things have a big impact on the outcome, and it just doesn't mean one pipe is better than the other. Most of it simply boils down to personal preference.
He said he rode both of them, so if the jetting was off he should have been able to tell. I have ridden bikes with both pipes, and its true that the gold series has about the same bottom end and midrange as a fatty, then pulls harder toward the top.
Could have been jetting. It just didnt have the same feeling when riding it. I am very impressed with the pipes. And I know there are alot of variables to drag racing. I was just stating my result on that day. Its possible another banshee similar to mine would eat me up with the new style fattys on a different day but hey.
Only other difference was pipes and different aftermarket reeds and I would win @ the hill but it was close. Then he changed to sheares and it was all over for me untill I got my CPI's now again it's close.
Over the Christmas break I had a chance to put together a new DJ bike after retiring my older Opus. This year I decided to go with the Banshee AMP after a great season of riding the Banshee Legend. Calling up Banshee and ordering an Amp frame in black was an easy decision.
I had to wait a while as the company was completely sold out at the time. Thankfully, the guys were cool enough to ship it out immediately after it arrived, since I was seriously stoked to build it up!
The AMP can be purchased as a frame-only or as a complete bike. I opted to go with the frame-only and build it the way I wanted with a mix of black, red, and white components. With gear from Answer, Manitou, SunRingl, Twenty6, Loaded, Cane Creek, and Syncros, I was good to go.
Pictured above is the packaging for the complete Cane Creek 40 Integrated headset. You can only imagine how small the actual headset is. I even ordered the tall carbon cover so I could get some height to my stem without a stack of spacers.
I decided that because of the riding I do (mostly the indoor bike park in the winter and dirt jumps in the summer), I was going to make sure I could stop, climb over obstacles, and get the bike up to speed quickly. To do all of that I needed to make it light. I also took into consideration some of the things that I will not be doing (20 ft. drops or 360-degree back flips) and opted out on some features.
I decided to run the Manitou Circus Expert this time around. I loved using the Circus Comp on my old bike, and after a service it is still running strong. But I wanted to build this DJ bike as light as I could, so the Expert was the way to go.
Installing the Cane Creek headset is pretty easy. Since all you have to do is install the lower crown race and the bearings (no need for cups), the only difficult thing is cutting the steering tube to the correct height.
The next thing I was looking for was a balance between weight and strength in the parts I chose. I looked at what I had on hand, and the Syncros Fric stem that I reviewed not too long ago was first on the list. The Fric is lightweight, and at 45mm it is the perfect length for this application.The unique design of the Fric makes this unit friendly to the *anatomy*: close-fitting, without any bulk or sharp edges.
The MSRP for the frame is $675, but I am sure you can grab one for a couple of dollars less than that. A complete bike build like mine may cost around $2,000 if you find deals here and there on components. The great thing about a frame build-up is that you can make it as nice or as economical as you like. Half the fun is putting the bike together and choosing the color palette.
I would like to thank the folks at Banshee for setting me up as well as the folks at Manitou for the Circus DJ up front. A big thanks to the folks at Joyride for keeping up the great work and providing a fun, safe place to ride!
This is a frame-only review of Banshee's 6" travel Titan. Being a frame-only review and because the build has been ever-evolving, there is a certain degree to which this is a snapshot. Essentially I'm reviewing my experience as the bike sits - from my own mullet wheelset and coil shock, to the Wolf Tooth -1 angleset - on the day that Deniz shot it. So this is a telling of my experience with the Titan and the evolution of my build. Certainly, this has been the most interesting bike review I have undertaken. A curious consumer of content could follow that process through a number of pieces on NSMB:
As much fun as this process as this has been, I'd call the Titan as shown here 'complete.' That is to say, I'm no longer seeking anything from the bike it doesn't deliver, and other than some fresh brake pads and some routine shock & stem swapping I haven't made a single component change since Deniz took these shots.
Seeking nothing more from the Titan this seems as good a time as ever to put together a review. I have a lot to say about the Titan and the process so I can say in advance that this has all been edited for brevity lest it becomes some sort of Odyssey. If there's some detail or avenue that seems to have been missed please hit me in the comments.
The Banshee Titan is the strong quiet type and lets its performance do the talking. Predictable and supportive. It encourages me to explore my boundaries but it's there to bail me out when I get over my head.
If the Titan doesn't have much to say I more than make up for it. I can talk about this bike for hours, as Deniz will attest, so if I missed any details in here please feel encouraged to hit me up in the comments!
No surprise that the TriAir is lighter but that's not a concern for me at all. My shock swapping comes down to the Titan already having a firmly planted feel over all terrain. At my speed and level of pop it takes a lot more muscle to get the bike in the air with the coil than with the less damped feeling SR air shock. I do happen to love the grab-and-go coil setup and just how awesome traction is, up & down, with the Cane Creek setup. Starting from fresh I'd be tempted to try a Cane Creek CCDB Air CS shock to split the difference. In either event, once I removed the stock Fox X2 air shock I never looked back.
On that subject, I don't have anything to add about my experience with the Float X2 beyond my first look. In considering the value of the frame, I would be factoring in the cost difference between selling the stock shock and purchasing one of my choosing. I recognize that some folks are getting along fine with the X2 but I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who tried a different shock - whether it be a DVO, or an SR, or a Cane Creek, or Banshee's recommendation of an EXT - and then didn't find the bike to be significantly better.
For most situations, I prefer my position on the bike with a 50mm stem. Whether running the Fasst Flexx bar or my SQLab 30X I'm running a bar with 12 of back sweep. Occasionally when I'm riding really steep trails and my fork is sitting deep in the travel, or when I'm being a big chicken and riding too far behind the bike, I find the 50mm stem is just a touch too long, so I'll throw on a 40mm stem for that sort of trail. I don't own a 45mm or I'd try the tweener size but really the 50mm feels great 95% of the time and I should just trust the Titan and get over the front a bit more on the other 5% of rides.
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