Our resident Spokewrench tester Jack has finished his long term review of the Titus Super Moto. Here is what he has to say about the bike.
I have now been riding this bike for the past year and have had the opportunity to ride it in almost every environment from cross county to downhill, and in every weather condition from winter to summer. I would not necessarily consider this an all-mountain do anything bike, but short of XC racing and steep climbing, it is can be built up to handle pretty much anything else.
Looking at the geometry of the size large frame, the key dimensions are a head tube angle of 67, top tube length of 23.75”, wheel base of 43.96” and a bottom bracket height of 14.65”. From these dimensions it is apparent that in relative terms to other bikes in its class, it is a short and tall bike with some nice middle of the road angles. It is tall, steep and short for a DH bike but has a great balance for an all-mountain or freeride bike with an emphasis on technical capability.
The size large frame comes in at a hefty 9 lbs with the standard Fox DHX 5.0 air shock. The shock is a 2.5” stroke by 8.5” length version giving 170mm or 6.7” of rear wheel travel. To compliment this sturdy frame, the bike was built up with a Fox 36 van RC2 coil fork with 160mm of travel, Hope Mono M4 brakes with a 203mm front and 180mm rear floating rotors, Chris King ISO HD hubs laced to Stans ZTR DH/FR rims wearing Kenda 2.35 DTC Nevegal tires, Saint dual ring cranks with an E13 DSR guide, Sram X9 shifters and medium cage rear derailleur, XT front derailleur, XT 12-34 cassette, Cane Creek Double Xc headset, Answer Pro Taper OS bar, 90mm Thomson Elite X4 stem, Thomson seatpost and WTB Rocket V SLT saddle. All put together, this adds up to a 34 lb bike including Crank Brother Mallet pedals. It was originally built up with XT trigger shifters an XTR rear derailleur, but this was changed out since the B knuckle contacted heavily with the Horst link.
In building the bike up I noticed a few things. First, the attention to detail in all the parts of the frame is great. Sealed ball bearings are used at all pivots except bushings are used at the Horst Link pivots. The frame and suspension links are formed tubes or are CNC machined billet aluminum pieces with no castings in site. The bottom bracket shell and chain stay mount is a single CNC machined piece for greater rigidity. Tire clearance is excellent and should be able to hold most tire sizes on the market. The colour of the bike is listed as anodized copper. I love the colour but it is a bit misleading in that it is painted in a manner to give the mate look of anodizing. The cable routing to the rear derailleur and brake is nice and direct and follows the pivots in the suspension to avoid ghost-shifting problems. The cable routing to the front derailleur though is a bit flawed though. The derailleur is mounted off a stubby faux seat tube coming up from the bottom bracket shell. With the mount for the chain stay pivot right behind the bottom bracket though, the cable has to take a severe bend from the cable ferule to the derailleur. I found that the cable has a hard time staying on the guide on the derailleur and when it slips off, it makes shifting very difficult. To fix this, I ended up wrapping a tie-wrap around the mount and the cable. This was intended as a temporary fix but has been standing up well and is hardly visible.
To maximize the traction of the bike, I chose to set it up on the plush side with 35% sag and use this in all riding situations. At 34 lbs and 160/170mm of travel, you would not expect it to be a great climber, but it can tackle all but the steepest hills as long as you aren’t in a rush and concentrate on keeping weight on the front wheel. The rear suspension remains reasonably bob free whether you are seated or standing as long as you pedal smoothly. This is with the ProPedal set relatively soft so that the suspension can remain supple. More of an issue when climbing is the high bottom bracket, short cockpit and the tall front end. With experience and determination though, it can climb most hills you’d run into in a typical XC ride.
When it comes to steering, the geometry is aimed at a being confidence inspiring in most situations. It is not nervous in the least bit, but when the going gets fast and twisty, you notice that it takes some deliberate effort to make it turn and is far from the razor quick turning of an XC race bike. Where this pays off though is when you point it down a hill or hit technical terrain like a rock garden. It responds with a planted feeling that will allow you to tackle terrain that you might not otherwise attempt or feel nervous doing. With the compact central cockpit, you can easily shift your body weight around to optimize traction at whichever end you desire. Lofting the front wheel is practically just a matter of thinking about it. Lean back with a slight lift of the bars and you can get the front end up and over nearly any obstacle you care to challenge yourself with.
If your love is riding over rooty and rocky technical terrain, this bike will be your best friend. It floats over obstacles that would impede the forward motion of most bikes and could stop an XC bike dead in its tracks. You can pedal through a rock garden that will use up most of its travel and still feel in control and not get kick-back in the pedals from the suspension action. Also, with the tall 14.65” bottom bracket height, you are far less likely to be bashing your pedals on things when doing so. At 9 lbs the frame is not light, but Titus claims it is one of the toughest freeride front triangles ever made. You can definitely feel that the frame is rock solid underneath you. It is particularly apparent when you hop onto another bike after riding this and notice that they feel like a wet noodle in comparison.
When if comes time to hit your local shuttle lift accessed DH playground, this bike is still in its elements. Though its geometry is not aimed specifically at DH, it is more then capable on most runs. It flies nice and level and remains manourveable. If you are looking for a DH specific bike, I think there are better choices out there, but if you only occasionally visit DH venues, there is no need for another bike if you have this in your stable.
This brings me to my one reservation with this bike. The 2007 version is only offered with one shock option, the Fox DHX 5.0 air shock. This is one of the best air shocks I’ve tried, but with 170mm of rear wheel travel, you can definitely feel the setup compromises that any air shock are going to impart. By nature, air shocks have a relatively steep rate at the beginning and end of travel and are relatively a flat and low rate through the middle. Fox has added adjustable ProPedal and bottom out resistance so that the dampening can help overcome this deficiency. In all it works reasonably well, but it still falls somewhat short of a good coil shock. Seeing that a coil shock is only about 1 lb heavier then this air shock, on a 34 lb bike I think there are many riders out there that would prefer the coil option. I feel that with the markets obsession of low weight, manufactures have been forced to offer air shocks on a large range of their bikes to the point where we are now starting to see DH specific bikes with air shocks on them.
The good news with the shock on the Super Moto is that it is a relatively low leverage ratio at 2.7:1 so it allows for a great degree of tuning to find the sweet spot between it being supple, having sufficient bottom out resistance and not blowing through the middle of its travel.
After running the standard Fox air shock for a while, I decided to try a Cane Creek Double Barrel coil shock on it. Like I suspected, changing to the coil shock unlocked the true potential in the suspension and made a great match to the coil fork on the front. To me this was the difference between a great bike and an amazing bike.
Though this is a review of the frame, mention of a few of the build components used is in order. The Fox 36 Van RC2 fork compliments the frame nicely, has great trouble free performance and is only marginally heavier then their Talas air fork. A 1.5 steer tube would be nice to see though. The Hope Mono M4 brakes with floating rotors are awesome. Great one finger stopping power with all the modulation you need. They do squeal when they get wet or the temperature goes significantly below freezing, but this is not unusual. I plan to try other pad materials to see how they work. The Saint cranks nicely complement the stiffness of the frame and are not overly heavy. The E13 DSR guide does it job but the jockey wheels are prone to wearing. The King/Stans/Kenda wheels and tire combination are stiff, strong, roll great, have awesome traction and are reasonable in weight. Titus recommended the Double Xc Flush version headset, but upon installation I discovered that the adjusters on the top of the fork hit the bottom of the down tube. Knowing that a crash is just a matter of time, I decided to use the taller Double Xc headset instead.
To sum up what this bike is all about, it provides great capability in a wide variety of riding environments thanks to a well proven Horst Link rear suspension incorporated into a robust frame. I find that nine times out of ten, when it comes to deciding which bike to take on a ride, this is the bike I take. It strikes a balance that suites almost any ride, but most importantly it always puts a smile on my face. If you judge the quality of your ride by how much fun you have per mile and not necessarily how fast you cover that ground, this is a bike that should be high on you shopping list.
Thanks Jack for the great review. Unfortunately, Titus will not be producing the Super Moto for 2008 and beyond so Jack may be one of the last lucky ones to have gotten his hands on this great frame. We'll like to bring in the new Titus El Guapo for our next Project bike so that we can do a direct comparison between the two bikes.
Team Spokewrench
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