First Look: Evil Bikes 'The Following'
| Evil's New Short Travel 29er Evil Bikes have officially entered the short and slack 29er category with their new bike, The Following. A full carbon affair that uses a refined version of the DELTA link suspension found on Evil's 26” Uprising, The Following has 120mm of rear travel and is designed around a 120 or 130mm fork. Even with the shorter of the two fork travel options, the bike still sports a 67.2° head angle and a 12.8 inch bottom bracket height in the low geometry setting. Combine those numbers with a 430mm chainstay length, and on paper The Following looks like it should be a ripping good time out on the trail. Two different complete versions will be offered, with the X1 version coming in somewhere between $4500 and $4800, and the XO1 version retailing for between $6400 and $6600 USD. Evil will be releasing the final details, including the full build specs, in the next few days. I met up with Kevin Walsh, Evil's owner, to find out what inspired the creation of a new 29er. After all, Evil doesn't have a 27.5” bike in their lineup (at least not yet, but there are rumblings of more new bikes in the near future). As it turns out, the Following has been in the works since late 2012, when Dave Weagle, the brains behind the bike's DELTA suspension layout, told Walsh that he had ideas about how to create a big-wheeled bike that could corner like the Uprising, but with more stability. Skeptical but intrigued, Walsh agreed to move forward with the project, and before long the first prototypes were on their way. | Details • 29" wheels • 120mm rear travel • DELTA System suspension • Two position adjustable geometry • 430-432mm chainstay length • 67.2° head angle with 120mm fork • Frame weight from 6lb (2.8 kg) • Claimed complete weight, size medium: 27lb (12.25 kg) • Colors: Don't Shoot Me Orange, Black • Sizes: S, M, L, XL • Price: X1: $4500 - $4800, XO1 $6400 - $6600 • www.evil-bikes.com |
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 Low standover, room for wide tires, and internal cable routing keep The Following in tune with the latest must-haves in frame design. |
Frame Design
It's no secret that a number of Evil's previous frames had quality control issues, but the company recently changed factories, moving their manufacturing to VIP, an operation known for producing some of the the highest quality frames on the market. Hopefully this signals the start of a new era for the Evil, and they can shed the issues that held them back in the past.
The Following uses the same DELTA (Dave's Extra Legitimate Travel Apparatus) system as the Uprising, but with a few changes to its location and the mounting hardware. Before diving into those changes, it's worth explaining what the DELTA system actually is. It's a single pivot configuration at heart, but by using short links between the swingarm and the shock a dual leverage rate curve can be achieved. The intention is to have a supple beginning stroke that ramps up for improved pedalling, with a more linear feel later in the travel before ramping up to avoid harsh bottom outs. Regarding the aforementioned changes, the shock is no longer positioned underneath an interrupted seat tube, with the rear swingarm now secured to the seat tube using a 15mm thru axle. Dual row angular contact bearings are used throughout, and only two different sized bearings are used to simplify maintenance.
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| The DELTA sytem has been simplified over previous versions, and now includes a built in sag indicator (lower right). |
Other frame details include the ability to run wider tires, and even a tire as wide as Schwalbe's 2.3" Hans Dampf will fit with 10mm of room to spare on each side. Internal routing is in place for dropper post and derailleur housing, and there's also the option to run a front derailleur for riders still not ready to commit to a 1x drivetrain. Although the advent of 12x148mm rear spacing is on the horizon, Evil chose to stick with 12x142 spacing for The Following, citing the current lack of hub options for the evolving standard.
Pinkbike's Take:
 | Done properly, short travel and slack angled 29ers can be absolute riots to ride. Kona's Process 111 and Banshee's Phantom both left us impressed with their on-trail performance when we tested them, which is why we'll be putting the miles in on The Following in the near future to see how it stacks up against the other contenders in this category. - Mike Kazimer |
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Pick a wheel size and be a dick about it.
-How to be a mountain biker
Men, it is written: EVIL. So stop to complain or argue: you have your eyes when buying.
Someone really "big minded" took that word for the name of the company (nevermind it is bikes or whatever).
Seems they thought kinda: "oh, these teen-agers love so much everything connected with...evil ! let's call our company such and we will got huge sales!"
Couldn't we live just without it at all?!?
Without all that evil-loving or saint-loving mania ?!
Why ever the component is really good it always must called DIABOLOUS or SAINT ?
I have Diabolous cranks with Saint pedals. I dont like the names.
But it is the only thing that keeps my riding in the balance between the HEAVEN AND HELL! LOL
But I would not buy anything from the company called itself: "HORNS & HOOFS bike components".
Do you have PARENTS ?
How would you explain all that evil names of components and brands ?
How about Ashland?
I agree with both of you in that Evil had Quality Control issues with their Evil Undead carbon frames. HOWEVER, as a previous owner of an Evil Undead and having dealt with Evil and Kevin directly, I can say that their current customer service is outstanding. I had an issue with some bearings in the linkage, the bike still worked fine, but Kevin over-nighted a whole kit of new enduro bearings as well as extra derailleur hangars that I didnt even ask for. He has also taken time to answer alot of trivial questions I had about the undead, name one bike manufacture CEO you can say that about? I also had an issue with a very small part of the paint cracking/chipping on my rear triangle, since one part of the rear triangle flexed at a different rate than the rest, it was purely aesthetics and no compromise to the safety of the bike, but Kevin sent me a brand new rear triangle, free of charge. I bought the bike second hand and it was out of warranty when all these issues occurred. I assure you I am no-one special, so dont think I am getting some type of special treatment. I never had spoken to Kevin prior to owning the Undead.
Don't skip buying this bike because of their previous issues, they seem to handle customer issues much differently than at that time a few years ago, also take into account that the evil undead was their very first foray into the carbon bike world and they have since realized a problem and changed suppliers/manufactures. However, these are only my experiences, I just didn't think it was entirely fair to judge Evil, or any other person or company for that matter, on something that happened in the past especially when it appears that it is not true anymore.
To add insult to injury there is still no ETA on the SA and I was offered one of the new batch of arms that are all carbon for an extra 400 euros a special price for existing customers apparently. I just want the warranty swing arm sent nothing more!!!!!!!!
Sorry but Evil customer service in Europe is a joke.
BTW this is all since they changed factories.
I'll never buy Evil again after this I'm done, I've just built my younger sons (12&13yrs) DH bikes even though they liked my Evils (Uprising and Undead) but my money went on Ali Demo frames. I'm not the only one Evils are getting a terrible rep with everybody I know. They put me off Carbon bikes altogether although I was convinced by the UK Devinci importer that the Carbon Troy was a good buy they have given me a lifetime warranty on the frame. As me they feel that Evil customer service and QC in Europe is lacking......... badly.
Could you show where the frame is cracked ?
And what does it mean "Ali Demo frames" ?
I'm just interested to see or try one.
Bingo! That what I guessed just from the first look at foto of the bike.
This is carbon, thus there should be less bolts qty or larger space=more carbon between them or smaller heads. The best, I think, the more space inbetween (but heavier).
"He was told by evil not to worry about it because there is aluminium inside the carbon. It's ridiculous"
No comments. Big *facepalm*.
These are factors everyone should SERIOUSLY take into account when purchasing anything from a foreign country with no home country support, ESPECIALLY when your purchase is in excess of thousands of dollars.
the actual frame was cracked where the top tube met the headtube and along the join with the down tube, I had a new front triangle sent with swingarm supposedly to follow.
The swing arm is cracked in the usual place it where the linkage mounts to the swing arm. Ali as in Aluminium Alloy.
Oh, dear....cracked front triangle...facepalm. That what I did not expected...
Such things must not happen for such a big money. For any money!
Good luck to you, man.
This company deffinitely MUST to do something to correct that design.
Don't get me wrong the bike looks amazing , but I have a love hate for that link.
I have read the bike company is not that reliable, but their bikes are hard to resist. they look awesome.
Maybe I should Go for the Jefssy?, Fuel Ex ,or the spesh stumpy?
An updated following due out in few months.(probably boosted, but hopefully super boost)
i couldn't come up with a good one for undead sooo GOOD TRY!
but: the reach is 20-25mm too short,
the seat tube angle is too slack for efficient climbing,
the suspension has got only one pivot
I also have dealt with them enough to know that they are selling bikes faster than they are getting them in. That may be, in part, due to the West Coast Port strikes that have been going on since January of last year.
Could Evil improve? Yes, but there isn't a company in the world that couldn't use some improvement, somewhere. I bet even the great PedalShopLLC has pissed off someone with the way they handled a situation. And the probably will again, simply because there everything anyone does will piss off or annoy somebody.
No person or company is perfect, so why should we lynch-mob Evil for having different imperfections from Santa Cruz, Trek, Specialized, Transition, Banshee or any other imperfect company?
I think I will wait to see if Evil can grow and become a true competitor in the industry before I write them off. Besides, the more competition there is among manufacturers, the more chances for a customer to win.
and hell yeah --- you kiddin'? .. I'm sure there's peeps I pissed off before.. I dropped the ball once, customer came in looking to pick up his bike, I went looking for it... some time while it was in for repairs, it got stolen from the make-shift parking lot I had in the back of the shop. during the peak season, I had zero space for tune ups, so I would park them out back where the fenced in area seemed pretty secure. ... someone lifted it during the day while nobody was looking. man, that guy was pissed... it was a typical entry level MTB so I wasn't going to go through the whole police report dealeo... I just offered him a real bike at cost and he was fine with that. ended up being a long standing customer until he moved to UT. been many a time I forgot to include something in a bulk order I shipped out.. been times I confused one person for another. Phuck yeah, I can be quite forgetful to the point, I wonder if I'll get Alzheimer's like my grandmother did and you can bet your darn tootin', those 13 year old kids of mine, all three of them will drive me to drink sometimes. But yeah, been selling bikes since 1991, I'm sure I ticked off a few peeps along the way... sure as heck it ain't cause I set up an automated reply that runs 24/7/365. it's pretty well known Evil's tough to get a hold of.. this isn't a new thing, it's always been like that, even the old Evil was impossible to reach. Even the people at Evil have told me they know they've got a problem. but anyway, like I said --- love the stuff they make. this aint no witch hunt... just sayin'
Just what I was thinking - seeing carbon fibre dust on the cable coming out of the head tube tells you the internal routing needs some work I.e. grommet or nylon carrier to stop the outers sawing away at the frame
Sweet machine, though. I've been a 29 supporter since the beginning, even though I ride 26 right now, and whether or not I ever get my hands on a plastic fantastic like this one, I love seeing the industry start to put some real development weight behind this segment - the more popular this kind of bike gets, the more cheap + solid options will become available, and the more refined those options will be.
Never ridden a DELTA bike before, but if it rides as well as the acronym is cheeky, then this is pretty much my dream bike.
Is the comment about problematic carbon frames correct? I always thought the quality control issues mainly stemmed from the aluminium evil revolt? Worth checking as a big reason evil moved to carbon was improved quality control and the reviews of carbon frames such as the uprising have been excellent on the whole.
Don't shoot the messenger!
Yet the Following has the shortest 29er CS, with 142mm axle.
New frame manufacturer and good customer service has been my experience now
Pink bike should change the comments to newest loading at the top so the weak minds that believe these old reviews see current feedback
That said how in the hell did all mtb bikes get so f*cking expensive????
2015 Bible of Bike Tests evil the folowing
back in the day, the first 29er suspension forks were essentially modified 26"-wheeled forks with shorter offsets (40mm or less) optimized for 26" wheels. the only way designers could reign in the trail numbers to prevent excessive sluggishness and wheel flop was to steepen the 29er's head angles. which created at least a decade of 29ers steeped in a tradition of XC/roadie geometry, that generally handled like poo on anything technical (9er can polish that turd all day long to keep trying to sell bikes based on oldschool geo, but long chainstays and steep head angles for anything other than an XC bike should die already).
true or not, gary fisher has been credited for pushing fork makers to cast 29er fork lowers with longer 51mm offsets to reduce trail so 29ers could be designed with slacker head angles without having excessive sluggishness or wheel flop.
there's probably a maximum offset number that's feasible for 29er forks, but i suppose fork makers could further increase 29er offset beyond 51mm to a point, to keep 29er trail figures consistent with the current crop of slack angled 26" and 27.5" all mountain bikes.
My trek remedy is a size longer than I normally use because they run short. I like it better with a short stem.
I knew a trials motorcyclist who like longstems too. He said it was about leverage. That guy could climb any thing.
I originally went for a shorter stem for the oversimplified reason of I was afraid of going over frontwards off of drops, and believed what my friends said about how a shorter stem lets you get back further. Since then I have seen it is more complicated than that. (I realized there was more to it when the trials guy I was riding with said long stems made for more leverage, getting the front up more easily and then I looked at a trials bike. Suddenly geometry seemed like a complicated sort of thing.)
I have been since figuring out what works for me, and a 60mm stem on a longer bike with a 67-67.5 HA feels really well suited to my style for now. I don't whip much, and I don't get real high off the jumps, but I do pop up easy, like tight turns, high-ish speeds and drops. If I find I like one thing or another more in the future I'll need to make adjustments going forward.
I do like wide bars though. The leverage is undeniably reassuring to me. Plus I have oddly wide shoulders for a gent my size, so I have probably never had wide enough bars before recently.
Hodaka? The only Hodaka that I know are the Dirtbikes import from a company in Athena Oregon who partnered with, then bought a Japanese motorcycle manufacture in the early 1960's - late 1970's. What are you talking about now? I am curious.
David
Mid is 140ish. Short is 130 and below.
Banshee Phantom (110/67.5), Kona Process (111/6
Off the top of my head we've got the Banshee, the Kona, this Evil, Yeti's new ASRc, the Ibis Ripley, the Pivot Mach 4, the Camber Evo, maybe the GT Helion and standard Camber. But there's a lot of variation in there. The standard Camber has a head angle of 70 degrees, and has 110mm travel at both ends. But the Ibis has a 70 degree head angle too, special fork offset notwithstanding - I've heard the Ripley called a trail bike in some reviews. It has 120mm travel. On the other end we have this Evil's 67.2. That's just 0.2 of a degree steeper than the new SB5c - and THAT'S with a 140mm fork to its 127 rear end, AND sixfifties.
For 29ers, with their bigger hoops and shallower angle of attack, I definitely agree that geometry impacts their capabilities more so than their travel. I'm stoked for the growth of slack angled-short chainstay 29ers--first with hardtails like N9/Yelli, Honzo, Mason, Surface/Rootdown, etc, and now the FS bikes like the Behemoth, E29, '14 WFO, Process 111, Phantom, Smuggler, Evil's Following, and Canfield's '15 Riot.
So then where are bikes like the banshee prime, transition covert, yeti sb95, etc fit in. These are all 29er bikes in the 125-140 range with slack get. Are they in this new category as well or are they more of a mid travel? And how do the compare?
the new models(changed for the patrol now) are well more redefined at the geometry, and the travel did go down slightly
Freehub ran a nice article about them recently freehubmag.com/store/freehub-back-issue-volume-52 and here's a similar version of that story 2flat.net/2012/03/09/the-writer-knows-nothing-evil - good read IMO.
b. where can we get what you're smoking?
b - I do not smoke anything, THC makes me paranoid or depressed. I have always been this way... in high school I've been writing essays and making drawings for them about Punisher like character who walked around town at nights with fire extinguisher on his back and water tap in his hand, which he used to tear victims anuses apart. Or a comic book about Death-like character demi-god Ajahl, who's arch rival was a Hippie Wraith in form of undead Jimmy Morrison killing people with his deadly stinking breath. I based most characters on people from my class. I just love absurd... thanks for bringing those great memories I cried laughing.
The meta am 1 29"
Look-It is clear that people have realized what many have been stating all along if you want a clearly distinct riding difference in wheel sizes. The jump to 29 is the only one that makes actual logical sense. 26 to 27.5 is and always was a joke. It was too small a jump to be revolutionary.
Stronger and extra wide 29er carbon rims allow wheel builds that solve the real offroaders issues with 29ers. The new hub width jump to 148 will end the discussion altogether.
IMO it is a shame so much drama was wasted on the 26 to 27.5 thing.
I will trade my SB66C for either this Evil or the new Yeti coming in summer that will combine the Infinity with 29er wheels. I never thought I'd say that. What convinced me? Riding my Yeti ARCc I just built it as a goof to try it out and realized how those wheels do indeed make a difference. I almost believe I could live w/o suspension sometimes.I also realized I do not need a 6" travel bike although the the SB is still pretty awesome.
for most part's off europe it doesn't make that much sense
i made the switch from 26 for 27.5, only because i swapped the frame , did not ride it yet but looking forward to that
i think the 27.5 is not to be revolutionary, just to be a little better than the 26 on traction over the increase tire footprint and smother over rough terrain but also sharper and more agile that 29 . but if the majority of trails you ride are open with not much close corner's why not?
^ When this bike lands it's going to be damn popular. 29", 120-140mm up front, Infinity Switch out back, will probably build to 25-26lbs if you really push it.
sure, if i had them given or money to spare would have a 29(evil of course ) and a production privee hardetail, but couldn't have that as my main bike