At the Sea Otter Classic 2013 we had the opportunity to try out a SRAM XX1-equipped bike featuring the new 1×11 drivetrain.

Our impressions were recorded in real time in the attached video review, another in our On The Bike Reviews. We rode a SRAM-labeled Kona 29er equipped with the 1×11. The bike had a 32-tooth chainring and 10×42 rear cassette.

The first thing that threw us was the shifter. We instinctively reached for the trigger and found… nothing. Instead the bike was equipped with SRAM’s patented GripShift — the old motorcycle-style twist shifter.

We hadn’t ridden GripShifts since they first came out in the early 1990s. We tried ‘em on a couple of bikes and gave up. The response was slow, cable action was delayed, mis-shifting was common and in general — although we loved the idea — they didn’t deliver.

We stayed with SRAM drivetrains, in part because SRAM worked better than Shimano, and in part because we were a little tired of the Shimano monopoly. Whatever.

Over the years, we hadn’t paid much attention to GripShift.

On our tests of the 1×11, though, we soon came to like the gripper. SRAM has done much to improve the action and response. But there was another factor.

When you’re dependent on only the rear cassette, you find yourself flipping through multiple gears much more often. Without the front derailleur to rely on for step-up or down gearing spreads, you often want to jump two or three cogs at a time.

We came to think we should seriously consider this matchup for using 1×11 gearing, which our next bike will have.

One caveat: Troubling negative feedback on GripShift in MTBR.com forums. Some riders are reporting failure. Some have asked SRAM for a response. So far, nothing from SRAM.

That’s too bad, because 1×11’s success may ultimately rely in part on GripShift adoption. We will be monitoring this as the season proceeds.

Back to the 1×11 test.

We found the rear derailleur to be smooth and responsive. Not much more to say there. It shifted as it should. We haven’t found any huge leaps in derailleur technology since index shifting, really. Refinements, yes. But let’s face it, if the gear changes precisely and quickly — which it does for nearly every brand of derailleur — that’s plenty good enough. Performance often is far more dependent on cable adjustment, tension and action.

The ride with a 1×11 is almost spooky quiet. Despite taking stutters at speed and tossing the bike around under us, we never experienced a single whisper of chain slap. When we checked the chain stay, we found it unprotected, unmarked and un-nicked. This setup lacked any chain tensioner or guide. The chain just doesn’t move around.

Our experience was confirmed by several months-long 1×11 users. Most started with a chain guide of some sort, but soon abandoned it as not needed.

What we really liked about the 1×11 had to do with … NO shifting!

With 1×11 of course, you lose the front derailleur and front shifter. And cable. And housing. (You even lose the chainstay protector, whether it’s a Velcro fabric or stretch tape.)

It’s like a whole chunk of stuff goes away, and you don’t have to worry about it any more.

The drivetrain as a result is going to be lighter. Because SRAM has made XX1 its new gold standard, the machining, weight and finish of the 1×11 is nonpareil. The stuff is really well made. (Again, they absolutely need to address the GripShift question.)

That leads us to the second part of our 1×11 experience. At Sea Otter we asked everyone from Pivot founder Chris Cocalis to the dude on the carbon Scott 27.5 (650b) from Los Angeles about how they liked 1×11. To a person, they all raved. They unreservedly gave it one thumb’s up — one, because that’s all you need with just a single shifter.

We had heard early rumors of chain fatigue and breakage with XX1, which made some sense given the amount of spread in an 11-cog cassette. Most feedback was that there’s less stress on the chain because it isn’t always having to hop back and forth among front chainrings.

We’re persuaded enough by experience and feedback to be eager to equip our next bike with 1×11. In the meantime, we’ll monitor the rumor mill and try to get a response from SRAM on GripShift issues.

This year’s Sea Otter Classic 2013 was as good as they come: Gorgeous warm sunshine, tons of riders of all ages, lots of racing excitement and vendors and spenders. We got to demo bikes to our heart’s content, talk with lots of bike folks, check out all the new equipment and ride the big loop.

What more could a bike fanatic ask?

Here’s the official race recap provided by Sea Otter, day by day. If you couldn’t make it to Monterey for this year’s fest, at least you can enjoy it vicariously here.

Congrats to Seattle homie Jill Kintner and U.S. standout Aaron Gwin on their big wins in the Downhill! Jill took double gold, also winning the dual slalom on Saturday.

Race results.

At the Sea Otter Classic 2013 we had an opportunity to test ride two new 27.5 bikes: the carbon Bronson — Santa Cruz Bicycles’ latest and one of the showcase bikes of Otter this year — and the Pivot Firebird, modified for 27.5 setup and announced opening day at the festival.

[Note we use the term "shootout" advisedly, given our limited time on the bikes. This was more bb gun than OK Corral.]

At 26 to 27 pounds for 150mm of travel, the Bronson build was impressive, including ENVE wheels and Maxxis Hi Roller tires along with full XTR. Our bike had a 2×10 drivetrain, although the Santa Cruz booth was displaying the same build with a XX1 (1×11) drivetrain on a Medium it said tipped the scales at 26.5 lbs.

We admittedly couldn’t stretch the Bronson out on Laguna Seca’s fairly docile singletrack. But the ride was long enough to tell us a couple of things.

The geometry of the Bronson — 67 head, 73 seat angle on a Large — felt a little more upright than we’d like. This is a personal preference of course, but we didn’t feel like the Bronson would be at its best riding aggro, mountain bike park or downhill. It felt closer to an XC bike. Perhaps that’s the crowd Santa Cruz is aiming at, although the aggressive tires indicated otherwise.

The bike climbed better than a 26-er but not nearly as well as a 29er. It felt as you’d expect, a compromise between the two. Although to our mind it was closer to the 26-inch experience than the 29-inch.

On downhill stretches, particularly fast sections, we wanted more travel out of the Bronson. Weirdly — and this could be related to suspension, the geometry, the amount of travel or just our own head games — we’re wondering if the 27.5 category isn’t better suited to longer travel. Just throwing that out there. It’s not a theory we found support for among a few 27.5 riders we interviewed. But to a rider, they were in the 5-8 to 5-10 height range. We run 6-0 and have long monkey arms.

To confirm our theory, the Pivot Firebird 27.5 felt more comfortable to us. You sink down in the 6.6-inches of travel as with the conventional Firebird. But the bigger hoops and slacker angles (66 degrees via a Pivot custom angled headset on a Large, 71.5 seat angle) give you a new dimension of versatility, speed and handling. For a taller rider, the Firebird 27.5 actually adds a noticeable degree of stability and centered-ness.

This all held true despite the Firebird being heavier, at 31.5 pounds, and aluminum, not as responsive as carbon. But neither of those factors count for much when you point the rig downhill.

The caveat being that we only rode the thing briefly around the midway, doing mostly stutter stops and starts, wheelies and track stands. Having lots of fun, but hardly testing it. Pivot did not have a build ready to take out on the trails. (Pivot offers an extensive demo program and expects to have Firebird 27.5s ready to roll in mid-May.)

With all that said, we admit to not quite getting the 27.5 category. It feels like half a loaf. If you want the advantages of a larger platform, why not go to 29? The only rationale that makes sense to us is rider height. There may be a sweet spot where 27.5 is just right for the shorter among us who find 29ers too angular. For someone our height, it may not be dramatic enough to warrant the commitment to a whole platform.

For another view on the Bronson, check out Francis’ take on MTBR.com. Francis found more plushness to the Bronson than we did. It’s also worth noting he’s 5-8. But he had considerable more time on the Bronson than we did, and puts it in the context of other 27.5 (650b) bikes. (It omits the Firebird, however, having been written before the 27.5’s release.)

In recent races Seattle native Jill Kintner’s name has shown up on the women’s downhill roster as well as her signature event, the dual slalom.

We’ve suggested this means Jill may be looking for bigger vistas. Jill herself won’t confirm or deny the extent of her downhill ambitions, although in a new blog post she suggests she’s seriously pursuing DH.

And there it was again, at the Sea Otter Classic. After wearing out the field in the dual slalom and taking home the gold, Jill threw in her lot with the downhillers the following day.

The result was quite respectable: Sixth, about 5 seconds off the smoking hot pace of Melissa Buhl. Interestingly, Buhly had an off day in the dual slalom, at fourth, after narrowly beating Jill in last year’s Sea Otter slalom matchup.

More significant from our perspective was the fact that Jill finished ahead of some real high rollers, including Fionn Griffiths, Kathy Pruitt and Katie Holden. And she was just a hair off the paces of Sabrina Jonnier and the ageless wonder, Leigh Donovan.

These results translate simply into one factor: Experience. Jill has been honing her downhill skills under the tutelage of Aussie boyfriend Bryn Atkinson, a world class downhiller himself. If she can get more downhill racing under her belt, there’s no reason she can’t contend for World Cup titles.

Why bother with downhill at all, when you’re so good at dual slalom? Any champion wants to push her envelope and keep testing herself. Having medaled in the Olympics in BMX, Jill is pretty much the gold standard in dual slalom. And in the competitive arena, downhill racing is still the ultimate challenge. The downhillers get all the glory — disproportionately so, perhaps, but deserved as well.

The only question is whether downhill could hurt Jill’s campaign for the world title in dual slalom this year. You don’t find someone at No. 1 in both disciplines at the same time, for a variety of reasons starting with, as Jill acknowledged to Brett Tippie (scroll down for video interview), being too whupped winning the slalom to face a second day of racing.

But the one quality you have to love with Jill is she really believes anything is possible. You can see the steely determination when she rides — it translates from her body language right through the goggles and jump suit. And any interview I’ve seen with her shows an uncommon resolve to follow through on her goals.

Kintner may at this point be undecided about pursuing downhill. It’s still early in the season. But we’d sure love to see her rock in the Big Dance!

Full race results.

Mountain Bike Action recap.

—PinkBike.com

We’ll continue to update once tallies get posted. For now it looks to us like Jill’s wintering over in Australia with BF Bryn Atkinson has paid huge dividends. Jill has her eye on the rainbow jersey this year and is off to a resounding start!

Two summers ago I rode with Canadians at Seven Summits in inland B.C. and one was sporting a Catlike. I asked about it and got details but found you couldn’t get them in the U.S. You couldn’t get them in B.C. either at the time — he’d gotten his in Montreal.

They’re cool-looking but we’ll reserve judgment beyond that till we’ve had a look at the real thing.

180 large, and gold sliders!

Just in time for Sea Otter, Fox has released a new lineup of 180mm single-crown Fox 36 forks. Hmmm. We’ll have to test one of these of course, but first impression is a bit of a head-scratcher. Surely double-crown at that amount of travel is still stiffer, albeit heavier. The new config appears aimed at the Whistler/freeride crowd, but what we’re seeing on the ground, er, in the dirt, is a preference for shorter travel. As riders’ skills improve and stunts require more bike maneuverability than full-on suss, shorter forks and tighter frames are showing up at the parks. But we’ll see.

The easiest explanation, of course, is that Fox always exaggerates the amount of travel, and what we’re really looking at is a class of extra-long 160mm forks. Really, it’s pretty blatant and widely disparaged by wrenches, well-known in industry circles but shrugged off. As the owner of no fewer than a dozen Fox forks over the years, we’ve yet to see one fulfill its specs. We think Fox otherwise makes great products that they back fully. Fox should take care of this before someone files a class-action suit claiming misrepresentation.

Fox also is issuing new 150mm and 160mm lines boasting lighter specs and more trail-ride (rather than big-hit) suspension tech. The message here is that the long-travel trail crowd is jonesing for lighter, quicker configurations. Till now that’s meant reducing travel options, but perhaps the lighter weights on the new Fox offerings will keep the slopestylers in the LT category.

Also at Otter, the Banshee Spitfire, 2010′s best new-bike name so far, is caught on video by PinkBike.

Ned Overend, the ageless one, is at Sea Otter as well.

For some time we’ve been following catastrophic failures of Thule’s T2 rack, which we think should be officially recalled. Looking for a good alternative? Here’s the Kuat NV, reviewed on MtnBikeRiders.com.

Seattle native and slalom champion Jill Kintner will be there on her new ride. Jill will be out to avenge her narrow loss last year, and won’t be making this mistake:

One thing undoubtedly contributed: Not having been pressed all day, she may have been playing it too cautious, counting as much on something going wrong for Buhl as seizing the opportunity to put down the hammer from the start.

You’ll be able to see Jill aboard her spankin’ new Transition Double at the Sea Otter Classic next weekend in Monterey. (Race schedule here.)

This is quite an upgrade from the old Double.

For mutual moral support, there’s an all-girls mountain bike program.

Banshee Bikes, which is busting out with upgrades and new bikes in 2010, also will be there with its new Spitfire.