MODERN COUNTERPART
Back in 2015, Evil’s Following launched as part of a bike range that looks like it’s on steroids. It’s got one of the coolest-looking frames around, but that’s not the best thing about it.
Rocky start
My love a air didn’t start o well when I tried the Evil Revolt. This was a DH bike that used Dave Weagle’s dw-link design, made famous by the legendary Iron Horse Sunday, which Sam Hill destroyed the competition on. The Revolt – and Evil – was born when Iron Horse folded, with Weagle and pals launching a new brand using the same suspension system. It had some quirky traits though, likely due to misalignment – Evil earned a bad rep for not building their early frames straight.
Fast forward about five years, and I’d mostly forgotten about the brand, when a mate showed up with a 26in-wheeled Evil Uprising. It looked great, but as an early 650b adopter vowing not to revisit sketchy and slow wheels, I wrote it o before riding it. A quick blast on local trails opened my eyes. How was this thing floating over the terrain and why didn’t 26in wheels feel slow? The bike used a new Weagle design called DELTA and had amazing suspension. And apparently a new Evil was coming soon, with the same linkage but bigger 29in wheels.
Going big
Twenty-niners aren’t unusual now, but back then it was a bit of a shock to get a new trail bike from a diehard DH brand with big wheels and ‘just’ 120mm of travel. I immediately loved the new Following, though, so I got one and started to tweak it. Shock eyelet bushes were switched to needle bearings for maximum sensitivity (something Evil do now) and I upped fork travel to 150mm. The result was amazing. Its tighter angles and wheelbase combined with rampy suspension to give a super-snappy feel. The Following leapt out of berms by railing with amazing grip and spitting you out at the right instant, as the suspension was perfectly loaded and the rear tyre started to break away. To this day it feels like magic.
Being light and short-travel, the Following was fast up, down or along, and had more DH capability than any 120mm bike should. Limited tyre clearance and a slack seat angle meant early models weren’t perfect, so I’m praying the sti er, Super Boost-touting new bike fixes these issues. In a world of clones, the Following still looks like nothing else and has a personality like no other. It’s the bike that’s closed the loop on everything I’ve ever wanted a mountain bike to do – which is, slap a grin on your face at all times, rip up the turns and then cover your arse when you get carried away at an age when you should know better.