FIRST RIDES
STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX & ONTO THE TRAILS
With its unique gold-tinted, CNC-machined frame and super-progressive geometry, the Pole Stamina 160 was a worthy MBUK Superbike, in issue 401. But what’s it like to ride?
THE FRAME
While most alloy bikes are made by welding prefabricated tubes together, each section of the Stamina 160 is machined from 7075-T6 aluminium billet and then bonded together using glue to make a seamless monocoque. This, Pole claim, makes the frame stronger and lighter than welded alternatives. Finally, the textured surface is coated with an eye-catching gold, silver or dark grey finish, and external cable routing is added.
The amazing looks are matched by an intricate suspension system, where two co-rotating links connect the swingarm to the mainframe – one pivoting concentric to the bottom bracket (BB) and the other just above the chainring. A dogbone link runs between them and drives the shock yoke. On the Stamina 160, this set-up delivers 160mm of rear wheel travel. The yoke can be swapped out to turn the bike into a Stamina 180 with 20mm more travel. You can also fit a 650b rear wheel, should you wish to convert this 29er into a ‘mullet’ bike.
True to the Finnish brand’s design ethos, the Stamina 160 takes progressive geometry to the next level. Our ‘K2’ test bike, the secondsmallest in the four-size range, has a generous 480mm reach, long 450mm chainstays and a lengthy 1,292mm wheelbase. The head angle is a slack 62.6 degrees with a 180mm-travel fork, and the effective seat tube angle is an impressively steep 80 degrees.
THE KIT
Pole only offer one full build, which pairs a RockShox ZEB Select fork, with 180mm of travel and the brand’s older Charger RC damper, with their Super Deluxe Ultimate RTC shock. Stopping is taken care of by SRAM Code R brakes with 200mm rotors, and gearing by SRAM’s GX Eagle 12-speed drivetrain. The bike rolls on DT Swiss’s top-end EX 1501 alloy wheels wrapped in Maxxis Minion tyres, with the trailspec EXO Protection casing and Huck Norris inserts; we’d prefer a thicker carcass instead. Our only other niggle is that the short-travel (125mm) BikeYoke dropper post didn’t have enough range for us to run the saddle at our full pedalling height and then drop it as low as we’d have liked for the descents, so we had to manually lower the post into the frame.
THE RIDE
Point the Stamina uphill and its ride character isn’t only relaxed, but also rewardingly efficient. Our weight felt
impeccably centred between the wheels, which not only improved comfort – because our hips were directly above the BB rather than miles behind it, making for efficient pedalling – but also increased the amount of grip and control on offer in steeper or more technical sections. Its neutral feel also reduces the amount of energy needed to negotiate individual features, and is backed up by the calm-feeling rear end, which has very limited pedal bob, even if you don’t use the lockout lever on the shock. For a bike designed with such a focus on descending, we found its climbing ability mightily impressive. Back-to-back testing of the Stamina 160 and bikes with slacker seat tube angles highlighted just how good it is.
Downhill, the Pole’s ride is dominated by the brand’s forwardthinking geometry. It took us a bit of experimenting to get the suspension set up to our liking (we ended up removing both volume spacers from the shock so we could use more of the travel more of the time, and running 28 per cent sag at the rear and 18 per cent on the fork). Once this was sorted, the Stamina 160 felt remarkably stable and composed down steep, gnarly, fast and rough trails. We felt perfectly centred between the wheels, even when the gradient increased massively. In places where on other bikes we’d be trying to shift our weight over the rear end to avoid being pitched forward and chucked over the bars, subsequently unloading the front wheel, it felt like we couldn’t lean too far forward and put too much weight onto the wheel even if we tried.
The Pole’s great front-to-rear balance creates huge confidence, effectively flattening out steep sections, making them less difficult to ride and boosting control. Cornering and braking grip are exceptional, too. We were sceptical whether the geometry would also work well on flatter, slower and less technical trails, or tight and twisty tracks, but we needn’t have worried. Switching between tight berms wasn’t tricky, nor did it require excessive amounts of body movement or weight shifting to get the bike to change direction. As a result, the Stamina 160 is monstrously quick on the trails.
The flipside to that outright speed is that the Pole isn’t mind-blowingly fun. Rather, it gets the job done efficiently and quickly. However, while we never found ourselves whooping and hollering at the bottom of the trail, we were always in awe of the speed and control this bike permitted. Alex Evans www.polebicycles.com
The Stamina 160 is very fast absolutely everywhere, but not always the most fun bike to ride