STAMINA WORKOUT

Pole relaunches its image and the Stamina enduro bike

Pole bikes is launching something new in 2021, and it is another super-low, long, and slack enduro bike built from machined and then bonded aerospacegrade aluminium. Well, not entirely.

It’s also not a carbon bike either, the Finnish brand ditched that idea in 2017, controversially claiming that the dark material was an absolute mare for the environment and decent alloy was actually cleaner.

No, new for this year, Pole wants your trust. It wants to “revive, rebuild, and regain” the trust its customers put in the brand when they bought bikes like the Machine – an enduro bike launched in 2018 built from machined and bonded alloy. That trust in Pole, by the brand’s own admission, was damaged by failing to listen to its customers’ problems and needs when things went wrong with their purchases, and not fixing and replacing bikes quickly enough. “We broke it and we own it,” Pole now says. It’s hard not to respect a company that owns up completely to its failings.

Pole’s rep took a beating too when Pole’s new Stamina bike broke during Pinkbike’s Huck-to-flat test, something Pole says was caused by a preproduction chainstay accidentally being fitted to the bike.

Now at last though, the Stamina is back, and with it a real determination to do things right, it says. That boils down to a new management team, new staff in Finland and the UK, and a new in-house production facility with twice the floor space in Finland. There are more bikes being bolted together then, and more people manning the phones and emails for better customer service and aftercare.

What about customers who suffered under the old regime, before Pole got a handle on its customer support? “There are a few cases open at the moment, not as many as you think, and those warranty cases are being dealt with right now,” says Chris Wright from Pole. “The factories are trying their best, and we’re working towards sorting those people out within the next month.”

MORE STAMINA PLEASE

So the new bike is called the Stamina Remastered, it looks almost identical to the old Stamina, with the same suspension design, same 7075-T6 alloy, machined then bonded frame. But there are some subtle changes afoot – naturally, the bike has been built to withstand greater forces, Pole really doesn’t want any more breakages.

The frame wall thickness has grown, and that’s also increased the bonding surface for each frame half. There are

WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN IMPRESSED BY THEIR LOOKS

Select fork, either a Super Deluxe

Air or Coil shock, and GX Eagle drivetrain. And then there’s the 180, also available frame-only or as a fullbuild. Both will feature a Cane Creek Kitsuma Air shock, and the build comes with a 180mm Rockshox Zeb Ultimate and GX Eagle drivetrain.

Finally, if you’re wondering why Pole hasn’t built an e-bike yet, it’s waiting for the motors to arrive, which should happen some time in August. We don’t know what it’ll look like or even which motor it uses, but Pole says it’ll be something out of the ordinary… naturally.