CONNOR FEARON: FORBIDDEN DREADNOUGHT
After racing a Kona for over a decade, a brand now without a downhill bike in its huge range, Connor Fearon has joined another team that doesn’t do downhill – Forbidden Synthesis. Forbidden does make a short-travel bike called the Druid, though, and the 154mm-travel Dreadnought that won our bike test last month – he raced the latter at Lourdes.
Naturally, Connor beefed up the travel then? Nope, he raced on a stock mediumframed bike and Rockshox Super Deluxe coil shock, without a custom link to increase travel (the easiest way to do it). “It’s not a DH bike but it works great,” Mathieu Dupelle from Forbidden told us. He’s referring to the 100% rearward axle path thanks to the bike’s high pivot, something we found really did help the bike’s straight-line speed.
Interestingly, fellow team rider Magnus Manson also raced at Lourdes but eeked out 180mm travel from his size Large Dreadnought using a custom link. Apparently Connor didn’t use a custom link too because there was only one in existence; besides, he didn’t want to mess around with the enduro bike set-up, Forbidden says.
If you’ve been doing your homework and reading mbr every month, you’ll know the XT model of the Dreadnought comes with a Fox 38 fork and 170mm travel. Both Connor and Magnus swapped that out for a Rockshox
Boxxer dual-crown fork with 190mm travel. “Pre-season at home, Connor ran 180mm so as not to slacken the bike too much,” Mathieu says. “But when we walked the track at Lourdes it was a little steeper than he has been riding all winter (his summer in Australia).”
This is definitely something Forbidden approves of, the bike is built to take a dual-crown fork and Forbidden recommends you take the bike back to the dealer to get this set up. Of course it’ll have raked out Connor’s head angle, perhaps by as much as 1°, to 62°.
Did the Dreadnought Special Edition cut it? Connor finished 29th, which is an amazing result in itself. Connor has multiple finishes inside the top 10 and came 23rd at Val di Sole last year, all on downhill bikes though, so perhaps the Dreadnought is good enough for downhill, although it’s clear from the race footage that he was missing some travel on the rough sections.
“Coming 29th is a great result and he ended up getting on TV, which is a win for Forbidden – getting the enduro bike on the live feed at the first World Cup the Forbidden team participates in,” Mathieu says, adding that “Connor did make a mistake and wished he could have gone faster, so he says he’s salty because he could have done better.”
Meanwhile, Forbidden has hinted at a bike with bigger travel coming our way soon, potentially a downhill bike or long-travel enduro bike. “We just have to be patient,” Mathieu says.