4-14-08 // Tested: Trek's '07 Fuel EX 9.5
I approached the Trek Fuel EX 9.5 warily. The bike’s matte OCLV carbon frame, gray XTR kit and fairly standard silhouette failed to reach out and scream “Ride me!” After all, this is the suspension platform of choice of President George W. Bush, the Weekend Warrior in Chief, and all politics aside the man is as much a mountain biker as he is a rancher.

4-8-08 // Tested: Cannondale's Perp Two
With the Perp, Cannondale set out to create a highly versatile freeride bike. Introduced last year and based off the company’s Judge downhill platform, the Perp offers 7 or 8 inches of adjustable travel, relatively quick geometry and it uses a 1.5-inch headtube with single-crown forks in mind.

4-6-08 // Tested: Titus Racer-X 29
The custom bike elves at Titus tore up the existing page on 29-inch bike design and started with a clean sheet of paper.

2-15-08 // Tested: '07 Marin Mount Vision
Marin has been messing around with versions of Jon Whyte-designed suspension platforms for years. It rolled out the latest iteration, the Quad Link, on the longer-travel Quake in 2006 and this year brought the design to the masses on the 5-inch-travel Mount Vision.

1-29-08 // Tested: Trek Top Fuel 69er
A few years ago I saw Trek XC pro Travis Brown riding a bike with a 26-inch rear wheel and 29-inch front. It was a singlepeed, garage-built project bike.

1-25-08 // Tested: Brent Foes' 2:1 XCT 5
Brent Foes has been doing things his own way for 15 years, so it’s no surprise that he’s taken an unconventional approach with a new 5-inch-travel bike he calls the 2:1 XCT 5.

1-25-08 // Tested: Bionicon Edison LTD
After surviving oval chainrings, thermoplastic wheels and brake levers masquerading as shifters, mountain bikers are right to be skeptical of the “next big thing.” So when German manufacturer Bionicon showed up with the Edison LTD, we played wait and see.

12-21-07 // Tested: 2007 Jamis XAM 2
Jamis reworked their All-Mountain bike line in 2007 and the XAM 2 you see here was the result. The changes were substantial. For starters, the XAM features a radically-tweaked Kinesium aluminum frame that sports more strength and rigidity-enhancing shapes than you can shake a stick at.

Tested: 2006 Norco Six Two
Though it's not widely agreed upon, bikes tend to be more fun going downhill than they are uphill. Those who can't embrace both are missing out, but some otherwise normal cross-country riders cling exclusively to squishier and heavier bikes, because to them, a little more grunt on the uphills means a no-compromise descent.

Tested: Lenz Behemoth
Devin Lenz has been quietly producing aluminum full suspension bikes in Fort Lupton, Colorado, since 1995, doing all his own fabrication in-house and kicking out a few hundred frames a year, with models ranging from XC race bikes to full-on DH rigs.

Tested: 2007 Haro Werx 5/VL120
This fall, Haro unveiled an entirely new suspension design called the Virtual Link, which, according to Haro, eliminates pedal-induced bobbing, pedal kickback, drivetrain flex and an assortment of other rearsuspension evils. Those are some ballsy claims.

Tested: 2007 Gary Fisher HiFi Pro
Gary Fisher's Genesis geometry has received high marks for its climbing prowess and stable descending, but its Achilles heel has been flat, tortuous terrain-something the developers of G2, the first significant change to Fisher's classic Genesis geometry, set out to change with the HiFi, a new all-mountain platform.

Tested: 2007 GT i-Drive 5 2.0
GT’s i-Drive series is one of the longestrunning suspension designs on the market, and the latest version of its i-Drive 5 represents a culmination of iterative changes dating back to the last millennium.

Tested: 2006 Giant Glory
Used to be that anyone with a dual-crown fork belonged to the same posse; all united against Lycra and climbing. But these days even the gravity crowd is fractured into two distinct camps: freeriders and racers.

Tested: 2006 Fisher Fat Possum XO
Fisher has long been a fan of the simplicity of single-pivot bikes, so this new creation, dubbed the Fat Possum, mixes modern shock damping with a classic suspension chassis. The result is simple six-inch-travel bike designed to go up and down anything.