Tested: Scott Gambler DH

Scott Gambler // Frame: $1,999
208-622-1000; SCOTTUSA.COM

I remember seeing a jumbo Swiss Army knife in a Victorinox store when I was a kid, and that’s exactly what this bike reminds me of: a big, well put-together, versatile beast of a bike.

Scott knocked its two big bikes from its product line—the Nitrous and the High Octane—to make room for the new Gambler, and the bike justifies its sprawling existence in the catalog by offering adjustable headtube angle, chainstay length and rear-travel settings (190, 210 or 230 millimeters). Up front, choose from a 64-degree headtube angle for slacked-out DH descending, or turn the headtube sleeve 180 degrees and run it at 66 degrees for tighter handling.

Scott worked on this bike for two years before unveiling it last summer, and no detail has gone unnoticed. The frame is littered with forged pieces, including the dropouts, the headtube and shock mounts. In the case of the headtube, Scott engineers eliminated the critical headtube/downtube weld altogether with one forged piece that is joined with a long, straight (read: hard to muck up) nearly-horizontal weld with the toptube.

On the trail (after taking the bike off the chairlift or out of the truck), the Gambler at first seemed to belie its own name—it powered through rock gardens like a snowmobile, using all its travel, and it didn’t yield a millimeter in the flex department. But after getting used to it I realized where the “gamble” aspect comes from—this bike will get you in over your head, fast.

If I were to set this bike up with, say, a RockShox Totem, and run it with steeper angles and shorter dropouts, it would be an ideal candidate for SRAM’s new Hammerschmidt internally-geared cranks. As is, there is no room for a front derailleur, so while the telescoping seatpost on the FR model will help in uphill situations, any real climbing on this bike is a fairly absurd prospect (the version you see here weighs 43 pounds, sans pedals).

The bike comes in four models (two downhill and two freeride, with prices ranging from $3,699 to $6,499). I rode a freeride as well as a DH kit, and for the last few rides, I put on new Saint components for a quick taste. First impressions with Saint were positive. Even though the brakes squawked a bit, the power was certainly there and even in long, 10-plus-minute runs working the brakes for dear life, they didn’t fade and chomped at the rotors impressively throughout. The frame is essentially a single pivot with a swinglink to cut down on brake jack. In hard braking the rear suspension (which I ran mostly in the longest 230-millimeter setting) did firm up a bit, but not enough that I would kick the bike out of bed.

The bike might be a bit over-engineered for some. If you’re not going to mess around with different builds then the options to change angles and dropouts do you no good. But if you want to have the versatility of a burly and slacked-out DH bike and tighter-handling freeride bike all in one, extremely well thought-out package, then the Gambler is definitely worth a chance.

Highs: Versatile, extremely well thought-out, performs capably in a variety of terrain
Lows: May be more options than you need; quite expensive; bit heavy for a freeride bike