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@lae
My partner is getting more into mountain-biking and (since it's a good activity we can do together without having to spend a full weekend away in the wilderness), I decided to get her a new bike - a friend of mine owns a bike shop and supplied me with last year's Norco Charger hardtail for (the equivalent of) 425 quid, which I was pleased with. Deore drivetrain and brakes, RS XC32 fork, SRAM hubs - good bike for the money I think.
Anyway yesterday we went on a ride around my favourite local track, she absolutely loved it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY3nZDpxIpw
Here's a video of part of it (taken by an acquaintance). She only walked the nasty-steep-hairpin-into-bridge bit - a huge boost in confidence over her old 26" steel Rockhopper. I also hit a couple of the jumps in the video without throwing a wobbly afterwards, which felt pretty cool.
Also a couple more impressions on my two-month-old Krampus. While it's amazingly good fun on flowy tracks and also on technical sections, it's a bit of a pig on really tight hairpins. It doesn't feel as long as I expected, but it's certainly not as nippy as some other bikes I test-rode (especially in Large). That's to be expected though.
Also I ran out of gears on the steep uphill slogs - smaller chainring required, or Hope 40t sprocket thingy. The Krampus is geared so high I can't imagine anyone using the highest gears - it's a rigid bike for fun trail rides, not an XC racer... again I think this is Surly's budget-conscious speccing (like the seriously crap finishing kit and lack of QRs anywhere). I'll be rebuilding it in a year anyway (sending the frame & fork back to the UK and selling the rest).
I don't know what pressure my tyres were at, but I pumped them up enough so that I just about couldn't pinch them down to the rim with two hands, then a bit more on the rear (running ghetto tubeless).