New Intense Tazer - Forum Hot Seat with Intense Cycles

What's going on everyone! John Hall here at Intense Cycles. Stoked to get to chat with everyone about the new Tazer. It's something our whole team at Intense has been working on for a very long time and can't wait to bench race with you about it! Fire away!

Sweet bike.

I do not see any Canadian pricing on your website anymore, what's up with that ?

Hey John, TEAM ROBOT here. I'm curious about the new Tazer having the option for 29" or 27.5" wheels, and I'm especially curious to ask you because you've been so involved with the DH team as a mechanic and manager. And I'm asking this question as a tall person who has loved 29" rear wheels.

I was surprised to see the new Tazer with the option for either rear wheel size, because ebikes are often turning into winch and plummet-only bikes, and for pure descending performance, companies and teams seem to be gravitating towards MX wheels. For instance, the Intense team was on full 29" wheels for a while on the M29, but the new M1 is MX only. I think I heard only two pro men at the South Korea WC were still on 29" rear wheels, but I don't know if that's true.

What do you think about the relative benefits of either rear wheel size? Is it a matter of all around trail versatility for 29" vs. all out descending performance for 27.5"? Or is there an argument for 29" rear DH wheels, especially for tall guys like me?

And do you think one wheel size is appreciably stronger, stiffer, or less likely to flat than the other?

I'll ask the obvious question; did Intense consider going Avinox on this project? What ultimately lead to Bosch for this bike? What are Intense's thoughts regarding the "power wars" that seem to be taking place all of a sudden due to the Avinox/DJI drive system? 

...oh, and how do I get one to test? The bike looks absolutely phenomenal. 

No questions but came here to say geo, kinematics and design all look dialed! 

Thanks! And great question. We've made a decision to sharpen our focus on the US market right now. We want to do it the best we can here at home before we expand again so that we have a strong foundation to grow from. And Canada is absolutely on the roadmap, and honestly it's one of the first places we want to be when we do expand. Stay tuned, we're working on it!

Not a suspension engineer, but curious about the leverage curve.  Starting LR starts high-ish, like 3.35.  That seems a bit higher than what we typically see for bikes of this travel (gut feel is 3-3.1 is most common), and the higher starting LR is more common with Cascade links & such.  Was this a conscious choice given that it's an ebike, prioritizing having a very active starting suspension over pedaling efficiency?

Why only one chainstay between all sizes? ratios ranging from 1.68- 1.88 between sizes creates crazy different ride characteristics

What was the idea behind keeping quite low stacks?

Thanks for hopping on John, you are a legend.

TeamRobot, always love your input and questions on all the forums so I'm stoked to get to chat about this. 

So, lets start with offering both wheels options. This was actually an internal debate as I'm sure it is with most brands. Ultimately we came to the conclusion that giving our customers the choice will always be the best option. There are people who are very opinionated on what they want and we want to try and give everyone the option they prefer. It's not always as easy of a task or cheap as people think but we want people to be stoked on their bike!

Now, relative benefits of either wheel size. Both definitely have their place depending on the travel category. There's a reason why we don't see MX wheels on XC bikes. So it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Full 29 on shorter travel bikes is great for the application. As you go up in travel it's great to have the choice and when we get to the top of the travel range in DH it's really about what's faster and give the athletes and riders what they need to do their job. Back in the development of the M1 and when we hade Neko Mulally on the team he did some really fantastic testing on rear wheel size. Ultimately what he found was that there was not a big enough difference on the clock to make a decision either way on which one was faster and for the job at hand on that bike, he would rather have the extra wheel clearance for getting over the rear of the bike or when they need to squash/scrub a jump. So to answer your question if there's an argument to run full 29 for tall guys like yourself? Sure there is, you have the clearance needed so a 29 rear wheel isn't an issue for you. But i really does get in the way of smaller riders and when one wasn't faster than the other, we opted to commit to MX only in that category for that reason.

On the topic of one wheel size being stronger, stiffer or less likely to flat than the other....There are just far to many variables when it comes to those factors. My short answer is no. So many wheel companies make fantastic product nowadays as well as the tire companies and they all have the same goal to give us better product that lasts and performs well. Plus you can build a wheel however you want now with all the options out there. Stiff, compliant, strong, light, heavy...however you want it but the Iron Triangle of Service will always come into play haha. 

Thank you! And it rides even better than all of those look!

Is it safe to extrapolate that this is largely what the next Primer will look like?  These specs look ideal to me, and I love that it uses a 210x55 shock.   

what 👆 says. It´s weird having the class 3 on S bikes as well. How'd you choose? Bike looks great!

I didn't know the background on Neko doing wheel size testing at Intense. Very interesting. Much appreciated!

Following 

Ha, you already know we looked at everything!

Avinox is doing some wild stuff and honestly respect what they have pulled off here. But for the Tazer, it wasn't the right fit. Power to range is a real tradeoff with that system, and beyond that, big torque and wattage numbers don't always automatically equal a great ride. We were super intentional about this...the Tazer needed to be an all mountain bike. The Bosch system gets you the right power at the right time, and that's actually what makes a ride feel good. Trail access and Class 1 compliance in the US was also a non negotiable for us.

The "power wars" thing is fascinating to watch and we're obviously keeping our eyes on it. Bosch's Class 1 compliance and their established credibility with land managers in the US matters to us and our riders. Combined with the reliability, parts availability, and dealer support that comes with the Bosch ecosystem, Bosch was the right choice for the new Tazer.

Sounds like we need to link up for a ride! You would LOVE this bike. Let us know if you're ever in Temecula where we're at and I'd love to show you our local trails. Otherwise be on the lookout for demo's soon!

Good eye. Yes, that was a conscious decision. The higher starting leverage ratio gives good small bump sensitivity and an active feel off the top of the stroke, and on an Ebike that tradeoff makes a lot of sense. We actually had 3 proto mules all with different suspension designs and kinematics to help see how all of this felt and where we could use the motor to our advantage. The pedaling efficiency argument that typically pushes engineers toward a lower starting leverage ratio largely goes away when you have a motor doing the work. So we were able to lean into suspension performance and shock tuning without the usual penalty. The goal was for the Tazer to feel active and planted for the first part of the of travel, and that starting leverage ratio is a big part of how we got there.

I feel that you made the correct decision, but for a moment there it was harder to sell a Bosch equipped bike. It seems like that moment has mostly passed as reality about range, reliability, serviceability, center of gravity with an 800wh battery, legal compliance & noise came more to the forefront very recently.

Single cs length across all sizes. Why not a replaceable dropout and give the people options? Or two swingarms and adjust a short for S/M and longer for L/XL? Does it all really just come down to mold costs? 

The bike's silhouette looks great and kinematics look good. 

One question Juan.......where is mine I need a tracking number 🤣

There may or may not be a new bike in development. I can neither confirm nor deny. But if you're in the SoCal area there's always a chance you'll see us on the trails riding or testing something we're working on or playing with. Development never stops with us!

Steve! We'll be watching for your order....until then your tracking number stays with us! Haha. But in all seriousness, you're going to love the new Tazer and can't wait to see you out on the trails with it!