Thread: Transition Dirtbag Opinions

I'm looking to get some opinions and info on a Transition Dirtbag.

I've been looking at an 07-vintage Dirtbag for LadyShredalot. She started riding around the time I convinced her to move back East with me. This would be both her first full squish bike and her first freeride-oriented bike. I've been riding XC with her as she's gotten into the sport, and I've let my longer-travel bike rot as she's gotten into the sport. But now she's figured out that putting the bike in the air is fun. So there's a guy from the local club selling the frame for 300 or the bike built 1x9 for 850. I think as built the bike is about 40 pounds.

I guess I have two concerns and the first is weight. There is some good shuttle-able terrain about an hour from here and a Trailside Park style set of gravity trails going in about a half hour from here, but most of the local riding is more XC-oriented. There is some good lift-served DH a doable distance from here for weekends, but we haven't been riding it. She loves her Landshark hardtail XC bike, so this bike wouldn't replace it, though I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to save up for a more modern AM/FR bike like a Giant Reign etc. that you could pedal on the rougher local XC stuff. She's not enormous or a teenager or anything, so pedaling a single chainring 40 pound bike even on rough XC trails is probably not happening.

The second concern that I have is just that it might be dated geometry and newer stuff might just be more fun when pointed downhill.

Thoughts? I know some people here have owned Dirtbags in the past. I want to make sure I'm doing right by my lady in my role as gear geek.

They're basically just a Kona with more street cred. Certainly not a bad bike, but there are far more capable bikes in that category. The newer stuff like the Reign X option you mentioned will probably weigh a lot less and pedal and descend considerably better.

Yeah, this is kind of what I was feeling. It's a shame because it seems like a good price.

I just sold a transition preston fr. After I got my reign 0, I never rode the transition. Amazing how much lighter the new stuff is without losing suspension or braking power. If your lady is not going huge on the dh, I think a bike that can pedal more easily would be more fun and get more use.

I agree with your original thoughts. I currently ride a dirtbag, and while I love it for DHish/Freeride type stuff it's definitely an 80% downhill / 20% uphill type of bike. I think that it would be too heavy for her to have fun riding AM type stuff with on a regular basis and that a 30-35# 6" bike would be more enjoyable unless she's purely looking for a bike to huck with.

For it's size it does pedal pretty efficiently however you can feel the extra weight on the back while climbing

I completely gave up climbing with mine, but it kicks ass on anything downhill, jumpy. NOT FUN AT ALL riding uphill, mine weighed in at 43lbs but I used it for everything and ended up pushing up waaay more then pedaling. Might be a bit much for a lady? It was basically indestructable though and lasted through a bazillion crashes. Unfortunately it didnt last through the assholes of Denver and someone stole it off of my roof.

one last thing, the guys at Tranny are super cool, not sure if you can say that about other companies since Im a loyal custy of theirs now.

stay far away...unless your lady has a fetish for heavy, sluggish bikes with the sickest suspension design money could buy in 2002 (well, actually not. even in 02 there were less feedback intensive better suspension designs).

Transition covert