Flow's First Bite: Avanti Torrent 2


The not-so-minor details

Product

Avanti Torrent 2

Contact

Sheppards Cycles
www.avantibikes.com

Price

AUD3,649.00

Size Tested:

Medium

Positives

Good angles
Stiff rear end
FOX CTD
Mavic wheels.

Negatives

Grips
No Tubeless

Us

Despite being somewhat a local brand (New Zealand) you don’t see too many Avanti bikes on the local trails. We think the 140mm Torrent may change that.

 
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The Torrent 2 is a good looking, stiff, and very capable 27.5″ all-mountain machine. The 140mm travel market is pretty well saturated and you have to be a good bike to stand out in that crowd and on paper the new Torrent 2 really does stand out as a viable option against some of the bigger brands.
The all aluminium bike has striking looks and a good relaxed stance. Not that you’ll see it advertised anywhere but the geometry of the bike is adjustable via a little chip at the bottom of the shock. We love this little tune-ability and the aggressive angles of the Torrrent range from a 67-65.5 degree head angle and up to a 5mm drop in the bottom bracket height.
The standout features of the Torrent 2 are a Fox CTD fork and shock, Mavic Crossride wheels, e*thirteen cranks, and a mix of SRAM X7 and X9 components.  There’s even porting for an internally routed adjustable seat post should you want an upgrade.

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e*thirteen crankset matched with a 2x chain device makes for a pretty strong and secure drivetrain.

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“The Tru4 4-bar mechanism positions the rear axle on the isolated seat stay. This optimises the “virtual pivot point” so the suspension system operates efficiently and independently of rider effects.” – Avanti

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Mavic wheels are nice touch and something you see less of as original stock items these days. We’ve always had good experiences with Mavic and we’re hoping the same.  Not tubeless out of the box though so that’s a downer.

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FOX CTD front and rear gives some excellent on-trail tunability. We’ll see how much we need it, especially for climbing.

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The rear end of the bike is really stiff and our initial testing (one ride) showed it to work very well on the bigger hits and held well in corners.

So far we’re loving the whole package and with a few minor changes (the grips suck and we’ll be going tubeless) this bike is ready to be ridden hard.
We’ll be blasting the Torrent 2 up an down our local trails over the next few weeks and give you a full run down soon. On our first rides we found the Torrent pretty lively so we’re looking forward to see how much fun we can have with it.
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Them

TORRENT: DESIGNED FOR WHERE THE WILD THINGS RIDE.
This is a bike to howl about. It just wants to go places – big ol’ scary places your old bike didn’t want to go. It has a Tru4 suspension system at its heart so you can attack any technical descent and climb any hill with absolute confidence. You can handle the most demanding trail conditions with precision and power.
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