The Enduro Bike That Got Me In Trouble - Banshee Titan w/ Intend Suspension [Video]

It's been quite some time since our fearless leader Jeff Cayley built up a longer travel bike, and this time around, the Banshee Titan rolling on Intend Suspension is his steed of choice. Equipped with a choice selection of components from brands like Berd, 5Dev, Wolf Tooth, Trail One & others, this bike has no detail left untouched. You might think that since it's a 155mm travel full suspension enduro mountain bike that perhaps Jeff would be less of a weight weenie... but you'd be wrong. Keep scrolling to check out some beautiful detail shots of this magnificent machine and learn more about the parts he chose, plus you'll find a full spec sheet at the bottom of the page.

Drivetrain

You can always expect Jeff to do something a little different when it comes to his drivetrain. Gone is the 11 speed that he normally equips on his machines, and here he has finally embraced the 12 speed life. Running a 5Dev Trail/Enduro Crankset & Chainring, a Leonardi 9-46t cassette & a SRAM XX1 shifter, derailleur & chain, he's found a combination of parts that are lightweight, durable and unique. Did you really think he was just going to run a good old SRAM Eagle drivetrain? Lets get real.

Suspension

Continuing with the theme of unique and rare parts, Jeff is running Intend suspension for the first time on this bike. The fork is their Edge fork which in this configuration is a 170mm travel, 35mm stanchioned enduro fork. The rear shock is their Hover Gamechanger rear shock which is unlike any other air shock you've seen before. One feature that we really appreciate is how well the color of the rear shock matches the fork (we're looking at you, Fox). Unique in their aesthetics and unparalleled in their performance, both the fork and shock are made in house in Germany by Intend, essentially made to order like the food from your favorite restaurant. Except these guys are serving up extremely beautiful, boutique, hand made parts for your mountain bike instead of pizza and pasta.

Wheels & Tires

We all like to give Jeff a hard time every once in a while now that he runs carbon wheels, since once upon a time he said he probably never would. It could be that we're just jealous of his setup, though. Speaking of his setup, he's rolling on BERD's Hawk30 wheels wrapped in Continental Xynotal rubber. He's been pretty pleased with these tires so far, and that's saying a lot since he doesn't take things like tires lightly. 

Brakes

Jeff is a big fan of SRAM brakes, and that goes for this bike as well. He's running Code RSC brakes with Intend's "Massive" rotors so he can have as much stopping power possible. These extra thick rotors help dissipate heat and maintain an appropriate temperature while Jeff is flying down gnarly trails at mach chicken and needs to stop on a dime. 

Cockpit

The cockpit on Jeff's steeds usually stays pretty consistent across his bikes. He likes a nice and short stem like the 32mm Trail One Rockville stem, paired with a riser bar on the shorter side like the 15mm rise Crockett Carbon Handlebar. His hands grasp onto Hell's Gate grips while Wolf Tooth's ReMote is employed for dropper duties, actuating their Resolve post for Jeff's bottom to rest upon. 

Photos by Liam Woods - Words by Jared Erickson

If you're one strange human and would like to read a transcript of the video above, continue reading below!

I have been obsessed with custom building mountain bikes since I was 13 years old. It's one of the main reasons I started worldwide Cyclery and frankly still love the company because I get to do this kind of stuff. I haven't built up a full-fledged Enduro bike for myself in quite some time and I just did and I did a lot of really unique unusual things on this bike and well the bike is just kind of unusual so let's check it out.

So this is it - it is a banshee Titan V 3.2 floating on German engineered Intend suspension and berd hawk 30 Wheels. This is definitely a different bike for me, I haven't built an Enduro bike in a while and I wanted to do something unique and all of this kind of just transpired really nicely and this thing came out amazing and it's been such a fun bike to ride. Banshee is just this small boutique true mountain bike brand run by core mountain bikers. I've been riding them since I was a kid. I have had multiple amps which is their dirt jump, a Spitfire, and a rune over the years. they've always stuck with aluminum, they've always stuck as a small boutique brand they've never tried to go big or be traditional or anything like that which I've always respected and admired about Banshee. 

This particular frame is a size large. I don't really care what the frames are labeled as in terms of sizes these days. I like a 470 reach which is what this is for me. A 470 reach and a 32 mil stem is nice. So that's what I'm looking for man this bike has come out so cool it's just over 31 Pounds albeit it feels a lot lighter because the suspension is so plush and the berd Wheels spin up so fast. Let's dive into a little bit of the specs on various components before I dive into more detail about them. This bike, the suspension, and the wheels probably all deserve an individual video of their own and we actually did do a video on berd Wheels in particular because that's such an interesting product so please do check that out links Below in the video description for the detailed build spec and everything on this bike as well as that Berd video link and anything else. Please do comment if you want to see an individual video about just the frame or just the fork or just the shock or all of it please let us know. But to talk about the suspension, this is kind of a cool story. We'd seen some intend suspension poking around the internet never really laid eyes on it and on the MTB podcast we were talking about how many various amazing and rare Boutique sort of European Brands there are in the mountain bike scene that we really don't get to see very often in North America. Intend, the guys over there listen to the mountain bike podcast, and they reached out and they said “hey we're one of those rare Boutique German engineering Brands and we make suspensions you want to try it out?” and we're like “yes of course we do!” That's where the suspension came from, it's not really readily available to purchase in the United States, we might try and change that in the future because after I rode the suspension I thought holy crap we really need to bring this stuff in the U.S and start selling it. but as of now it's pretty hard to get, andd also fairly pricey. This Fork, The Edge Fork, is at 170 mil of travel. it's obviously an inverted Fork that sort of motocross style design it's pretty amazing in the sense that I've ridden some inverted forks in the past on mountain bikes but never one that's got to this caliber and it's made me really kind of see the future a little bit and I have a feeling that in the next five years a lot of 150 mil or more travel mountain bike Forks are going to be inverted because they're getting to the place with engineering where they're getting the stiffness and the weight in line with the existing style traditional mountain bike forks and the performance of that design is just way better. there's less unsprung weight and the way that the whole setup is designed is just again a whole video in itself. I could ramble on about it looking to do that a little bit more because there are some other videos on this Intend fork in particular. Push Industries, which is a very prominent suspension company in the mountain bike world, has teased and sort of introduced an inverted Fork that looks very similar that's not out yet. I think it's going to be a thing in the coming years for that longer travel bike because riding this thing has just kind of blown my mind. I will say I would like more time on it, I would like more back-to-back comparisons to compare it to a fox 38 or a Zeb to really dig into that and I think we'll do that in a future video. but sort of First Impressions and a handful of hours on this suspension has really blown me away and I don't want this Fork to sort of take all of the sort of thunder away from this rear shock which is also just this mind-blowing crazy German engineered and assembled and built rear shock that is an air shock albeit it has a really untraditional and small shaft for an air shock. It's crazy, I've never felt a bike that is so plush and so it's just so perfectly damped that the faster you go the more stable this thing feels and it just makes the whole bike have so much traction and stability when you're riding on that rough sort of Trail it's it's incredible it very it does feel very race inspired. the slower you go, the more it kind of just I don't know I have to maybe tune in a little bit more but the first thoughts of it like if I'm going a little bit too slow or I'm under like really slow breaking and diving into things I need to work on some compression settings there but the second you get this thing over 10 miles an hour it's just unbelievable how light and sort of fluffy it feels and just how energetic it feels for being this much of a long travel bike.

Banshee also puts a lot of emphasis on having the least amount of friction possible in their suspension design. The trunnion mount is a big part of that having bearings right there and that really just helps amplify how well that rear shock works on this bike too. all of this has come together to just be this Enduro bike that's really felt so fast and agile and playful and very different from a traditional Enduro bike of its same weight and travel range. so anyways that's my small Ramble On the suspension & the frame.

The wheels, I love. Berd hawk, these are the 30s, and yeah it's just such a good setup these things spin up so fast with their Rim. I used to say I don't ride carbon rims-  and I'm going to tell you why I personally do not ride carbon rims on my mountain bike and probably never will- that one didn't age quite so well. I stuck by that for a long time and I've since changed because in the last three to five years they've made carbon rims to where I can't break them anymore so I'm just gonna ride them because they're lighter and they have a really good feel. They've also tuned them over the years, the various Brands, Berd included, to make the rims not unbelievably harsh and stiff but having this like good balance of compliance so they kind of have a nice balance there and it doesn't feel like the old Carbon wheels that were just crazy stiff. 

The other thing that's kind of different for me is I'm not riding Maxxis Tires on this bike. I'm still a Die Hard Maxxis fan, I did want to try these new Continental Tires. The names are crazy. These ones are the Xynotals I still not really sure like perfect combinations dependent on Xynotol or Kryptotal or Argotal but on this bike we did Xynotals front and rear and 2.4s and yeah they're impressive. They're really amazing traction wise, rolling resistance, it's been really cool to test these things out. I think you know these three Tire models from Continental are probably the only tires that I could say are seriously running up with like a very competitive feel and traction wise against Maxxis in the mountain bike scene so that's really cool and awesome to see albeit they're still really having issues with inventory and getting the right amount of sizes and different casings and sidewalls and all that sort of stuff readily available in North America but maybe they'll fix that.

Beyond that stuff, 5Dev Trail Enduro cranks - these things are epic absolutely love how these things look and just really paired well with this bike also a 5Dev chainring that's paired with Crank Brothers Mallet E pedals with a titanium spindle little weight weenie touch right there. I love Crank Brothers Mallet E pedals, perfect for this kind of bike or almost any bike.

Other weird things that I did, here this is a Leonardi cassette uh very rare Boutique Italian brand it is a 9 to 48 12 speed built for SRAM and still goes on the XD driver body it has 533% gear range so actually more than srams 10 to 52 tooth 520 percent Eagle cassette and it's lighter. Pretty cool, it's been interesting to try. shifts perfectly fine, I have like zero complaints about it so far it seems awesome. I will say I did randomly break a chain on this bike at sort of a I have no idea how like the master link just disintegrated those are the kind of weird things that sometimes happen when you run non-sram cassettes on SRAM chains but I can't chalk that up to say that that was necessarily this cassette or something else so I need more time on it but other than that weird blip which again can't really say as a result of the cassette otherwise the cassette is rad it's been cool to try this thing. I like the look of a 48 tooth large Cog rather than the 52 and the fact that it's got a larger range is pretty cool. oh, and it's lighter. not by much, but a little bit lighter than the eagle cassette so weight weenie approved there. This is that newer wolf tooth Resolve dropper post not even close but seems perfect 150 mil travel no complaints, looks rad works great no issues so far but it's a dropper so if there's an issue it's not going to happen and anytime soon it'll happen 50 hours into owning the thing. wolf tooth seat post clamp, wolf tooth remote, I love that remote. I really enjoyed that feel and this whole system wolf tooth has going with their remote and their new dropper. I love it. 

WTB Silverado saddle with carbon rails, again, a little bit of a weight weenie situation going on there. I like these seats. I'm not super picky, I kind of just like the way that they look and the way that they feel. it's a little bit more of a firm sort of fast light XC style seat but I like that it seems good for me. Least but not last, cockpit. Of course, Trail one Rockville stem and 32 millimeter length with the trail one titanium bolt upgrade and gold on there, Trail one Crockett carbon bars with a 15 mil rise, and then Trail one Hell's Gate grips. obviously if you guys are watching this far in this video you probably know that worldwide Cyclery and the crew here helped co-found the trail one component brand so we could have an outlet to work with Engineers to make all of the stuff that we really enjoy it's not even a couple years old yet we've got some killer stuff and also donated several thousand dollars to support gel networks and that's a big part of that brand. So anyways, links below if you don't already know about that. 

Least but not last I think I forgot to mention - SRAM Eagle 12-speed shifter xx1 and then XX1 Eagle rear derailleur. code RSC brakes paired with 200 millimeter front and rear intend massive rotors. I'm not sure if they even still make those, I don't think they're like in their navigation on their website but they're somewhere on their website. They're pretty cool they just sent those along with the suspension and we tried them out and they work great but they're rotors so it's kind of hard to tell quantifiably if one rotor's better than the other. they haven't bent they work good they've been silent and worked just as good as you'd imagine any rotor on these brakes so yeah. that kind of rounds out this bike, please do drop any comments below, I'm more than happy to get back to you guys and answer various questions about this thing and also if you want to dig into more details about it, hit that link below. that takes you to the article that has all of the various specs and everything. 

I can be reached in the comments and also on my Instagram - it's @JeffCayley if you ever want to ask me random bike nerd questions and I'm only telling you that because you've watched this video thus far and I appreciate it. That's it, that's all, share this video with your mountain bike friends that might appreciate this crazy Enduro bike I've built and talk to you guys in the next one.