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Revel Rascal Frame: Rider Review

Our "Rider Review" article series features honest reviews from verified purchasers of Worldwide Cyclery. They contain the photos, thoughts, feedback & overall review you are looking for.

We recently started carrying Revel here at Worldwide and so far, it has been nothing but positive reviews. The bikes are fun, lightweight, and downright sexy. Our customer Joshua picked up a Rascal frame for a custom build he was working on. Read on to hear more about it!

Overview

To give a little background of myself, I grew up as a kid racing BMX and started riding MTB in Texas in my early 20’s. I wound up moving to Knoxville TN and rode and raced DH for the better part of 10 years all up and down the East Coast. Riding has always been part of my life. However, due to marriage, kids, injuries, work and whatnot, I wound up quitting biking altogether at the age of 40.

Fast forward about 10 years, I moved back to Texas. And after a while, I started to miss riding. I wound up buying an entry-level trail bike from a big bike chain store to see if anything would rekindle with riding. I didn’t want to dump a lot of money if I wound up not liking it. And after a couple of laps on the local trails, I fell in love with riding all over again.

Back In The Saddle

During this time and as the responsible adult that I am (/s), I had started to upgrade everything. I bought a PIKE Ultimate, an i9 wheelset, a better drivetrain, and the list went on. While the frame I had was OK, it just wasn’t up to the task for what I wanted. Plus it was a little rough around the edges. Internal routing was loud and it sounded like a cowbell at times. The paint was crap. After only 6 months of use, there were chips everywhere. But hey, it was a budget bike, what did I expect? When it came time to get a frame to transfer all my upgrades to, and after a LOT of research, the one that really stood out to me was the Revel Rascal.

The Canfield brothers were a name I was familiar with from back in the day. And the geometry and travel seemed spot on for what I wanted. Another thing that stood out to me from the reviews was the way people said it climbed and pedaled. There is not a lot of elevation to deal with in here in Texas like there was in TN. So I spend a lot of time in the saddle now. However, Texas is really rocky and actually does have some rough descents. So having something that can pedal and go downhill was top priority. After many Add to Cart, Remove from Cart, and Add back to Cart, I finally pulled the trigger on a LG Black Rascal Frame.

On-Trail Performance

After personally building it up, I have now spent the better part of a month riding it. And whoa, let me just say it is by far one of the best frames I have ever straddled. And I have slung my legs over a lot. Turner, Intense, Specialized, Morewood, those are just some of the brands I have ridden extensively in my lifetime. And at the time, they were all great at their intended use. But for a do it all bike, the Revel Rascal has far exceeded my expectations on what a bike with 5 inches of travel can do. It climbs so damn well, especially out of the saddle. It feels so very balanced and centered. And when going down, it really does soak up the chatter fairly well. Now, this is not a downhill bike for sure. I can’t just point it and go. There definitely has to be a little picking of the line. But the couple times I didn’t pick the correct line, I was really surprised how well it made up for my mistake.

Pros

Climbs like a mountain goat. No, seriously, it really does. It just wants to go forward.
Paint seems very durable. No chips at all so far.
Angles are just spot on for the terrain I ride.
It’s soooooo quiet. I mean, I forget I’m on it quiet. But that just maybe the early Alzheimer’s setting in.

Cons

Cable routing under the BB scares me. It’s probably OK, but just exposed like they are is so different to me.
If you buy the whole bike (which I didn’t do cause I’m a dumb ass), it comes spec’d with a 51mm offset fork. Which is what I got. With a 66° HA, I wonder if a 41mm offset would feel a little less wobbly. If you live somewhere with steeper terrain than Texas, 51mm offset probably feels fine though.