Slash pre-ride impressions

12/11/22 22:32 Filed in: Gear

After 12 months of waiting, my Slash has finally arrived – early! My first observation is that paint is more complex than I expected. It is not only hue-changing paint but there are two paints. The top is dark and mostly purple. The bottom is bright and mostly blue. Somehow they’ve been able to paint it with a “grain” so that the writing behaves exactly opposite the background in how it reacts to light. What makes one bright, makes the other dark. Very cool. I’m also sad that most of the blue paint gets covered by the chainstay protector and the downtube protector. Yes that protection is essential. But it hides the cool blueness to a great extent.
Second impression is that the new Slash is much more of a beast than the previous version (which I now have for sale). Longer, lower and slacker. The Zeb fork is much beefier than the 36. Both ends are primed for one size larger disc rotors (200/180 rather than 180/160). I ran 200/200 rotors on the old Slash and will run 200/200 on the new Slash. It ships in low position where the old Slash shipped in high position (which I never rode once).
The gearing is lower. That makes sense after my time on the other Slash as top gear is too big for most trails, but I occasionally wanted a lower gear on long climbs up a mountain. Both a smaller chainring and a larger big sprocket on the cassette means the low gear is quite a bit lower. Ten per cent lower in fact.
And finally: It still looks like a Slash. The Trek family lines are there.

Michael Hanslip Coaching

If you want to go faster, you have to pedal harder

Slash pre-ride impressions