once i started making a a 'living' in MTB media, i hardly ever swapped out bikes. What's funny is that before getting into MTB media, i blew my paycheck and swapped out parts, frames or bikes every chance i coud (MTBR ruled back then for finding the goods!). Evil was when and truly the baddest brand around.It'll be fun to see the journey everyone has taken through the years (or the journey you may just be starting!)

It was immense on big drops, fasts stutter bumps and mega berms. The 161mm travel beast was perfectly suited to faster flowing enduro and trail centre tracks, such as those in Scotland and on the Pacific West Coast. The Wreckoning was born and, like the demon child of a JCB and Ferrari, was soon ripping up trails from Whistler to Wenslydale. Tracey Mosely had repeatedly shown, for Trek, that 29ers could cut it at endure level, Evil needed to join that party. 120mm may keep the endure lite brigade happy, but other brands were already adding more oomph to the back of their hardcore 29ers and Walsh saw this and saw that it was good. Sure, the Uprising had sold well, but the Following was a runaway success. Eventually Walsh made a decision and, despite hating 29ers himself, took the plunge and produced the Evil FollowingвЂ¦.and everybody, literally every jaded journalist who swung a leg over the early models, absolutely loved it.ДЄ spot of flip-chippy engineeringy stuff for you.Д«y the start of 2016, Evil were not only very much back in contention, but Walsh had also been converted to the idea that 29ers might actually be making a comeback. But it was a 29er! And so on, in circles. You donвЂ™t know for certain that itвЂ™ll work until you build it so you have to trust the designer and Walsh definitely trusted Weagle вЂ“ letвЂ™s face it heвЂ™d produced three incredible designs in a row (not to mention his work for a bunch of other brands) so why not trust him. But a lot of the process of design to prototype is one of trust. Evil bikes had effectively failed twice and the proposal was to return from the dead for a third time with a wheel size that was busy being killed off by the Goldilocks brigade. Looking back to 2014, this seemed completely bonkers. So Weagle had given him a 29er вЂ“ the Following. Something more trail bike oriented, something to meet the demands of the new converts to 650b. HeвЂ™d asked Dave Weagle for one more design. Things went pretty quiet for a while, but Walsh wasnвЂ™t beaten, he was just engaged in something of an internal battle вЂ“ with himself. Some feared that this was where Evil was heading.

Shiman bike vs iron horse bike