2012 Transition Bandit

The Transition Bandit is a North-West American designed trail bike, pointed directly at mountain bikers that like to have fun on the trails both up and down.

I have always been against “do-it-all” bikes, mainly because many do nothing well. My dirt jumper jumps well and my downhill bike rides down hills well. Where I am from in Adelaide, South Australia, our trails tend to be a lot more challenging on the way up than the way down. As a result, my trail riding bikes in the past went from a dual suspension to a hard tail to a full rigid single speed. The journey made my weekend rides a challenge, but sucked the fun out of the sport. When my buddy Carl from Transition Bikes gave me the heads up on a new bike coming out, the “Bandit”, I was interested, but not yet convinced.

I took the plunge and ordered up a nice new 2012 Transition Bandit, Fox 32 Float 140 RLC on the front and a Fox RP23 BV rear – both Kashima of course! By the time that I’m writing this post, these are the standard suspension components with both build kits – pretty sick! I was tempted to go for the Bandit 29 – it was a tough decision but I decided to stick with the 26 as I was really hunting a playful bike. After placing the order with Transition, my buddies from Spank Industries hooked me up with some controls and their new Spike Race28 Wheelset – but more on that later! The end result was a Spanked out “Bandit 1”.

The Bandit built up like a dream. It sounds like a stupid thing to say, but some bikes are annoying to build, and this one just went together nice and easy. My only complaint was the bottle cage bolts on the underside of the downtube – they make clear taping the downtube more time consuming than normal.

My Transition Bandit has transformed the way that I look at cross country down here in Australia. Trails that many ride for fitness, I am having a blast on! Similar to how I ride on my Transition TR450, the Bandit has me looking for little jib lines and opportunities to jump where I would otherwise just pedal to get to the end of the trail. My Bandit really does ride like a mini downhill bike on the descents – the thing is chuckable, get it in the air and it will whip, yet it only has 130mm of rear wheel travel! The supplied Fox RP23 BV shock is custom tuned to ride this way – to quote Transition the tuned RP23 is “matched perfectly to the leverage curve for a bottomless feel, great small bump sensitivity and efficient pedaling.”

Transition Bikes are well known for their gravity bikes, but not so much on the uphill. I have been surprised by the Bandit, it’s a great pedaller and works hard to keep you moving quickly on the technical ascents. I am struggling with pedal strikes, but I put this down to the 175mm SRAM X0 crankset rather than the bottom bracket height, which is quite comparable to other bikes in this category.

I have been impressed by the Transition Bandit – it has made every day trail riding fun for me again, proving that an all rounder bike IS possible. Transition Bikes has shown us that they are capable of making mountain bikes for all disciplines, a sign of a brand that is growing now more than ever.

This is the current spec of my 2012 Transition Bandit:

FRAME	Transition Bandit Large Black
SHOCK	Fox RP23 BV Kashima
FORK	Fox 32 Float 140 RLC w/Kashima QR15
STEM	Thomson 70mm
HANDLEBAR	Spank Oozy LTD
HEADSET	FSA Gravity DX Pro
CRANKSET	Truvativ X0 GXP 10S 175mm 38/24
BRAKES	Avid X0
ROTORS	Avid HS1 160mm Front/Rear
FRONT TIRE	Maxxis Crossmark 2.1 Foldable
REAR TIRE	Kenda Small Block Eight 2.1 Folding
PEDALS	Spank Spike Flat Pedals Red
SEATPOST	Thomson Elite
SEATPOST COLLAR	Transition QR Black
SADDLE	Transition Park N Ride Diamond Stitch
GRIPS	Spank Subrosa Lock-On Grips Black/Red
WHEELSET	Spank Spike Race28 Black/Red
CASSETTE	SRAM PG-1070 10SP 11-36
SHIFTER	SRAM X0
FRONT DERAILLEUR	SRAM X0
REAR DERAILLEUR	SRAM X0 10 Speed
CHAIN	FSA Team Issue 10spd

For more information on the Transition Bandit, check out the Transition Bikes website at http://www.transitionbikes.com.