Gary Fisher 1997 Joshua Z1

This is my first full suspension bike. I bought it from SuperGo bike store at Santa Monica at a close out price. I thought it was a pretty good deal for the part selection at that time. Comparing to my last hardtail, the ride is wonderful in rough terrain. And it did a decent job going down a hill. The RockShox Super Deluxe Rear Shock has a lock out lever with can "lock out" the rear shock to stiffen the ride. This always aid in accents and flat roads. And the rebound adjustor did make a difference.

Of course, this bike is far from perfect. The RockShox Judy SL up front claimed to have 3 inches of travel.  But the most that I can get out of it is somewhere in the 2.2 inches neighborhood. And the damping adjustor doesn't seems to big any difference. When trying to go up steep climbs, the URT rear suspension compress and raise the rear tire in every hard pedal, and thus tends to decrease rear tire traction, when you need it the most. There are also a lot of pedal feedback, e.g. when I went through a rock garden as a higher speed, I can really "feel" the whole URT going up and down since my feet are "attached" to it.

I liked this bike for most of the parts (the step-up of full suspension over hardtail, the close-out deal, parts selection, the rear shock, etc). But then, after a while, the short coming of the bike became obvious and annoying (Judy SL, the URT design, etc). So this one has to go ...

Here is the spec.