Teased earlier in the year and raced in Losinj, the new Madison Saracen team-only Myst stacks up to quite a different beast to the production model.
With Danny Hart and Alex Marin holding the fort while Matt Walker’s hand heals, Pete took the chance to have a closer look at the redesigned team-only Myst downhill bike.
What started as a mission to make a 29″ wheeled Myst soon evolved into an opportunity to tweak the design of the Myst in other areas as well. Minor tweaks in the right places all add up to make a very different beast.
Madison Saracen have been heavily involved in the development of the new Myst and while there’s certainly an obvious lineage the new bike is quite a different animal altogether.
Things started in Lenzerheide when Matt Walker raced the alloy mule version of the 29er Myst. This bike had a 5mm longer, adjustable rear, a longer reach with an adjustable offset headset for more reach and a leverage curve that, according to Dave Garland, makes it react much like a multi-linkage platform.
With that new linkage was a move towards offering a greater range of adjustability in the rear shock. Will Longden said that with the old bike, the riders found that they were at the extreme ends of the shock’s adjustments in their preferred settings.
A tweaked leverage curve means the riders’ settings sit in the mid-range of the shock, allowing for better adjustment range and a damping circuit that isn’t being worked so hard.
The design of the 29er Myst focused around making it feel as similar to the 27.5″ Myst to get Matt up to speed on the bigger wheels. To achieve this, the bottom bracket sits lower on the 29er compared to the 27.5″ bike giving a very similar feel.
While many 29″ downhill bikes have had their travel clipped, the Myst retains the full 200mm of travel to again, make both bikes feel the same.
On closer inspection, the top and downtubes are of a different profile as well. A more box-section, straighter top and downtube are stronger shapes, allowing for a thinner carbon lay-up and almost a pound saved on the frame weight. The bottom bracket also has been redesigned to lose some stiffness as it was felt to be stiffer than the team would like on the production model.
