Asylum 29er

Well I finally got around to taking some photographs of my Asylum 29er.....my bike for 2007 and hopefully beyond. I have owned a few Titus Racer X's in the past (actually 3) and it is definitely one of the best racing platform bikes every made. I switched to a Turner Flux for a short period looking for a plusher ride, but the 29er bug hit me. This wasn't hard since most of my ridding buddies are on 29ers and I knew eventually peer pressure would set in. Plus I have the reputation of getting a new bike every

time mine gets too dirty???

I found a sweet deal on a Used Asylum in the MTBR classifieds this past fall and jumped on it knowing if I did not like it, I could easily sell it and make a few $$ in the process. I immediately like the 29er ride over a 26". The 29er just seems to have so much better traction thru corners and rolls faster that overall the bike comes out faster. I actually did a back to back test on my Turner Flux which weights around 24lbs and the original Asylum I owned which weighted close to 28lbs. In the end the Asylum was faster. I did this test twice with the same results. My after ride quotes were the Turner Flux "felt lighter" while the Asylum "felt faster".

So within a few weeks I had someone contact me wanting to buy my Asylum.....I didn't like the polished frame color, wheel set was way too heavy for my liking and the Maveric fork was not for me - Sold him those parts. Speedgoat had a deal to buy a Asylum frame and get a fork for free so that is what you see here.

Not a Rock Shox fan, but Fox has yet to release a 29er fork so until there is a Fox terrilogic fork available, I will use the RS.

It's not an Extreme lightweight build - I could pull some of the parts off my Turner Flux and loose another 3/4 of a pound, but am content with how the bike is built now - rides purrrrrrrfect! The Asylum as you see it (minus the spare tube) weight is guesstimated at around 25.5lbs. I stated weighting most of the parts, but never ended up weighing the entire bike. The big weight savings is the wheel set built by Mike Garcia. WTB hubs, Stans Olympic Rims, Supercomp spokes - wheel set weight is 1605 grams, with 620 gram Specialized Fast Trak tires which say 2.0 sized tires, but are closer to a 2.1. Great grip and roll nice and fast.

Photos were taken with my Nikon D200 and 85 1.4 lens. The lens is more of a portrait type lens but since I have not used it a ton, wanted to try it
out a bit more. Not bad for some quick shots with natural lighting in the back yard. Photos are untouched out of the camera.