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I just traded an old Bianchi road bike for a 1999 Klein Mantra in mint condition. My questions are: Is the bike a good singletrack bike? Could the bike be used for free riding? What are the limitations? I am a 35 year old that lives fairly close to a lot of singletrack trails. I am just hoping the bike will allow me to learn and get better. Hoping I didn’t get screwed.
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The Klein was an interesting and innovative bike back in its day.
You will most likely want to replace the fork, and the mantra has a standard threadless headset so that is an easy mod.The bike was originally designed for cross country, and most riders describe downhill on it as ‘scary’ at best. I would NOT recommend it for freeride or drops of any kind.
The issue with descending on it is that early full suspension designs did not account for braking forces in the overall geometry of the bike. In the case of the mantra, applying the brakes on a downhill compresses the fork and extends the rear suspension. Faster than you can say ‘endo’ you’ll be over the bars and doing a superman impression.
I would suggest riding it on some non technical singletrack, and save up your $$ toward a more modern bike that can handle whatever style of riding you end up liking.
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