DOWN THE TRAIL
Fondly Remembering MBA’s Past
O’Neal USA is an innovative motorcycle accessory company that spawned the Azonic mountain bike company over 20 years ago. Today, Azonic builds components and protective gear at impressively attractive prices for aggressive trail, enduro and downhill riders. Back in 1996, though, one of its biggest draws was its T-1 frame. According to Jim O’Neal, the founder of Azonic, he had his hands full with motorcycle products and had little interest in entering the bicycle market. However, his two sons, who at the time were aspiring dual-slalom and downhill racers, sucked him into the mountain bike world. They asked their dad to build some gravity-inspired products, including handlebars, “shorty” stems and the alloy frame we put to the test in our April 1996 issue for an article we called “Shooting Out Azonic’s Full- Suspension Fighter-Bombers.”
The experiment: Azonic designed the T-1 frame to be both a downhill winner and a cross-country standout—a combination that would be impossible to achieve today and was still a very tall order 20 years ago. To see if the bike was up to the task, we took two identical frames and set one up for cross-country riding and the other for downhill speed. Then we hit the trails.
The T-1 frame: Azonic built these bikes with an aluminum frame, a rising-rate parallel linkage and a floating drivetrain. Both bikes sported 3 inches of rear-wheel travel. The cross-country version of the T-1 came with a RockShox Judy fork that had 2.5 inches of travel. The downhill version saw a Judy DH fork that got a whopping 3 inches of travel and tipped the scales at 28 pounds.
The cross-country verdict: Out-of-the-saddle efforts on the T-1 XC were a breeze, and our test riders noted that the stiffer-than-average suspension curve felt great to those not accustomed to full-suspension rigs. Since the frames were identical, though, riders found themselves impressed with the descending ability of this bike, although it left less room for error thanks to the longer stem, shorter-travel fork and quicker handling.
The downhiller verdict: No surprises here—the DH version of the T-1 build won the downhill speed test; however, the bike came spec’d with a stiffer spring, which allowed it to climb impressively well—so long as the full-face helmet and chest protector setup didn’t over- heat the rider in the SoCal sun before the top of the hill.
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