2018 Pole

Evolink 158 TR

While we’re constantly hearing about bikes getting longer, lower and slacker the reality is rarely radical. With two notable exceptions. These are Mojo’s Nicolai-built Geometron and the Pole that you see here. Pole is a Finnish brand and its range of bikes includes everything from hard tails to full-on downhill rigs. The Evolink 140 29 is its 29er trail bike. And it boasts a gigantic 1,300mm wheelbase. >>> Click here to find the best enduro bikes It’s foldable too If you’re worried about trying to fit some a behemoth into your house or car fear not. The Pole has a clever trick up its sleeve. By removing the front wheel and a shock bolt, the swing arm folds under the down tube and it’ll conveniently tuck into the cupboard under the stairs. The rest of the geometry on the Pole is just as extreme as that wheelbase measurement. With a raked out 64.5 degree head angle, steep 75.5 degree seat angle and huge 456mm chain stays. Four sizes are available from the XS through to the Large you see here. It gets 140mm of rear wheel travel coupled with a 150mm travel fork up front. Evolink suspension system Pole’s Evolink suspension system uses a twin link design. It’s tuned to work with an air shock and Pole recommend that you set it up with plenty of sag. It gives a pretty linear feel and although the Evolink doesn’t bottom out harshly we definitely got the impression that we were regularly using all of the travel. This produced great traction on our alpine test trail and when combined with that vast wheelbase and slack head angle the Pole boasted supreme stability and inspired huge confidence. Handling Now you’re probably thinking the flip side of this composure is that it just doesn’t go round corners. Wrong. The Evolink is actually surprisingly agile even with the narrow bars fitted to our test bike. the steering was a bit quirky on the entry into corners but this could be due to the longer offset on the MRP fork. Once we’d committed our lean angle we could completely trust the grip levels. Even if the bike got out of shape we had loads of time to correct it thanks to the massive wheelbase. Flicking between turns was also surprisingly easy once we got our timing right. Downsides? Well, getting the front wheel off the ground is not easy. You have to adapt your technique, plan ahead and use more effort to get the bike to manual. Also, the suspension isn’t super-active under braking. And it’s not exactly light at over 14kg. But don’t let these issues pout you off because the Pole Evolink offers you something almost non existent on the market. It gives a genuinely progressive geometry along with sizing that means it will actually fit riders over six foot. We think more manufacturers need to take note of what companies like Pole and Mojo are doing, particularly when it comes to building bikes for …Continue reading »

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