Preface; generally speaking this bike is fine and generally speaking the lines at Dog Park are fine. Now, with that out of the way, the bike felt like shit and the jumps felt like shit. Keep reading. So we were actually eyeing YT Capras before Kona put on their 50% sale. Even though we bought Konas, we didn't want to settle for whatever was cheapest/on sale. But being quite a different bike we knew we had to demo. And demo we did.

First up, the frame seems quite good. It's not MILES away from my new Kona. And generally when sat or stood on the bike I felt generally comfortable. I went in to this expecting to love the bike. Let's get that clear right away. That said, it came with a parts kit I was iffy on and sadly it was fairly clapped out as a demo bike. You may be able to hear some of the noises the thing was making all day.

I've always hated that X2 shock. And if I took a poll I feel like more people would say they hate it then love it. Now take a CLAPPED out version of it with less than perfect settings for my style of riding (which is admittedly, totally alien to MTBers) and I could NOT make heads or tails of the rear end. Sometimes it was soft (and slow). Sometimes it would firm up and the rebound would kick. There's so much adjustability in that shock alone the speed you're going changes the feedback SO much. The fork was okay, despite sounding like it was sucking air and too slow on rebound.

The brakes were more vague than i expected. I am a Shimano fan boy, to be clear, so getting used to Codes with EVERYTHING else new to me was not ideal. I do like quick bite point and hard pulls. Modulation, even on the Codes, generally meant I was pulling way harder than I thought I'd need to to slow the bike down. The GX drivetrain was out of index or had a different issue be it hanger or whatever. I know for a fact that GX is fine. So it was unfortunate to have an experience that felt like SX on the trail.

So if the part spec was not ideal, but the frame was okay... How did the bike ride? Fast. Take a ~215 pound rider like me and put them on a bruiser of a 170mm enduro... And you can't scrub off enough speed anywhere on the trail. I am NOT a very good mountain bike rider. I am a decent MTBer and an 'expert' jumper from BMX experience. I rode BMX with no brakes. So brake points and cornering are an embarrassment for me. And seeing other dudes struggle with corners out there... I basically called off most corners.

How does the MX set up and general geo feel? Okay. With the 29er front wheel I felt a little off balance when thinking of how to weight the front and still control the rear the way I wished. A lot of the corners were far from groomed and had outright ruts in them so the idea of trying to scandi flick off the front wheel was... Well fuck no I ain't even gonna try. I felt comfortable going front wheel high and bull dozing through trails when I messed up... But the one jump I got very wrong seemed to be made much worse by the 29er.

Why did I miss up that super easy jump? Speed. I still could not wrap my head around how much free speed this bike gains pointed down. I had just messed up the line (yet again) so I was going super slow and it looks like I took a very light cruising crank for the next jump. If anything I should have feather braked. By the time I was at the lip I had gained 1015% speed without realizing it. And with 30% sag and some rebound left in the X2. It damn near sent me to the hospital. Rider error? Yes, of course. This is all rider error. Jack Moir wins races on these things.

How are the trails? As usual with Dog Park it feels built by commission. Lippy jump into a long n low into a lippy jump all at varying lengths going down a hill. Flattish corners into long n low gap jumps. Downhill straights into lippy doubles. I dunno man. They're OKAY. But it's hard to give the diggers cred here. Intervention felt quite good. Jumpline to Dia looked VERY fun if I had my normal bike. And Beer Run looks MUCH better even though that's one tier pay grade above mine. But I appreciate the changes I would love to do the entrance doubles on my Kona. (I would never in a million years hit the previous version, those 1 foot wide moon booters lol fuck no.)

Moral of the story? Dog Park is still a great time, even if it gets windy before noon and makes it even harder to ride the jumps that are already challenging to preload correctly. The YT Capra is probably too much bike for my GF (we were hoping to get a bike for the park and trails) and is honestly probably too much bike for me and my riding. Could I fare much better long term on a Core 1 build? YES, obviously. But I'm not sure about that decision yet.

We are gonna go back and demo Izzos because otherwise YT doesn't quite have a bike for us. We like small 275 rigs and the entire industry is abandoning them. So the real question is... Will I be able to hit all these jumps better on the Izzo? (I'd say yes... I HOPE yes i dont wanna almost die again)