Avanti Torrent 2

A few years ago when we first reviewed Avanti’s Torrent trail bike we came away with the distinct impression of a very sorted and capable machine that was up for a bit of everything—it had no significant shortcomings. Of course a lot has changed since then, and the fact that it had 26-inch wheels was probably enough to justify a redesign.

Enter the 2014 Torrent 2. Resplendent in 27.5 hoops, a fully modernised rear end with post mount brakes and thru-axle dropouts, ISCG tabs for a chain device and tweaked geometry—the orange and black beast certainly looks the goods. For a 140mm travel bike, the large frame is slightly on the heavy side at 3,350g including the shock. With a careful parts selection, the overall weight is quite reasonable at 14.1kg including the stock alloy flat pedals; pretty much what you’d expect for a mid-travel mid-wheeler at the $3,649 asking price. If that’s a little outside your budget there’s also a Torrent 1, which can be had for the relatively modest sum of $2,699. The spec level on both bikes may not be the absolute best out there but it still represents good value for money, and at the end of the day components can always be swapped, but the frame is what you’re really buying.

So let’s start with the frame; its slightly higher than average weight is solely a factor of it being incredibly stiff and solid from end to end. The 6061 aluminium tubes are heavily shaped to provide plenty of meat at the junctions whilst still offering good standover height. There’s room inside the frame for a water bottle, and some seriously funky asymmetry at the lower seat tube to make space for a derailleur. It still runs double sided clevises at the rear and upper pivot points, and the large diameter main pivot has pinch bolts to make eventual bearing changes a breeze.

Mud clearance around the rear tyre is good but not great, especially around the lower brace—if you like fat tyres and ride muddy trails, have a close look at this area to gauge if there’s sufficient clearance for your needs. The welded one-piece rocker link mirrors the older Torrent, as does the well-braced asymmetric rear triangle, but now the tips are held together with Syntace X-12 rear end (albeit with a DT Swiss axle), which is almost certainly the stiffest thru-axle design on the market.

The head angle and bottom bracket height can be tweaked by 0.5-degrees and 5mm respectively by flipping a ‘chip’ at the lower shock mount. Whilst we spent most of our time in the slacker setting, we suspect there are plenty of riders who’ll prefer the steeper 67-degree head angle and extra 5mm of pedal clearance—even in this setting it’s still a very long way from being a twitchy race bike. The front derailleur is cunningly mounted to the main pivot so it tracks the rear wheel for perfect shifting regardless of where you are in the bike’s travel, and should you choose to run a single-ring setup there won’t be an ugly derailleur tab hanging off the seat tube.

Despite the very modern ultra-slack geometry the Torrent’s top tube is only 615mm for the large size. Personally I wish they’d added another 10-15mm to that length and chopped it off the overly long 80mm stem—do yourself a favour and swap it out. A shorter stem would have been a much better match for the sensibly wide 740mm bars. Whilst we’re having a little moan, both the internal and external dropper post routing seems incomplete, and we had to use a selection of zip ties to organise the cable on the externally routed dropper post that we fitted to our test sled. Given that a dropper of some sort is pretty much mandatory on this style of bike, it would be nice if Avanti had done a better job. All other cables are neatly tucked through quality guides under the down tube, which helps to maintain the Torrent’s sleek aesthetics without the rigmarole that often accompanies internal cabling.

The Honey Badger tyres make an excellent and versatile option for the rear, but we think most riders putting the Torrent through its paces will opt for something toothier up front. With a 19mm internal rim width, the Mavic Crossride wheels are very much at the narrow end of the spectrum. As a result they don’t offer much sidewall support at lower pressures, and they’re not the easiest to convert to tubeless. Both of these factors compromise the available traction and we’d prefer it if the rock hard tyres and narrow rims were left in the 90s.

Tried & Tru

The rear travel is handled by Avanti’s Tru4 suspension system, which is their take on the evergreen Horst-link design. Although they can be manipulated to behave in very different ways, Horst-link bikes remain common because they work well under a wide variety of circumstances, and the Torrent is no exception. The specific pivot locations used in this case aim to fit slap bang in the middle of the performance envelope. It offers a conservative and neutral balance of pedalling response, active braking behaviour and pedal kickback.

Leave the Fox CTD shock in its open setting and there’s unquestionably some pedalling induced suspension bob, but at the same time the suspension action is supremely soft and supple over most obstacles, the exceptions to which we’ll come back to in a minute. The middle Trail setting firms the shock and suspension noticeably, and whilst it definitely remains active enough for groomed trails you’ll certainly feel mid-sized bumps and sacrifice a little traction in the rough. Of course the payback comes with dramatically improved pedalling efficiency, especially when out of the saddle. The Climb setting is, as you might expect, solely for blacktop and other bump-free surfaces.

Regardless of which shock setting you use, the Torrent’s Tru4 suspension feels unaffected by braking, tracking the trail the same way it would without the anchors—it’s great to know you can scrub off speed quickly, no matter how ugly the braking bumps. Props to the folks at Avanti for choosing Shimano’s budget oriented Deore stoppers. They may lack the tool-free reach adjustment of their more expensive siblings, but they certainly don’t have a lack of power. These brakes, with their 160/180mm rotors as fitted, provide all the stopping you’re ever going to need, so money can be invested in other areas instead.

Pedal kickback in the Torrent’s 38-tooth chainring is virtually non-existent; it’s something particularly appreciated when descending slow but rough trails on flat pedals—you’re far more likely to stay centred and stable when you’re not getting whacked in the soles of your shoes with every compression. Like all bikes, kickback goes up significantly when you drop to the granny ring, and the sizable 14-tooth jump down to the small ring makes the difference far more obvious. The flip side is that the Torrent pedals much more efficiently in the granny ring; it’s eager to dig the rear tyre into the trail when climbing in the smaller ring. The Torrent is one of those bikes that begs for a one-by setup with a wide range cassette. We suspect a chainring in the low 30s would provide the perfect balance of pedalling efficiency, climbing bite and pedal feedback.

Idiosyncratic Suspension

It’s some time now since we’ve ridden a 140mm travel, aggressively angled bike with a 32mm fork. The first few rides served as a stark reminder of why many riders prefer a stiffer 34-35mm chassis at this travel. This fork flex is made more obvious by the inherent stiffness of the rest of the bike; ultimately it becomes a limiting factor in just how far and how hard the Torrent can be pushed. We don’t normally have an issue with Fox’s lower-end Evolution products, but this particular fork felt notchy and harsh from the outset. Although it got better the more we rode it we can’t help thinking that a rebuild/relube would have made a big difference. As such, the CTD dial was left in Descend mode for all but smooth and steep climbs, where the Trail setting was called upon to firm the front end for out of the saddle efforts. We fully appreciate that the 32mm fork is a cost-related choice, but think a better and stiffer fork would elevate the Torrent’s performance to a whole new level; the frame is certainly worthy of the upgrade.

Getting the shock pressure right on the Torrent is a bit of a finicky affair. When running 25-30% sag it tends to bottom out far too easily, especially with a lighter rider running lower air pressure. We found 15-20% was as much sag as we could run in order to provide adequate big hit support, but that meant compromising rear wheel traction on rough surfaces. Most manufacturers these days, including Avanti, are fitting shocks with a high-volume air chamber, knowing that customers can buy volume-reducing spacers to fine-tune the air spring if they wish. Whilst adding a spacer would allow the Torrent to be set up with correct sag without smashing into the bottom out bumper on every decent sized drop, it’d be nice if these came supplied with the bike rather than being an extra expense.

In the majority of riding situations the rear shock’s performance was smooth, but when it came to larger square impacts, drops with poor transitions, or rough descents at speed, there was an element of ‘woodiness’ to its behaviour that we failed to eliminate despite concerted fettling efforts. It wasn’t just flea weight riders who noticed this either, with even an 85kg plus tester commenting on this peculiar trait. It felt like there was too much high-speed compression damping; something that could be improved by getting a custom tune if it proved to detract from the ride quality on your trails.

Rampaging Torrent

Even bikes that are great all rounders excel more in some areas than others, and if there’s one thing the Torrent does exceptionally well it’s low speed, ledgy, trials-like climbing. It almost beggars belief the way it allows you to punch the pedals to get over a step, then slam to a dead stop, pause and realign with the next obstacle, then punch it again. It’s something we remarked on with the earlier version of the Torrent and thankfully it has carried over to this latest iteration. The outstanding frame stiffness surely plays a large part in this ability, and at lower speeds the suspension works perfectly well.

That exceptional climbing prowess doesn’t mean that the Torrent is a slouch on the downhills, however the suspension (and to a lesser extent the wheels and tyres) becomes the limiting factor in how rowdy you can get. It won’t stop you taking on anything short of a World Cup descent; it’ll just mitigate how quickly you can do so. The Torrent is happy to be in the air and holds its composure when you do, and the slack front end means you never feel like you’re about to pull an impromptu scorpion when barrelling through rock gardens. High G-force turns might make the fork and tyres wince but the frame is so predictably solid that it’s easy to just keep charging, knowing that at some point it’ll pull everything else back into line.

Despite a few suspension and component niggles, we had an absolute ball blasting Avanti’s latest machine down DH trails, railing it through berms, mooching along on extended XC rides, and putting it through the wringer on technical climbs. It’s testament to how fundamentally good the frame really is. In the current economic climate it’s perhaps understandable that Avanti have chosen to forego a truly upmarket version of the bike, but we’re certain that with a burlier fork, wider wheels, more aggressive tyres, a dropper post and a 1X drivetrain, the Torrent would be virtually unstoppable and we mean that in a good way. As it stands, the Torrent 2 is unquestionably a good bike, but it’s only a few tweaks away from being a great one.

Thumbs Up

Solid as a rock frame construction

Technical climbing prowess

Top-notch frame finish

Thumbs Down

Narrow rims

Shock harshness

Under-gunned 32mm fork

Specifications

Frame: ADT 6061 Ultralite Hydroformed Alloy

Shock: Fox Float Evo CTD, 140mm Travel

Fork: Fox 32 Evolution CTD 140mm

Headset: FSA Orbit Tapered

Handlebars: Zero Strike Pro Alloy 740 mm

Stem: Zero Strike Pro alloy 80mm

Shifters: SRAM X.7

Front Derailleur: SRAM X.7

Rear Derailleur: SRAM X.9

Cassette: SRAM PG-1050, 11/36 10-speed

Chain: SRAM PG-1051

Cranks: E-Thirteen TRS 24/38

Bottom Bracket: E-Thirteen Press-Fit 30

Pedals: Alloy Platform

Brakes: Shimano Deore

Wheels: Mavic Crossride

Tyres: Kenda Honey Badger 2.20

Saddle: Zero Zealth Pro

Seatpost: Zero Zealth Pro alloy

Weight: 14.1kg including pedals (Large frame 3,350g)

Available Sizes: S, M and L (tested)

Price: $3,649

Distributor: Shepard Cycles 1300 883 305 / www.avantibikes.com