News

 

May 2011

Article by Mark ‘Hazza’ Harrowfield / Photos by Thomas Lloyd
The New Avanti Torrent’s Perform Well at Woodhill
Following the recent article the NZ MTB Mag ran with Haydz providing an excellent overview of what to look for in the ultimate Woodhill rig, you may have read that Tim Hunter (our park supervisor and resident ABD development rider) and myself, Mark Harrowfield (Park Managing Director) have been riding the newly released Avanti Torrent – Avanti’s new 2011 full suspension rigs.


We have both received a lot of interest at the park by riders who have seen them advertised and read the raving reviews that have been published over the last few months and thought the rest of the newsletter readers may find some interest in our review.


Although Tim and I felt a sense of obligation to Avanti due to their fantastic support for the park through sponsorship and for Tim through ABD, we also needed our new trail bikes to be able to handle almost all of the freeride elements which are part of a good long trail ride at Woodhill and we weren’t going to settle for something that didn’t cut the mustard.


Our first impressions on how well it pedalled ‘up’ the likes of Powerball, Upland, No Brakes and Combo trails was ‘super well’.  The standard 2 x 10 SRAM drive trail is perfect for our terrain and while you aren’t likely to need granny it’s nice to have when you are out of town attacking the likes of Direct Rd or Frontal Lobotomy in Rotorua!


On descents down trails like Afterglow, Evil Offspring and SPCA the Torrent’s 4 bar linkage provided outstanding grip and felt very stable and allowed us to corner with confidence even on our first ride.
The 140mm Fox