Late in 2016 Rocky Mountain had a teaser for a new bike they were coming out with, the Slayer. Advertised as a “mini dh bike”, it look very similar to the Maiden, but was also be able to pedal surprisingly easily. They sure delivered on that and I was super excited to receive my Slayer in mid March. It was in the middle of Spring Break Camp for Endless Biking and I happened to be house sitting at the same time. I ended up spending some time after the day of teaching was done to build it up and wow was I excited to ride it the next day!
The model I got was the second highest build spec available. It came with the high end Rockshox suspension, XT drivetrain, and stans wheels. Since Endless Biking is supported by Fox, I was going to swap the suspension out once we got our order in. I also went with a size Large because I was afraid the XL would be too high like it was on the Norco.
The advertisement was right and the bike really did pedal well for having 170mm of travel. It wasn’t long before the first BC Enduro rolled around and I really got to give it a go! About half way through the season, the suspension came in and I put on the new Fox Fork and Shock. Going back to Fox suspension really felt good and I could adjust things to the way I wanted.
I didn’t really have any issues with the components of the bike other than the Reverb dropper post. For some reason it became very rough to operate and I had to send it back for warranty. The frame had a couple of rub marks which were due to the cable routing, but some 3M tape and zip ties helped take care of that. Similar to the Maiden, square edges sometimes seemed a bit harsh on this bike, but it took bigger drops and jumps like a champ. Overall I am very happy with this bike and if I had to chose only one bike to ride for a year, it would be this one. It handles steep rough trails like nothing and can take big jumps and drops, but still can get you to the top of the hill with not too much effort for how big of a bike it is.