Speaking of practical matters, the Django has an incredibly steep seat angle for a 120-millimeter bike; 77.3 degrees in the low setting makes it an ideal long-haul trucker. But we found ourselves wanting a little more control over the suspension. The Split Pivot linkage is really just a glorified single-pivot, and it lacks the axle-path control of fancier mousetraps. Some testers noticed enough unwanted bob to use the compression damping on the shock. Otherwise, the Django rewards you kindly for being so moderate in your travel preference.

How that preference should relate to descending is where our testers diverged. Two testers at 6-foot-1 and 6-foot-2 were on the XL Django, and one, at 5-foot-4, was on the small. The two testers on the XL had different reactions to Devinci’s Adapted Chainstay Length. Extra-small, small and medium Djangos get 435-millimeter stays. Large goes to 440 and our XL had 445. The tallest tester appreciated the high-speed stability that number offered. Get- ting knocked around was far less consequential when taking the bike places where it otherwise wouldn’t belong. It even helped mitigate the dartyness that the relatively conservative head angle might cause at high velocities. It would simply hold a line more easily. You can loosen up, trust that your body, when in motion, will stay in motion while the bike bounces and deflects at speeds and on terrain where, frankly, a long-travel bike would be much safer.

But the other XL tester found that the long chainstay was antithetical to what a bike like this should be about. He wanted more freedom to mess around. To pull manuals and throw tight skids. He found it harder to get the front wheel off the ground for the pops and jibs that every other aspect of the bike seemed to be encouraging. The front-center was fine for him, but the rear-center held him back. Fortunately, riders from that school of thought have plenty of choices. Most brands don’t scale chainstay with frame size, so the tall can opt for the Pivot Trail 429, the Santa Cruz Tallboy, or the aforementioned Transition Smuggler if they favor style over stability. If not, the Django is meant for them. Or, the new Norco Optic also scales its chainstays but had a slightly heavier-handed ride.