First Ride Review of the INTENSE Sniper XC/T Cross Country Shred Machine.

With the crazy weather yet again causing some issues with getting on the trails, Tony finally managed to take out the Intense Sniper XC that has the "T" treatment done to it for a short loop at Mohican. Spoiler... This bike shreds. Setup is somewhat customized on the Sniper XC Pro with a swap of the 100mm Fox 32 SC fork to the beefier RockShox SID Ultimate in the 120mm travel. On the rear, Tony is running the SIDLuxe Ultimate in 165x42.5 Trunnion size to get about 115mm of travel. This bike can be customized in its travel by varying the shock stroke length. Stock is 40mm of stroke but you can go all the way to 45mm for a full 120mm of travel if you wish. We settled on a happy medium in the 115mm range. Tony has the largest volume spacer in the SIDLuxe shock. Wheels are his standard Roval Control Carbon with some spicy S-Works Ground Control 29x2.2 tires. The rest of the bike is stock. If you want a bike similar to this, we recommend starting with the Sniper T. However, if you have a 120mm fork laying around like Tony did, then starting with the XC version lets you play with both a 100mm and 120mm setting if you buy the XC build of this platform. Its worth noting that the Sniper T also has a stiffer rear triangle but initial ride impressions have not made us wish for the extra rear strut in the back half. Can this bike compete with the likes of the Specialized Epic, the Trek Procaliber, Niner RKT, or the Revel Ranger? Well, initial impressions are favorable and we...