Mountain Bike Rider — March 2018

Evanshasareputationforpickingoutkiller

bikes from overseas and bringing them to

the UK. It introduced us to BMC back in 2011

and its excellent 150mm Trailfox: then it did it

again a year later, bringing in Norco and the

amazing Sight and Shinobi — both bikes that

scored perfect 10s.

Well, history might just be about to repeat

itself in the shape of the Jamis Dakar A2, a

120mm full-suspension bike with RockShox

suspension, for just £1,000. That puts it

squarely into contention with the Calibre

BossnutV2,theonlyfull-suspensionbikethat

married high performance with low pricing

— check out the video of it matching a £6k

Santa Cruz for speed, go to po.st/Bossnut

and see.

THE DAKAR

For a grand you get a triple-butted 6061

alloy frame with 120mm travel, controlled

by a RockShox Monarch R shock, and up

front there’s a decent Recon Solo Air fork.

Best of all though, the bike comes with an

SR Suntour Zeron single-ring chainset, so

even new riders can enjoy the simplicity of a

1x set-up.

How on earth has Evans pulled off this

bike then? “We’ve got such a big portfolio

we are shown stuff other companies and

people don’t get access too,” says David

Sheppard from Evans. “We’ve cherry-picked

the best models.”

It has not just picked the models though;

it's made them UK-specifi c, thanks to that

superior buying clout again. “The bikes

GEAR

THE ’NUT CRACKER?

The new Jamis Dakar could be the best £1k full-susser since the Calibre Bossnut

16 mbr MARCH 2018

Triple -butted

6061 alloy frame

delivering 120mm

travel through a

RockShox Monarch

R shock

Dakar comes in four

generous sizes (S-XL);

the top tube length

on the size Large is a

decent 620mm

Trumping the Calibre,

the Dakar comes with a

single-ring drivetrain