Mongoose

Mongoose is a company that went from having John Tomac race their titanium (actually a Merlin) bike, to selling bikes at Costco. Now I guess they're not all that bad, they still have titanium bikes, and still have superhero XC racers (Steve Larsen), but they'll always be tarnished by that somewhat.


NX 8.1 - I don't know what it is about Mongoose, but they haven't made a good looking bike in about 5 years. Sure there's more effort put into the finish on this bike than most, but it still looks like a department store bike. The Kore stem, goofy Tioga saddle, and really cheap cranks don't help much either.


NX 9.5 - This could well be a good bike. But it sure doesn't look like one.