The incredible…shreddable REEB Hooptie. Back in mid-June Tim from Reeb borrowed us his own personal Hooptie to ride. I penned a ‘First Look’ piece about Tim’s Hooptie that closed with…
So any of you REEB Super-fans that are nearby (That means you JP) that want to ride a REEB Hooptie should just hit me up and we’ll let you scratch that itch. I’ll be posting some final thoughts in a total Rock Opera about what the next month is like with the Hooptie. So stay tuned to this Klunkedelic station!
JP and the Spinner Ryerson both got a chance to ride the Hooptie and this is what they shared with me about it…
As a self-proclaimed REEB fan boy, I went in trying to be as biased as possible on these impressions of the REEB hooptie.
The head tube is slack. It was twitchy when on the flatter portions of the trail. It climbed nice but when we hit some descents, that’s when it was a pure joy to ride. It reminded me of riding my older REEB Dikyelous. What makes this bike stand out is the modem features and geo coupled with an old school klunker style.
JP
Once I got a feel for the geometry I was able to rip it. There’s an area of skinnys and features at Cam Rock called area 51. This was smooth and solid.
It’s not a light bike, but it’s not heavy either. It’s solid, it’s sturdy, maybe the word I’m looking for is.. stalwart? It feels like you could get in a derby, knock your friends over, and then ride over the top of them without breaking anything.
I love the style and the simplicity of the bike. The riser bar is a nice touch and maybe part of the reason that more than any other bike I’ve ridden in years, it made me feel like a kid again. As long as there is air in the tires, you can just grip it and rip it.
Spinner
Since the Hooptie landed, I haven’t touched my Asylum Hank one-speed klunker. The Hooptie stepped in and took over the singlespeed Sunday time slot from Hank. The stodgy geometry of Hank (steep up front and long in the back) and the 27.5 wheels came into clear focus when compared to the more modern progressive geometry and 29r wheels of the Hooptie. When you add in the 130mm travel MRP Suspension fork, it sort of takes all of the excuses off of the bike side of the equation.
The Hooptie is a playful singletrack bike that behaves best at speed. The bike manuals like a champ and gave me the confidence to get air off of features that I would usually bypass. (And I lived to tell the tale) The other thing that sets the REEB apart from most of my other bikes is the dropper-post. If you haven’t tried a dropper, you should give it a try. If nothing else, it’ll give you the perception that you’re going faster and having more fun. I use my brakes less with a dropper and anybody that’s ever ridden a singlespeed knows that’s beneficial to maintaining your momentum on roller-coaster style singletrack.
The slack front end does get a little floppy at slower speeds, so the best answer that I could come up with for that is to just ride faster. Any time that happened I would just press on the gas pedals and that made things roll groovy again. This bike likes to go fast. It climbs like a goat and I’m just pretty damn stoked about the entire package. I recently installed a cordoba Brooks Ti Swift Saddle and a White Industries 18 tooth freewheel that I found in my parts bin. I took a trip up to Levis and rode the Hooptie on my favorite loop. After that, I came to the conclusion that I’ll be really, really sad to see the Hooptie go. This bike rips.
For more information about the REEB Hooptie visit – reeb.com
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