2011 Turner DHR

 The Bad:

If you look at a pic of one of these frames from the drive side, you’ll notice a vertical piece of the swingarm yolk right by the chain. And, yes, it creates the annoying cacophony you’d imagine. It’s easily remedied by some of that magic 3M rubber tape stuff all the cool kids use, but unless you get a black frame, it still looks like you glued a cut up tube to your 3k new toy. I’m also a little sketched by how agressively my chain was digging into the lower weld on that yolk before I padded it up. If you get one of these bikes, just do it right off the bat. It sucks, but trust me, the noise sucks worse.

Turner had been working on this frame for so long that back when the both the DW DHR and the Rockshox Vivid air were vaporware, Rockshox had provided Turner with what they thought would be the final production diameter of the shock. Turner proceeded to design the swinglink around this number…and then Rockshox changed the diameter for the production version. So without some serious dremel time, that shock isn’t going in there. It’s a shame, because I really like the way the frame behaves with that damper.

But when I started riding DH bikes, almost nothing fit on frames without some dremel time, so I just manned up and ground out the link. Proceed however you like. You might find it to be as worthwhile as I did. (And, no, I didn’t just say that and you didn’t hear that from me….But rumor has it that Fanatik bike CO in the great PNW might do a pro style grind down for you for a little fee.)

Having owned a few other Turner frames with similar dropout configurations, there’s a little quirk these things have: your bike will creak. You’ll tear down the entire frame, regrease and retighten every link and pivot, every chainring bolt, bottom bracket interface, and stem / crown region bolt in existence. Your bike will still creak. Then you’ll discover this little aluminum chainring bolt thing on the drive side that holds the replaceable dropout on. Grease and tighten this and then your bike won’t creak. This only works after a full week of tearing apart everything else though. It’s a scientific fact.

It’s now September, 2011, and the headtube debacle that came along with the first run of these frames this time last year is pretty well known. The downtube / headtube junctions were cracking on the first run. What’s selling now has a completely redesigned gusset and interface. So if you were one of the early adopters and had to wait an ungodly amount of time to get your frame, that truly sucks. I got lucky and happened to break about 13 bones in my back while mine was getting replaced, so it worked out pretty well for me! But if you were one of the ones who gave up, got your deposit back, and bought something else…well, the worst part is that you very well may be on an inferior frame, especially if your name is Spencer.