The VRS heads up Vitus’s four-bike Sentier trail hardtail range, which encompasses 650b and 29in wheel sizes and a range of specs to suit riders on a budget. It combines Manitou’s underrated Minute Expert fork in 140mm (5.5in) travel trim with a Shimano Deore, SLX and XT based component package. Aimed, according to Vitus, at “fast paced, action packed epicsâ€, does it strike the right balance?
Big-travel hardtails have often tended towards big tube profiles and overt attempts at ‘overbuilding’. Not so the Sentier, which boasts the kind of tube profiles that wouldn’t look out of place on a contemporary cross-country (XC) race machine. Triple butting shaves weight where it’s not needed and leaves metal where strength or stiffness could be an issue, while mechanical forming – a process that creates complex tube profiles – gives the top and down tubes their distinctive silhouettes.
Vitus’s designers have clearly given plenty of thought to both comfort and strength. Up front a massive tapered head tube joins a flattened top tube and gently curved down tube, providing a torsionally stiff and strong anchor point for the rest of the frame. The chainstays become thinner on their journey from dropout to seat tube, hinting at a rear end that’s intended to be efficient without being harsh. The detailing includes ISCG chain guide mounts but – curiously for a bike boasting a 140mm fork – no provision for dropper seatpost cable routing.
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WTB treads grip very well even in dicey conditions
The Manitou Minute Expert fork, with its distinctive sloping crown and rearward-facing brace, offers 140mm of airsprung travel and a refreshing change from the usual RockShox and Fox offerings. Manitou’s proprietary Hexlock quick-release 15mm axle is a huge improvement over earlier Minute forks’ Allen bolt set-ups, though it’s still not as intuitive or quick to use as the big name competitors’ systems.
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