Italian mountain bike site MTB-Mag has just published their Starling Cycles MegaMurmur review – and it’s a good one!
The Starling Cycles MegaMurmur is our long-travel, steel-framed, handmade 29″ mountain bike frame. It’s designed to be the big-brother of the Murmur, with a longer swingarm and increased travel to offer even more stability on big, fast, rough and nasty terrain. Travel moves up to 165mm/170mm and the chainstay length increases to 455mm. Also, unlike our other ‘core’ bikes, the MegaMurmur’s rear triangle is UK-made, making the frame 100% handmade in the UK.
And MTB-Mag’s review? It’s a good one – with some amazing terrain and some really impressive riding by reviewer Mike.
Non Italian-speakers can turn on Youtube captions and choose their language of choice in the auto-translate options (hit the cog icon on the bottom right). That’ll magically transform Mike’s review into native-language captions.
Here’s a few of our favourite quotes from Mike’s Mega Murmur review:
“I would start by talking about the soul of this mountain bike, that is its frame. Aesthetically, I really like steel, it has that mix of elegance and ignorance that literally drives me crazy.”
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“This Starling frame is finished really well, that is, it’s full of small details, it is really a small work of art.”
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“Despite it being a single-pivot system with a coil shock, if you pedal sitting down the shock remains quite firm… With a seat angle of 67° and a rear stay of 455mm you can tackle even steep climbs and the front end will never rise, it remains beautifully planted on the ground. I found it to be very smooth, it climbs really well.”
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“Every drop of sweat that comes from your body on the ascent on the MegaMurmur will be amply paid off on the descent, which is the aspect in this bike really thrilled me the most.”
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“I thought it would be a less precise bike, I thought that due to the suspension system, it would suffer from break lock out and pedal kickback. I thought it would be relatively unplayful.
However I had to change my about practically everything… I like the descent so much that the climb completely took second place. That is, once the path ended I wanted to go pedal again and go back up to the top to earn a second descent, a third descent, a fourth descent.
I never wanted to get away from this MegaMurmur.”
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“The feeling that steel gives on the descent is something difficult to describe, but it is truly beautiful. It is something special and different from any other material. It’s as if everything were a little filtered as if everything were a little more comfortable. We don’t get those sharp shocks that perhaps destabilise us. It’s a material that helps us, it’s a material that forgives us for any of our mistakes. It’s a really nice feeling.”
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“In these two months I’ve used it often and not because I had to… I wanted to continue using it because it really makes you want to use it. It’s a bike that excites and gives emotions. And when a mountain bike gives emotions, in my opinion, it has won”.
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You can learn more about the Starling Cycles MegaMurmur here.
