# Klein Mantra Comp



## RyanMorph (Jun 14, 2017)

I have been out of biking for years now. About 9 years ago I had a Klein Mantra Comp frame and swapped the components from an old Giant bike over and had one of the smoothest rides I had ever had from a bike. I recently purchased another Mantra Comp (should arrive tonight) and I was excited until I read that a lot of people didn't like the URT design and it was pretty much done with over the past few years. I always found this bike to work well on light trail rides and around the city. I have noticed people are either have a die hard love or an extreme hate towards these bikes. So I guess I want to know what are the major downfalls with this bike frame and what are the positives?


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## smithjss (Apr 3, 2010)

Scary on steep descents.


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## mountainbiker24 (Feb 5, 2007)

They work fine when sitting down and climb superbly when set up properly. Stand up and it practically turns into a hardtail. If you stand up right at the beginning of a rough or downhill section, it will kick forward and steepen the angles, which is why they are known to buck people over the bars. They are great for climbing and cross-country trails. Just don't be a hero.


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## colker1 (Jan 6, 2004)

In this age of dropper posts those bikes are dinosaurs. Otoh i hear some technical(ultra) riders love them.


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## mauricer (Apr 15, 2011)

wrong thread sorry


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## kenjihara (Mar 7, 2006)

There was at least a year or two when the top of the line Klein Mantra Pro held a deep fascination for cycling's talking heads. The Trek Y Bike had been around for long enough that they couldn't be considered exotic anymore and the Mantra showed up. It was (as I recall) made in Chehalis and had all the unique Klein features and flourishes like smooth welds, carshow worthy paintjobs, rear facing dropouts and inscrutable sizing. In addition to all this, the Mantra Pro price tag was $4,000, which could get you a pretty nice used car back then. They couldn't charge that much if it wasn't the bomb, could they? The people writing Mountain Bike magazine loved this bike, and the Mantra Comp was a slightly less expensive version of the Klein Mantra Pro. These days we are no longer inpressed with a unified rear triangle design, it's chief "features" having been designated as " bugs" by now. Pinkbike has this scathing review: https://m.pinkbike.com/news/1996-klein-mantra-pro-now-that-was-a-bike.html but the comments are also interesting.

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