My first one was a Blue Trailstar ,it was a great leap forward as far as frames go because at the time there weren’t very many downhill or jump Hard tails on the market and those that were Available had a pretty hefty price tag or were ridged aluminium. The DMR turned out to be a really a massive improvement on the norm, which was to use cross country frames. Suddenly having a seat so much lower provided so many more options and confidence in jumping. It also help actually having a frame with disk mounts too.
Having done some great racing on this frame id really pushed the limits and had to claim a warranty. It was down in Vic Park one year, it was a rough as guts course, so much so that half way through practice for the first time ever I seriously considered pulling out because it was so rough and I was getting hammering . It didn’t happen because a few mates seem to think id be ok and thought I was nailing the track pretty quick.
I think it was the fact that on one of the road gap jumps the landing was so rough and hard I’d loose a hand of the bar each time but still managed to recover from it. The end result was I cleaned up hard tail class by about 12 seconds but in the process the triple clamp forks had started ripping the head tube away from the frame.
I had a good working relationship with the rep from DMR and he had no problems sorting me out with a new Red Trailstar. This came with a few changes, vertical dropouts and a narrow rear tire clearance. Because I was keen to keep running triple clamp forks I decided to add my own head tube to down tube gusset by having some sheet metal wrapped around the top tube a few months later its arrival.
Probably was a good thing too because I continued racing that frame at the nationals with some good results. Because of the narrow tyre clearance I opted for a 24” rear wheel. Reason being that I could only fit in a 26” x 2.1 tyre but with a 24” I could get in a 2.6 high roller. This made for awesome cornering too.
I would have to say that in all the races I’ve done and on the all the different types of bikes (hartail and fully’s) during downhill racing it was on this frame that I made some of my personal career highlights. I don’t think ive challenged or pushed my riding so close to its limits or ever will.
That was all well in the past an recently Ive decided to acquire a hard tail frame for what I would call “aggressive county” and a DMR just seemed to be the best option for the cash by a mile.
I love the new drop out scheme too; I’ve got it on my transition too so it means I can swap wheels around really easily.
I’ve only done a few rides and will be taking my time relearning how to ride a hard tail but I’ll have to say the first thing that I noticed is how rough it wasn’t to ride, I was expecting to get hammered way more, but when I think about it, it was what I remembered about loving DMR frames from the start, a feeling of it just feeling right.
Michael Williamson
