I never would have said it if I thought it would really happen. Mere seconds after I quipped, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that bike flew off the rack?” a neon orange Diamondback Mission Pro was hovering 20 feet in the air and traveling about 70 mph on I-70 just west of the Colorado/Utah border. Strong, gusty winds had somehow flicked the bike off the top of the roof rack of the van in front of us, and slammed it down on the freeway. (Note: We were on a press trip and it wasn’t my test bike.)
Almost as surprising as the incident itself was how well the bike actually made out. Quite a few parts had to be replaced, and the aluminum frame had a sizeable dent in the seatstay, but it was still ridden hard over the following few days in Moab. It just goes to show how tough aluminum frames can be—it’s unlikely that most carbon frames would have even been in one piece after that. And in the rough-and-tumble world of enduro and all-mountain riding, being tough is a good thing.
The Mission Pro is Diamondback’s latest 160mm travel enduro-flavored bike and an evolution of the Mission line. New are larger 27.5-inch wheels, gravity-friendly geometry, and a refined Knucklebox suspension system.
The suspension is a single pivot design with four-bar linkage. Where the previous Mission’s shock was mounted to the seat tube and driven by a bell crank-style linkage, the new version’s shock attaches to the downtube and is driven with a much smaller, lighter, traditional rocker linkage.
In an age of longer, lower and slacker bikes, the Mission’s geometry is somewhat conservative compared to bikes I’ve been riding while testing the Diamondback. Its head angle is 66.5 degrees—fairly relaxed but not as slack as the Devinci Spartan at 65.8 or the Specialized Enduro 27.5 at 65.5 degrees. Bottom bracket height is average at 13.5 inches with the Enduro coming in at 13.9 inches and Spartan with a 13.3-inch BB. Chainstay length is where the Mission takes a different path with 17.7-inch long stays. Compared to 16.6 inches with the Specialized Enduro and Pivot’s Mach 6 at 16.9 inches, that’s quite a difference. Even the Specialized Enduro 29er has shorter stays than the Mission at 16.9 inches.
Just as important as the frame are the Pro’s parts, which add up to what many riders would consider a dream build. The Mission Pro is suspended with a 160mm travel Kashima-coated Fox 34 Float CTD fork and Float X CTD Kashima coated shock. A SRAM X01 drivetrain is matched to a carbon Raceface Next SL crank with 30-tooth wide/narrow chainring. A Rockshox Reverb Stealth seatpost makes the steeps easy to handle while Shimano XT brakes offer class-leading stopping power. Raceface 785mm wide Atlas handlebars and a 50mm long stem make for a modern-feeling bike.
As one would expect, the Mission Pro does its best work on the descents. Fast, rough, choppy trails can be taken at speed—but there’s room for improvement with the shock tune. I found the stroke a bit too linear for my tastes—too firm off the top of the stroke so it skipped around on small trail junk while still bottoming on bigger drops and jumps. I installed a 0.6-cubic inch air volume spacer in the shock—a five-minute job—and noticed a big improvement in overall performance.
The geometry feels quite different from most of today’s enduro models. I won’t say that short chainstays are better than long, but they are different. Long stays tend to favor high-speed stability so some may like that characteristic better. I generally prefer short stays. On the Mission Pro, the long stays really give the front end a heavy feel when lifting the wheel over trail obstacles. It also gives the front end of the bike a short front–center feeling, making the front wheel seem closer to the crank and have more weight on it. I’d go up a size if I had to do it all over again for a better weight bias over the wheels and longer front center to balance out the long stays. Cornering is different too, with the bike wanting to make rounded arcs instead of squaring off corners.
Climbing performance is decent but nothing to write home about. The suspension moves around quite a bit while pedaling in the Trail and Descend settings so I found myself climbing mostly in the Climb setting, which is nearly a lockout. The bike isn’t terribly light either, even for a 160mm travel enduro-oriented bike, so it really makes you earn your turns.
The Mission Pro is good but there are a few details that keep it from being great. The neon orange paint on our test bike faded quickly even when stored indoors. The first run of bikes had an incorrect spec paint so it should not happen to future production runs. That said, I’ve had quite a few fluorescent bikes over the years and they all faded at some point. I’ve spent a lot of time on the Fox 36 fork this season so going down to a 34 feels a touch under-gunned on a bike like this. The flex is subtle but it’s there and gives the front end a softer, slightly less predictable feel.
An aluminum bike at this price is not for everyone because you can find carbon bikes with a similar build for darn close to the same cost. The Pro is ideal for those who are rough on their equipment and crash a lot. The other two Mission models pack a higher value punch and feature the same frame. The Mission 2 costs $3,800 and comes with a SRAM X-9 1x10 drivetrain, Fox 34 CTD fork, Float rear shock and KS Lev DX dropper seatpost. At just $2,800, the Mission 1 is definitely the sweet spot in the line with a Fox 32 CTD fork, Float CTD shock, Deore SLX/Deore drivetrain and Shimano M445 hydraulic disc brakes.—Ron Koch
Price: $6,500
Weight: 30.6 lb. (large)
Info: diamondback.com
