The Mantra rode a whole lot better on paper than it did on dirt. True, it scaled climbs like a mofo. It even boasted good traction when you hunkered down on the seat and muscled your way up hills. It was way ahead of the competition on that score.
But on descents? Oh, dear Lord…. It was as if the bike had been dreamed up, designed and built on top of desecrated Indian burial grounds. The Mantra was possessed of an unholy grudge against anyone brave or dumb enough to climb aboard. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not suggesting the Mantra Pro was a “bad” bike on the downhills. I’m telling you it was an evil bike. There’s a difference.
For starters, there was the whole URT thing. The problem with a bike that “locks” its suspension when you ride out of the saddle is that you ride out of the saddle whenever you are going downhill. In other words, when you wanted the rear suspension to act like a rear suspension, it was off taking a lunch break somewhere while you were getting your teeth rattled out of your head. It was a shit idea.
Klein Mantra Vintage Bikes
One place where the Klein Mantra truly excelled? In Klein catalogs.
But that’s not the bad part. Not only did the Mantra sport a fiendish auto-firming rear suspension, the bike also had a tendency to simply buck you off the front of it. Hit the front brake at high speeds and the front end (with its whopping three inches/75 millimeters of travel) would dive, the swing arm would hinge forwards, completely extending the rear shock, which radically reduced the wheelbase and created the steepest possible head angle at the absolute worst possible moment... It was hard to fully appreciate all of this, of course, because you were now busy flying over the handlebars. There was no shortage of f*ckery afoot.
I’ve lost count of the number of outstanding riders—guys who raced downhill at the semi-pro and professional level—who were unceremoniously flung from the stink-bugging bike. It was as if every Mantra bitterly resented being ridden and was merely biding its time before it drew first blood. The first time I piloted a Mantra, I was floored by how well it ate those uphill miles. It was 1998, The Mantra was an undeniably gorgeous bike. Moreover, the rear tire felt as if it was glued to the fireroad climb.
Then we dropped down this trail we called Cheating Death. Cheating Death plummeted straight down the side of Sullivan Canyon and it was so steep that our V-brakes would heat the rims to blistering temperatures and we'd occasionally blow out the sidewalls on our tires. It was a treacherous, heart-in-your-throat kind of descent. And I’d cleaned it every time I rode it. On hardtails. On that first descent aboard the Mantra, however, I was bucked off the bike no less than three times before I got halfway down. My co-workers were grinning evilly as they waited for me. Getting tricked into riding the Mantra was a kind of rite of passage at the magazine—a hazing ritual akin to waking up and finding that one of your "friends" has Super Glued your hand to your crotch.
In the years that followed, I did my best to steer clear of every Mantra that crossed my path, but the bike would rear its brutish head at damn near every Trek press camp (Trek owned Klein). During those press launches each editor would try his best to avoid his turn on the thing, clambering atop any dreadful Gary Fisher Level Betty or Trek Y-Bike in sight. As in any game of Russian Roulette, however, there comes a point when you find yourself pointing the barrel of a gun at your temple, knowing full well that there's a bullet in the chamber with your name on it. At times like that, you just prayed you wouldn’t break a body part that couldn’t be mended.
These were the dark days for Trek, when they were an absolute powerhouse in road cycling, but were developing plenty of dirt models that were woefully behind the eight ball. Oh, sure, the Mantra was updated over its six-year lifespan. It’s not as if Klein and its parent company weren’t trying to make it a better bike.
That MCU-spring was quickly replaced with various coil and air-sprung shocks. Less expensive options floated out, as did sexier carbon versions, and in an array of dazzling paintjobs, because no one, to this day, offers bikes with better finishes than those old Kleins. But, it was all just so much lipstick on a pig. The basic, bucking bronco design never changed.
Klein Mantra Pro Carbon
You could make the Mantra Pro out of carbon, but you couldn't actually make it a good bike.
Klein retired the Mantra after the 2001 season, replacing it with the Adept; an ultra-light, Klein-flavored version of Gary Fisher’s Sugar design. The Adept had less travel than its predecessor, but didn’t hate the mountain bikers piloting it, so it was a monumental improvement. Soon after, Klein offered the Palomino—a Klein-badged version of the Maverick ML-7. Klein made those early Mavericks, so it was an easy transition. For a few years, the Palomino did an admirable job of what the Mantra was supposed to do—climb like a scalded goat-monkey and descend with respectable grace.
But, it was all for naught. Trek pulled Klein from American and European bike shops in 2007. Like Spinal Tap, Klein remained big in Japan for a couple years and then it was all over. I have no real evidence here, but I can’t help but think the Mantra (and the inevitable second-classing of the cross-country hardtail) put a nail in the coffin of that company. It’s not as if you could ever say that Klein produced slip-shod bikes. Every model with that name printed on the top tube was still a well-executed bike. The Mantra proved, however, that a well-executed nightmare of a design is still a nightmare.
Klein Mantra Vintage Bike
A Mantra circa 1998, note the Fox ALPS shock, first-year RockShox SID fork and the undeniably great, 8-speed XTR drivetrain. The Mantra was top-shelf stuff. Terrifying, but top-shelf.
Of course, there are riders out there who will disagree with me to this day—collector types who cherish the five or six Mantras hanging in their attic showrooms. I still see the occasional Mantra flying up a trail and then being ridden gingerly down the other side. People call them “nimble”. They argue that it takes “an experienced and skilled rider” to handle the descents on a Mantra. To each his or her own, I guess. There are, after all, also plenty of people who like to swallow flaming swords or juggle chainsaws before retiring to bed each night. Like the Klein Mantra, these things are an acquired taste. My advice to you, however, is this: Don’t ride one down a hill. And if you do, be real careful when you squeeze those brake levers. I’ve ridden plenty of bikes that I haven't liked in my nearly two decades of testing bikes for a living. There’s only one, however, that continues to terrify me—you’re looking at it right here.
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