Tonic Fab Fall Guy
Tonic Fabrications (Tonic Fab) - ever heard of them? Probably not. Out of the Pacific Northwest – Portland, OR to be exact – is a small frame manufacturer made up of three guys that decided to try something off the beaten path and a non-mainstream approach to a "mountain" bike. Although a new company and unrecognized names, their experience is very extensive in the bike building business from working behind the bright lights at one of the largest frame manufacturers in the business. Their experience ranges from glued-together 2lbs road bike frames to complex DH rigs in a high volume production environment. But first and foremost, they are riders with extensive BMX backgrounds.
Hardtail mountain bikes built specifically for street, park, and dirt jump riding have seen a huge rise in popularity over the last three years. Most of these bikes are mountain bikes at heart. That’s the point at which the Tonic Fab Fall Guy breaks away. Instead of working from a mountain bike paradigm, Tonic Fab designed their frame from a BMX point of view. Tonic Fab took the idea of a compact, minimalist frame and added the capability of running a suspension fork. The first things I noticed were the enormous chainstays and seatstays of the frame. At 1" in diameter, they are large and give the frame a lot of character. The seatstays are curved - nostalgic of vintage BMX frames such as a Hutch. The dropouts are lasercut and remind me of a Breezer dropout except much larger. The chainstay yoke is very nicely done using a combination of oval tubing and laser cut parts mated to the euro bottom bracket. The v-brake mounts are mounted below the chainstays ala 80s freestyle bikes. The front triangle is clean with great welds and nicely done gussets on the headtube. The frame is 24" specific and designed for a suspension fork of 455mm ale-to-crown height or less. The entire bike, minus the suspension fork if desired, can be built up from BMX parts. Rear hub spacing is 110mm; therefore, you have you selection of numerous readily available and cheap BMX hubs.
Frame Specs
Head Tube Angle: 71
Seat Tube Angle: 71
Bottom Bracket Height: 12.375"
Chainstay Length: 14.75"
Top tube Length: 21.9"
Frame Weight (as tested): 6.25 lbs
Frame Price (as tested): $550
Test Build Specification
Fork: Fox Float F80RLT (435mm axle-to-crown height)
Cranks: Truvativ BMX Team (180mm)
Rims: Sun Rhyno Lite XL
Rear Hub: Profile Racing Mini Cassette hub with Ti Driver and Ti Axle
Front Hub: Hope Bulb
Spokes: DT Swiss Competition
Stem and Seatpost: Thomson
Handlebar: SIC Chase
Build weight: 25.6lbs
Head Tube Angle as Built: 72 degrees
Coming in at 25lbs was the first thing that put a smile on my face after building the bike. The Fox F80 really helped to keep the weight down with the fork only weighing 3.25lbs. With the frame in hand, it does seem to be a small bike but that fact is more noticeable when it is complete. Not having a large instep, I typically have standover height issues. But the Fall Guy has more than enough clearance with room to lift the bike up three or four inches while standing astride the bike. I immediately noticed the short chainstays of the Fall Guy on its first ride. The front of the bike is effortless to get in the air and hold it, but not so bad that the bike is loopy – it very well balanced on the rear wheel. Bunnyhops are amazing with this bike - I was able to clear taller objects than I had before on my other hardtail. Riding a bike this light and stiff puts a smile on your face. The bike is highly maneuverable and accelerates like a drag race car.
The bike is pretty specific in its purpose, designed to be a skatepark, street, and dirt jumping bike. For those purposes, the 24" wheels are wonderful. Don’t let your judgment be clouded because of the never ending 24" vs. 26" wheel debate. The bike is indeed steep, short, and small. Despite the fact that the Fall Guy has some very steep geometry compared to your typical MTB, everybody that rode the bike - both MTbers and BMXers - adjusted to its geometry immediately. Its immediately apparent how different this bike is from a regular 26" MTB hardtail.
Dirt Jumps: My first trip out with the bike was to my local DJ’s situated behind LH Thomson factory. I built these jumps and had been riding them for the better part of the year on my 26" hardtail. On the Fall Guy, I was confident enough with the bike to ride everything I typically rode on my 26" bike. Amazingly, I was doing things on the Fall Guy I never could do on my 26" bike. Higher, faster and smoother described my first day out riding the Fall Guy on my dirt jumps. On dirt lips, the Fall Guy got more pop off the top of lips, more pump on the back side of jumps, and considerably more air than my old bike. For the first time I was able to clear all the jumps in an entire set. The more I rode, the less effort it required to clear jumps. I will say the steep head angle took some getting used to at the dirt jumps, but not in the air - I found myself letting the front end wander and get twitchy on the flats between the jumps. 24" wheels, 80mm travel plus a short and rigid bike also spells less room for error – a fact I realized via a couple soil samples while riding the bike for first couple weeks. Crashes aside, the bike has taught me better riding skills and to have more flow while dirt jumping.
Skatepark: I saw the skatepark in a whole new light on the Fall Guy. First trip to the park with the Fall Guy had me feeling good on all my favorite riding spots at the park. The shorter wheelbase, combined with the smaller wheels, let the bike fit into the ramps much better than my other bike. I was riding more of the ramp than before and really getting a much better feel for what I was riding as well. Manualing out of quarters was at first hard to get ahold of because the bike was so much easier to manual than I was used to - my first couple attempts resulted in looping-out as I came over the coping. The most noticeable change in my park riding was rotating. The Fall Guy whips around in the air faster than any MTB I have ever ridden and felt very much like a 20" bike. Having never really attempted bunnyhop-180s before, I was able to land one on my first try with the Fall Guy. I could turn around on the smallest of ramps and the 5’ bowl at the skatepark didn’t feel as if I was riding a bike inside a tea cup. I handed the bike off to some of the local 20" park riders and they were instantly able to ride the bike as comfortably as they do their 20s – always a pleasure to see someone do things on your bike that you cannot do yourself!
Street riding is not something I do as much of as I once did due to my infatuation with dirt jump riding over the last year, nor am I the least bit of what I term to be a good street rider. However, I took the Fall Guy on a few street riding trips since I have had the bike. Visiting some of my old haunts that I have always ridden with my 26" bike, I noticed a few things about the Fall Guy. I looped-out on my first attempt at an abubaca, as before, the bike requires much less effort to get the front end in the air than my other bike. After adjusting, I could stall the rear wheel on just about anything I pleased. Our street riding is a mixture of grassy hills, asphalt, and concrete with a good amount of elevation change over the entire downtown area where we ride. The 24" wheels were noticeable when running over some of the rougher grassy hills.
BMX racing: Ever wanted to try your hand at your local track? The Fall Guy is a great do it all bike for this purpose. You can ride it like your mountain bike but take it to the BMX track and it doesn't feel like a total pig. 26" bikes are noticeably less explosive out of the gate compared to 20" bikes, but the Fall Guy narrows that gap. With geometry very similar to a cruiser bike, the Fall Guy is right at home on the BMX course. As soon as local BMX racing starts up for this year, the Fall Guy is going to see a lot of track time.
A lot of us have jobs that keep us on the road traveling. Being one of those type people, there is another great feature of the Fall Guy. Due to the small size of the frame, 24" wheels, and short fork the bike can fit into a large duffle bag or hockey equipment bag; thereby avoiding the costly fees that American airlines levee on bikes - $80 each way is expensive!
Some overall impressions of the bike: easy to build and can be built cheaply; very light when spec’ed with the appropriate parts; stiff frame; good craftsmanship; great standover clearance; and last but not least – perfect geometry. When doing product reviews I always play devil’s advocate – I look for problems, issues, or imperfections. The Fall Guy broke the mold and set the bar high. I could not come up with a single thing about the bike I did not like. It’s a simple frame that has well thought out geometry and is just a shear joy to ride. It has become my new favorite bike! That’s saying a lot especially seeing how much I love my DH bike. Want to guess the score? 10 out of 10 without a doubt!
A few parting words. I wanted to give a big "Thank You" to all that helped get this bike together. Thanks to DT Swiss for providing spokes to build up the wheels; Sun-Ringle for supplying the rims; my friend Allen Young at Drop-N-Zone for helping with the miscellaneous parts and the hubs; LH Thomson for the seatpost and stem; SIC for the great handlebars; a special big thanks goes out to Fox Racing Shox for supplying the wonderful F80RLT that you will soon hear more about. Of course, this entire review is cause of one single person, Landon Holt at TonicFab. Contact him today to get your own Fall Guy, you will not regret it!
Posted by Brady on September 24, 2006 06:12 PM
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