Bike Review: The Forbidden Druid V2 29

The Forbidden Druid V2 is something of an enigma. With ‘only’ 130mm rear travel, but a 150mm fork and high pivot suspension, it doesn’t neatly fit into any of the normal categories and just looking at the numbers it’s not initially obvious who the bike is for. It’s not ultra light, it’s not got the most travel and it’s not the simplest design, so it was going to be a journey of discovery riding it to see where it fitted in.

Now into its second version, the Druid was the young Squamish brand's original bike, with the V1 launching back in 2019 and raising many eyebrows as one of very few trail bikes to be based round a high pivot and idler suspension design. That bike was followed a couple of years later by their longer travel Dreadnought with both bikes being raced successfully at world level.

Last year the Druid saw its first major revision, with the EDR world cup winning V2 chassis we have on test launching into the wild. While keeping the same 150mm / 130mm travel numbers as the V1, almost everything else changed with suspension design, geometry and appearance all significantly revised for the V2.

While the original Druid was a linkage driven single pivot bike, the V2 sees a change to an inverted four bar system to allow for greater tuning of the suspension characteristics and improved performance under braking. The new layout also allowed an improved idler position letting Forbidden remove the lower chain guide to keep pedalling drag to an absolute minimum while the size of the steel idler pulley also increased to 18T to further improve durability and pedalling performance. 

For any out there unfamiliar with High Pivot and Idler bikes it’s perhaps worth explaining what that design aims to achieve and why companies like Forbidden go to all the fuss of adding the extra complexity it requires. 

While most full suspension designs see the rear wheel move up and slightly forward during the shock stroke, a well executed high pivot will instead push the axle up and rearwards throughout most or all of the suspension action, helping the wheel get up and out of the way of protruding edges, greatly smoothing out the impacts. Not only that, but because the rear centre of the bike doesn’t shorten during use of the suspension, the bike should remain more stable, keeping a longer wheelbase through corners and compressions.  The catch to the design is that without a work round, putting the pivot well above the chainline would also generate a massive amount of anti squat and pedal kickback, with suspension forces fed back into the chain, breaking climbing momentum over rough ground and hammering at the feet when landing from drops or skidding through bumps. 

That solution to that catch is the idler pulley, which re-routes the chain to decouple it from the effects of the suspension, letting a high pivot bike avoid those massive drawbacks, while also adjusting anti squat to whatever level the designer likes, at no more cost than a bit of extra weight and complexity. 

One unique feature of Forbidden bikes is what they term proportional geometry. They aim to preserve the same weight balance between all the sizes of their bikes, varying chainstay lengths far more per size than any other brand to ensure that every rider gets a bike with a similar weight distribution. Where most brands rear centres might vary by just a few mm across the sizes, the Druid grows by a whopping 43mm, going from a 423mm chainstay on the S1 bike all the way to a 466mm stay on the XL. 

With Neil being 5,9’ (176cm) tall we went with a Medium bike and sitting in the middle of their sizing, our S2 Druid V2 is reasonably conventional in terms of its geometry. A 65’ head angle combines with a 460mm reach and 437mm chainstay (longer during actual riding) to create a 1218mm wheelbase with a 35mm BB drop. None of those figures are massive outliers within the category, so while the bike is clearly designed to take on the descents, being relatively slack and low, it should give a balanced ride without any extreme characteristics.

Riding the Druid

Climbing, the Druid is almost like two bikes in one, a story that would repeat itself again when it comes to its downhill performance.

The seated position is a comfortable place, with the 604mm top tube and 77’ angle of our S2 bike creating a riding position that seems like a nice compromise. Just slack enough not to feel unusual when pedalling cross country or on lower angle road grinds, it’s plenty steep enough to keep rider weight in a good location for winching up steeper grades. 

Forest road climbs are a regular fixture of our local riding and are dealt with unexceptionally but perfectly well by the Forbidden. It doesn’t have the zippy, urgent feel of some lighter or more XC biased short travel bikes, but it's not obviously wasting energy either. There’s minimal movement at the shock, with no need to flip lockout levers and it churns up the road miles quite happily, even if it's not going to be chasing any KOM’s. Occasionally the idler can be heard on the smoothest climbs, especially when riding in muddy conditions but it never really felt draggy even then. 

Get onto a rougher and more technical climb however and something magical happens. With minimal feedback thanks to the rearward axle path suspension and idler the Druid climbs difficult ground incredibly well. Generating exceptional traction, it also allows the rider to keep the power on no matter how choppy the ground becomes and carries momentum up over square edges better than pretty much any other bike we’ve ridden. The harder the climbing is the relatively better the Druid performs, preserving energy and turning what would otherwise be sapping sections into just regular climbing metres.

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog that counts” 

Some bikes are incredibly neutral downhill, muting out the trail and never changing behaviour regardless of what the rider does. This bike is not one of them. Once again, the Druid feels like riding two different bikes at once. Push into the suspension to pre-hop or pump the bike and it responds like the 130mm bike it is with a firm platform there to work against. Accelerations are similarly rapid, with the bike easily picking up speed and letting an active rider work with the terrain to generate momentum. All this would be normal enough in any good shorter travel bike but usually the payoff is that the same firmness is immediately noticeable when those bikes hit rough ground. 

The Druid is different, and for a 130mm bike it deals with roughess absurdly well. Small to medium bumps and impacts are simply erased by the rearward axle path, with the Forbidden carrying tremendous speed across choppy traverses and over rooty and rocky sections. Landings from drops are composed and bottomless feeling and overall the bike just encourages the rider to push on as hard as they dare with excellent grip and balance. In many sections, you’d swear blind you were riding a 150m travel machine. All that said, 130mm is still 130mm and when the impacts get over a certain size the Druid does start to transmit more force back to the rider than a long travel enduro bike would. Full DH and chunky bike park trails are not really its natural home as the travel simply gets overwhelmed eventually, but for technical riding, steep stuff and faster, smoother man made tracks, the ‘little bike’ is exceptional, bringing many of the best traits of shorter travel bikes to the table while having a massive amount more in reserve than any other.

The bikes behaviour under braking is also a little different to some of the more neutral designs out there. With a higher than average anti-rise figure as a result of the high pivot (lowered compared to the V1), the Druid wants to squat down into its travel when hard on the rear brake. That stops the bike from pitching forward and helps keep the head angle slacker when braking down steep sections but can make the suspension feel firmer when braking through rough ground with a tendency to push the shock deeper into the travel. On many of our steep local trails it works as a positive, helping prevent forward weight shift and preserving geometry but on a rough bikepark it could make choosing braking points more of a challenge.

For a rider who likes to be active on their bike, the whole combination of traits is an addictive ride, with the Druid blasting through the smaller chatter unbelievably well while the rider unweights and manipulates the bike through the bigger impacts that would otherwise kick through the short travel. It’s not hard to see how it was able to win and podium EDR races, as it can be ridden super fast on a really wide range of terrain.

Curious to see whether the bike could be made even more versatile, we also swapped off the stock Maxxis Assegai and DHR II tires for a lighter and faster setup in the shape of a Maxxis Forekaster and Rekon, along with a set of lighter duty Reserve 28 XC wheels. In this set up, the overall bike weight drops to around 14 kg and rolling speed is massively increased. We rode some big days on the Druid in this mode, with Neil really enjoying the faster rolling setup and using it for everything from XC multi hill link ups, to the enduro trails of Yair forest and the new Glentress flow tracks. On high speed easier descents the Druid is still brilliant, exhibiting a stability that most XC can’t come close to, skimming down open hill descents and railing turns with authority while its superb traction and climbing ability are perfect for the steep climbs that litter the Southern Upland Way and Yair forest. For a bike designed as an out and out trail descending machine it’s really surprisingly good as a burly XC bike and shows how well the design can work across a huge usage spectrum. 

Overall, both Tom and Neil absolutely loved their time on the Druid. Like a fast car with the driving aids turned off, it has an absurd top speed through technical terrain, but demands that the rider pays attention to keep things on track. It completely broke the rules on what a 130mm should be capable of downhill and left Neil questioning whether he really needs a bike with any more travel.  It’s also much more versatile than we first imagined and with no more than a change of tires can morph from an efficient bike up for huge trail riding days to an enduro racing and off piste monster. For a bike that we initially thought might not be so good uphill, it’s one of the best technical climbing machines we have ever ridden.

From the first outing till the day we had to send it back it was the bike Neil reached for every single ride, no matter where he was going and that alone says a lot.

Curious to see or try a Druid? Get in touch for stock and demo options

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