2007 Banshee Chaparral
Pro’s and Con’s
A few Pros
- Durability – The Chaparral is built strong and you’ll be hard pressed to find an area that isn’t reinforced to add stability and durability. It features internally ribbed seat stays and chain stays for increased strength.
- Adjustable travel – The Chaparral has two holes in the swing arm that lets it change in between 6†and 7†of travel. Adjustability is always a plus.
- Warranty – The Chaparral carries the Banshee name and thus is comes with an excellent warranty. Banshee bikes carry a 10 Year warranty and they stick by their products.
- Dual Crown – The Chaparral can take a dual crown fork with ease and the entire head tube area is reinforced to prevent any sort of ovalization. The Pony Keg head tube with 8mm wall thickness allows for a stable platform for mounting and securing a single or dual crown fork.
- Telescoping seat post – While the telescoping seat post doesn’t go as low as I would have liked, it does raise high enough to allow full leg extension which is a definite plus when trying to ride upward or to the trail.
- Front Derailleur – The bike can take a front derailleur so you can run a dual ring setup.
A few Cons
- Tire / mud clearance – If you’re planning on running big tires, make sure they’re going to fit. The rear swing arm doesn’t have the best clearance and our Kenda Nevegal tire proved to leave minimal clearance for mud and debris.
- Seat post – Due to the upper pivot location, you must run a telescoping seat post (or a very short seat post). This means that you’re severely limited to how low you can run the seat. This picture shows how low the seat will go with the seatpost uncut. While you can cut this seatpost, you will loose out on how high the post can effectively go but a happy medium could probably be reached.
- Bottoming out - Once the Chaparral runs through its travel, the rear tire can rub the front derailleur mount.
- Shock – Depending on what shock you’re going to be running, you might have some issues with bottoming out or at a minimum some fine tuning. Accessing the settings on the Fox DHX air proved bothersome as you have to completely remove the upper shock mount to get access to the positive air chamber valve.
- Price - The bike as tested would cost you roughly $4300 USA + tax. While the Banshee Chaparral is built strong and has a ton of nice features, the price seems a bit steep.
- Bottom Bracket – If you’re planning on using one of the newer external bottom bracket type cranksets, you might run into issues with installing the non-drive side cup as there is minimal clearance for the BB and the tool. I tried with the Park tool, Shimano tool, and finally the Straitline tool worked properly. Hopefully you have as many tools!
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