It’s about trust.

Nothing thrills like a downhill. With the right bike you can really let loose, harnessing gravity to propel you at trail-blurring velocities, soaking up big hits and smoothing over stutters as if they were never there.

We spend days at the computer, dreaming about rock gardens, drop-offs, off-camber nasties and big hits. We calculate how to keep the tires planted, how to create bombproof platforms that will soak up terrain like a motocrosser, how to make them light, how to make them last. And then we test them, underneath downhill pros like Kathy Pruit and Tommy “T” Tokarczyk, or in the hands of dirt jumper Jordie Lunn and trials superstar Mike Steidley, riders who spend as much time punishing our bikes as we spend designing them. Then we listen to what they say, rehash what we have and make it better still.

None of that matters to you, really. What you care about is confidence. It’s knowing you can slingshot a Jamis through a rock garden, feeling the Gs build, and trust the tires to stay planted so you can ride in control with a smile on your face as you fly just a hair’s breadth away from the white-knuckle edge. Yeah, it’s like that.

Jump into it hard with our new big-hit Dakar BAM. This is the bike to ride off anything. Or over it. Huge hit capability and a near-perfect balance of high-speed stability that lets you ramp into it fast with precision and low-speed maneuverability to negotiate ladder bridges, log crossings and obstacles made by man and nature alike. With 7 inches of mp3 bump-devouring travel, hugely oversize 12 and 20mm thru axles and Avid hydraulic discs that will put you in charge of the entire mountain, the BAM is ready for anything this side of the apocalypse.