Riding off road, forests, sand quarries and vast fields for many is the meaning of life, if not, then just a lovely hobby. A significant amount of people prefer an interesting journey to places yet unexplored, and the bicycle is usually the main way of movement. Interestingly, the right choice of "two-wheel horse" is often the right key to success of the future journey, because any bike is good in its own way on certain types of terrain. VNV bikes FX 55 is great for riding sandy areas and off road because of some special features.

Larger wheels.

MTB's usually have 26" wheels, hybrid and road bikes use 28". VNV bikes FX 55 is a niner, it has large six hundred twenty two millimeters wheels (700С, 29"). What is more, diameter of the rim (TAURUS 2000 Disk Brake Alloy Double Wall) is simillar to a usual hybrid bicycle rim, but the rubber tire is actually thicker. That's why the bike feels stable and very reliable when riding off road and especially sandy tracks.

Larger frame.

FX55 has a special frame with size changing in proportion to the wheel. It is characteristically not only for the seatstays and the chainstays (because of the need fixing 28" rims), but for the whole frame too. The frame used is 29" MTB Alloy (fifty one centimeter high). Tall people will feel especially comfortable, but people whose height is less than five foot and five inches will not enjoy riding this bike very much.

Fork and brakes.

FX55 has a starter grade fork SR Suntour XCT V4. It uses a steel spring and elastomer supsension system and features good and stable experience riding asphalt roads, dirt roads and off road. Both blades have elastomeric dampers, steel springs and preload controllers. Blades are made of durable STKM allow, and the fork crown and the shock absorbers are made of aluminium. Disc brakes TEKTRO Novela Cable Type Disc Brake are made for beginners too, but they still have a pretty nice quality.

Shifters and the chain.

For users' comfortable riding VNV Bikes FX55 have Shimano Acera M360 rear derailleur and M190 front derailleur providing twenty four speeds: there are three gears on the pedals and eight gears on the rear wheel. The cassette is HG31-8 by Shimano featuring nice wear resistance. The shifters are Shimano M310, which suit for operating in any circumstances and make switching the speeds really comfortable. As practice shows, such shifters are most comfortable. A usual KMC Z92 chain is nickel-plated, so it's resource is nearly two thousand kilometers. It does its job pretty well, if you dont have to ride in really extreme conditions and go over too difficult barriers.

Hubs.

Front hub is KT Alloy QR, rear hub is SHIMANO M475. Both are medium grade and designed to work with disc brakes. You can not attach a trunk to the rear hub, that's a pretty noticable minus, but because of that the bike performs well when using brakes during long descents. Brake shoes last for a rather long time (few thousand kilometers) if you ride a clean and dry road, but if you get them very dirty, they are going to be obliterated after few hundreds kilometers.

Testing the bike.

The bike was tested in rather harsh conditions: it was used for riding off road and in a sand quarry. It performed rather well and showed a perfect contact with the ground and fast reaction to rider's commands.

Summary.

Though the bike has starter and medium grade parts, it actually justifies its cost because of it's clear control and some really durable parts.

Test-drive summary:

1. Riding off road is the thing that FX55 is meant for. The 29'er performs great when riding off road (as good as an any flat surface). 

2. A sand quarry is a nice place to test how good the bike reacts to commands. 

3. The bike moves through terrain with sandy surface well and reacts to the rider's commands really fast. 

4. Even riding a terrain with rough sand surface can bring unbelievable enjoyment with FX55. 

5. With FX55 the way doesn't choose the biker, the biker chooses the way. 

6. Sand, dirt, water? Nothing of these natural barriers are a problem for FX55. The bike will perform as well as on a road.