The Collossus N9 is spec’d with a custom tuned 205mm x 65mm Trunnion Mount Fox Float X2 air shock, though it’s worth noting that Matt Stuttard chose to race his with an Ohlins TTX22 M2 Coil Shock
A 63.5° head angle certainly helps with confidence on steep and loose sections of trail, such as the infamous and aptly named Avalanche in the Tweed ValleyOn that front, the Collossus N9 is bang up to date, too. Impressively short, steep seat tubes are paired with generous reach figures and a slack 63.5° head angle for confidence in fall-line terrain.
At that stage, I was happy enough with its use of travel front and rear, so turned to the rebound dials in an attempt to calm things down a little. I added 5 clicks of low speed rebound damping, and one click of high speed rebound damping on the shock, and went to 10 clicks from fully open on the fork rebound. I left the compression damping on both ends fully open.
I was able to test the Collossus N9 before actually seeing the geometry chart, which was a fairly novel experience. Before taking a peek at the numbers, I took some guesses about the HA, SA, rear-center and reach numbers. On the angles, I was spot on; on the chainstay length and reach numbers, I had overestimated.