I've had my Eastern Night Train (2007 model) for about a month now and have had a good chance to ride it several times. What a great bike. I really went back and forth on whether I should purchase a high end frame (Transition TOP, Black Market Mob, etc) and then build a bike, but I'm sorta glad I didn't go that route. I've done that before and you end up with a great bike, but you also end up spending a small fortune. With the Eastern Night Train, you get a GREAT complete bike right out of the box and you don't really need to change anything. Just build it and ride!
THE PARTS SPEC
Not only do you get a great frame with this bike, but the parts spec is top notch as well. Eastern spec'd it with several of their own parts, including the Electron cranks, Medusa sprocket, Dual Concave pedals, and Eastern Hubs front and back....great stuff. The bike also has really nice Sun MTX-S type rims, which so far seem very comparable to the Azonic Outlaws I have on one of my other bikes. The cockpit is mostly Truvativ Hussefelt bits which are pretty nice, but I will probably switch out the bars to some Deity's. Lastly, I might mention that my bike came with an Avid Juicy rear brake, even though I've heard some of the earlier bikes had Hayes. No complaints here as I really like the Avids.
THE RIDE
I love the way this bike rides! I'm not used to singlespeeds but the gearing seems just right on this thing and it didn't take me long to get used to it. The bike handles really well.... really rips around my pump track. Its quickly becoming my favorite bike to ride. I'm slowly getting the hang of manuals on a 26" bike and this bike seems like it will perform those really well...we'll see as I'm still working on getting good at them. I will mainly be using this bike to ride pump tracks with the occasional DJ session and I think its going to be a GREAT bike for this type of riding.
2007 NIGHT TRAIN vs. 2008 NIGHT TRAIN
The 2008 Night Trains are now available and Eastern made some changes to the geometry of the frame, spec'd a few more Eastern parts, changed the front fork, and a few other things. I put together a little COMPARISON CHART to show the changes. I think they made a great bike even better!
CONCLUSION
IMHO, the Eastern Night Train is about the best dirt jump, urban, and pump track bike you can get for the money. Sure you could buy a Transition TOP or Black Market MOB frame and custom build your own bike, but then you are probably looking at spending close to $2000. For $1199, the Eastern Night Train is ready to rip right out of the box. I love mine.
HOW TO BUY
2009 Eastern Night Train... Purchase at Jenson USA
