This is my first C series KDX, and until this trip, I had only ridden it a little bit around my back yard. In the back point-forty it seemed to have very good low end snap, it turned okay, and the forks and shock seemed to damp reasonably well over my 1-foot log hop. The brakes seemed borderline adequate in the yard--the rear drum took a lot of effort to lock up and had virtually no feel. Very wooden. The front required a lot of lever movement to get any power, and that power wasn't very strong.
In my pre-trip preparation, I discovered that the front brake had ruined pads--unevenly worn from a past life on a mis-sized rotor--so they were effectively making only 30% contact with the rotor. A new set of pads, bleeding the line, and adjusting the lever further from the bar yielded a decent front brake. Not a one-finger stoppie machine, but good enough to keep me from racing uncontrollably down a mountain.
So how did it perform?
I have to say that I'm very impressed by this little machine. And when I say little, I mean LITTLE. The bike is almost 20 pounds lighter than the hybrid, and it sits low. The ergos on this bike are very old-school. The bars are narrow, with a lot of sweep, and they feel like they sit in your lap. Totally different than the high, wide and forward bars of the hybrid. Also, the seat height feels two or three inches lower than the hybrid, which made low-speed rock crawling very easy. The ground was always close by for a quick dab when balance was lost. The seat is wide and SOFT. This is a bike that was made for all-day sit-down riding.
Suspension-wise, the front and back soaked up the rocks and roots very nicely. They were very compliant, allowing the wheels to stay in contact with uneven surfaces and preventing deflection. Great at low speeds in technical terrain and climbs. At higher speeds, there was not enough damping to control the chassis adequately. I didn't really feel comfortable pushing the bike much beyond 7/10.
Hatfield McCoy isn't really about jumps, so I can't comment there, but I will say that the little C climbed EVERY hill I pointed it up, and it did it very easily. The power is excellent for chugging up long, technical, rocky ascents. There is so much flywheel, that the clutch is almost unnecessary once you drop down to first gear (13-48 gearing).
ONe of my club's trail bosses raced a C series KDX back in the '80s, and he did NOT have very good things to say about it. However, he threw a leg over it and proceeded to clean a VERY difficult piece of single track on the first try. His comments were that this bike's suspension was made for rocky technical trail, and it worked excellent in those conditions. He thought his troubles in the '80s probably had a lot to do with running it primarily in fast, whooped-out NJ sand. In those conditions, the fork just isn't good. But rocky, rooty slop is its forte.
So, I have to say that it's a great companion to the hybrid. Where the hybrid is great at 10/10 riding, as fast as possible, the C is a comfortable and capable relaxed explorer.
