Revel Bikes has not been a strong presence in New Zealand… until now.

Since its 2019 inception, the company has been through a redemption arc plotted by owner Adam Miller’s sale of the brand to a private equity firm in 2021, its April 2025 shutdown, and then Miller buying back the business a month later.

Since then, Miller sought to take the brand back to its roots, making Revel leaner, more sustainable and more rider focused. He moved the company from the fittingly named Carbondale, in Colorado, to the aspirational-sounding Golden, also in Colorado, so it could be nearer main centres and the brand’s network of suppliers and customers.

Despite its short and turbulent history, Revel has built a strong following in America with a core range of bikes built around the Canfield Balanced Formula suspension system. Now, Miller is pushing the brand beyond the States, into Aotearoa, offering direct shipping to New Zealand. While you may not have seen many Revels on the trails here yet, you should expect to soon.

With 130mm travel out back, and 150mm up front, the Rascal is Revel’s out-and-out trail-bike. Like all Revels, the Rascal uses the Canfield Balanced Formula suspension platform, which drives the damper via two co-rotating links. Revel also adds a clevis link to the mix, presumably to help isolate the rear shock from torsional loads and tune the leverage ratio.

There’s nothing fussy or unnecessary about the Rascal, it’s a clean, lean riding machine. The frame is carbon through-and-through, from its front and rear triangles to its shapely linkages. Sporting two water bottle mounts, the Rascal has a threaded bottom bracket, internally guided cables, SRAM UDH, a dropset-style headset, but no internal storage compartment, no headset routing, and no geometry adjustments. The cable routing is tidy and simple, although the rear-brake line is a little exposed to damage where it exits the front triangle below the bottom bracket and disappears into the chainstays.

Revel’s commitment to the CBF suspension platform is admirable in an era when all bikes seem to be converging on the Horst-link layout. But, like all designs, CBF has its strengths and weaknesses, depending on your preferences.

Anti-squat and anti-rise levels on the Rascal are at the higher end of the spectrum. Anti-squat at sag sits at 120 per cent, falling to around 90 per cent at full travel. This should create a slight extension of the suspension under power and a very firm feel at the pedals. Anti-rise is about 100 per cent at sag falling to 90 per cent at full travel, which will make the suspension squat slightly under braking, preserving the geometry well, particularly on steeper sections of trail. At 21 per cent, the Rascal is moderately progressive and will work well with air shocks and coil shocks with hydraulic-bottom-out control.

The Rascal’s geometry is fairly standard for a trail bike, with a 65-degree head-tube angle (150mm fork), 76-degree seat tube, and reach numbers ranging from 431mm for size small through to 528mm on the XXL. The only outlier is chainstay length, which is 436mm across all sizes – taller riders take note.

The parts Revel chose for the Rascal are what you’d expect for a bike in this class, with a RockShox Lyrik Ultimate fork and Super Deluxe shock across all builds. The main price point differentiator is groupsets, with the most expensive build getting SRAM XX Transmission and the cheapest receiving the cable-actuated Eagle 90 Transmission. The only unusual part of the build is the tyres – the classic enduro/ all-mountain combo of a Maxxis DHF and DHR in EXO+ and Double Down is a heavy-hitting and slow rolling choice for a trail bike. I’d rather have a slightly faster option like the new Maxxis Dissector for a bike like the Rascal.