The Titus El Guapo is a departure in almost every sense for Titus. For starters, the name is far from the Racer X's and Moto's we expect from Titus. It instead taps the culture of their home state, Arizona, as does the new Titus headbadge bearing the Arizona star. While the name El Guapo is literally translated The Handsome One, which is certainly fitting, but we think the loose translation, The Man, is far more accurate. Why? El Guapo is a 7 pound, 6" travel, nimble, beast-of-a-bike whose climbing abilities, frankly, surprised us.

Titus El Guapo's handsome aesthetic is derived from the aggressively hydroformed tubing creating sweeping curves and enhanced torsional stiffness. The tubeset is finished in a fitting Anodized Black or TALAS Blue powdercoat accented by a CNC-machined silver rocker designed to have the integrity of an I-beam. Here's where the departures for Titus become incredibly apparent -- El Guapo still uses a four-bar, Horst Link design like most Titus frames, but to accommodate the full six inches of travel and maintain the pedal platform, the forward-most pivot has moved about a third of the way up the downtube. And it's anchored by a Rock Shox Pearl 3.1 shock. As you might imagine, Titus did loads of testing to see which shock performed the best and all unanimously preferred the Pearl 3.1.

Forged and machined swingarm yokes provide rear swingarm stiffness for Titus El Guapo, providing ample room for a 2.5 Kenda Nevegal all the while. Titus doesn't miss a detail, El Guapo uses sealed roller bearings in the forward pivots and bushings in the horst pivots to maintain high tolerances -- this helps provide El Guapo's smooth suspension stroke and incredible tracking.