Ghost’s new Poacha is a freeride and bike park bike, it gets 180mm travel and is the launch vehicle for the German brands more gravity-focussed attitude. The Poacha is a completely redesign from the ground up and represents a fresh start, targeting a more youthful audience. The name is a nod to the spirt of freeriding and the choice to go exactly where you want, rather than sticking to the same old well-worn path.

Sicily’s Mount Etna was a spectacular and crazy venue for the Ghost Poacha Full Party freeride bike launch.

Bikes with this much travel are pretty rare in 2025, and none feature in our guide to the best mountain bikes of the year. Which isn’t to say the Poacha isn’t a great bike, more that it’s a fairly niche market, where the biggest competition must come from the likes of the Propain Spindrift CF 5 Ultimate, or the Atherton S.170.

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Rewind the clock 15 years or so and the German brand Ghost was a household name in the UK. Its bikes were regular test winners in mbr and model names like AMR and (later on) Riot were synonymous with the firm and also very popular. For almost a decade now though, Ghost has been much less visible on British shores. It’s as much a result of changes with distribution and organization within the Accell group it’s part of as it is any shift in public perception of quality or performance.

The Ghost Poacha is a futuristic-looking freeride planet – apt considering it looks like its been plonked on another planet.

This Accell group I’m talking about is a pretty big player in the cycling market with the likes of Raleigh, Lapierre and Haibike on the books. Accell’s new strategy is to position each individual marque more clearly within its portfolio with less overlap and this sees Ghost coming back reinvented with more attitude and a focus on younger riders, freeride and basically shredding the gnar, rather than sweating the XC climbs.

Haibike and Lapierre are going to focus on what they do best, namely a broad range of e-bikes like the Haibike Allmtb 6,  from city to utility to mountain bikes.

The low-slung shock and twin-link suspension keeps the centre of mass low and the frame looking grounded but eats into seat tube insertion.

Over two years of prototyping and testing has gone into the frame design and suspension on board the Poacha. Ghost also has a new roster of riders capable of throwing down the huge moves on it. These include British freeride star Sam Hodgson and one of the most influential freeriders in Germany, Korbi Engstler. Alongside long-term Ghost athlete and Urban DH and 4X champion Tomas Slavik, Korbi was also involved in testing and development from the beginning. Ghost is also sponsoring the huge European Freeride/Slopestyle bike Festival called The Nines to cement its new brand positioning.

Riding down an active volcano was an intense experience! How is this even legal?

Obviously keen to make a lot of noise with this project, Ghost invited a load of journalists down to Sicily to do some legit freeriding down a volcano in what must be one of the craziest press trips I’ve been on (and one of the wildest bits of riding you can legally do anywhere in Europe).

Forget about health and safety, we were guided by a virtual volcanologist on wheels, to blast down the lava-spitting Mount Etna at up to 100 kilometres an hour. Riding the Poacha on Etna was a truly once in a lifetime experience that got the journos reckoning we were Brage Vestavik for five minutes. Etna is a volcano that’s still very much active (and was even bubbling and spitting fire the night before we arrived). And fair play to Ghost for being supremely confident the bike we all were going to do this on was perfectly up to the task and capable of such a baptism of fire.

Full category 5 compliance means the Ghost Poacha is certified for the biggest hits and fastest lava fields.

Design and specifications

Poacha is available in three versions that all offer decent value pricing for the UK. The top-dollar Full Party SRAM ultimate version I rode is fully loaded with top-tier kit at £6,700. Two cheaper models start at £4,200 with a Zeb fork and Vivid Select shock, and then £5,500 gets you the Pro model with Fox Factory 38 GripX2 and TRP DH-R EVO brakes.

All Poachas have MX wheels and subtle and muted colours to match what Ghost reckons the ‘core’ audience wants, with the Full Party model I rode very smart indeed in silver and black with racing red RockShox Zeb forks and full wireless AXS gears.

I couldn’t slam the dropper post fully, which meant the saddle always felt slightly in the way.

The frame is full carbon with a very stylised/angular look that’s different to the rest of Ghost’s range. It uses a twin link virtual pivot point suspension layout the brand calls Traction Link 3.0 (both links rotate the same way, rather than counter-clockwise like a ‘traditional’ Santa Cruz or Intense VPP). There’s a deep 180mm travel at both ends and obviously a Cat 5 DH rating, plus the chassis is ready for dual crown forks up to 200mm travel when it can pump out 190mm rear travel with a different (75mm) shock stoke fitted if you choose to run it with a longer travel fork.

Ghost’s press fit headset gives room for reach adjustment, and I was glad to see regular cable entry ports.

The big-limbed frame has plenty of adjustability including a proprietary press-fit ‘Move’ headset developed with Acros that can adjust reach by 5mm either way. Frame sizes range from 440mm to 516mm reach with two chainstay lengths of 435mm and 444mm on the two shorter and two longer frames respectively. There’s also a flip chip that takes seconds to flip and lower the BB by 7mm and slacken the head angle by 0.5° from the stock ‘high’ position.

A seriously beefy head tube area oozes confidence.

Other details on the frame that nod to ease of servicing and toughness include fully replaceable hardware all over. This sees every aluminium piece tighten into itself and come right out of the frame, so there are no mounts or threads in the carbon to potentially damage. Many of the bolts are oversized and specifically chosen in common sizes to be easy to find and replace too.

The Poacha has a lot on common with Propain’s Spindrift in terms of similar intentions and positioning, and also ride quality and super-efficient pedalling manners for a long-travel rig. So while Poacha is barspin-ready, with no knock block and enough muscle for huge jumps and hauling down the steeps, the fact it pedals so effectively broaden its versatility here in the UK.

One other aspect that it shares with the Spindrift (that wasn’t my favourite on either) was a taller stand-over height. I’d prefer a bike I’m likely to be chucking about to be more out of the way of my legs. But to be fair, I ended up on a size Large bike at the launch and would likely have been better on a Medium with a shorter seat tube/post. Poacha comes with a huge 210mm height adjustable dropper post on size Large and XL, which is great if you’re tall, but with only 230mm insertion depth on the frame, a chunk of it was permanently sticking out between my legs even with the saddle slammed.

Built for strength, the frame weighs a hefty 3.8kg in size large, and you also get a sense the Poacha is rock-solid while riding it. Four sizes span a wide spread, but there are also some quite big gaps in terms of reach in the zone where a majority of riders around 170cm to 185cm might be looking. Medium reach is 465mm and large is 25mm longer at 490mm and with a much-reduced standover too. Ghost’s bike also placed my feet a chunk higher off the floor than some rivals, with a 352mm high BB in the stock ‘high’ position.

RockShox’s Vivid Ultimate shock is a an easy unit to get set-up, but offers plenty of adjustment.

Suspension

Ghost hasn’t provided detailed graphs and curves for Poacha, but after asking why it was pedalling so well with all that travel, I gleaned that the bike has pretty high anti-squat numbers. Tim Lenz (who has previously worked at Canyon and YT) explained that the short twin link design has around 140% anti squat at sag and that the progression in the leverage rate is quite high too at around 35% progressivity.

Likewise the Zeb Ultimate is user-friendly and works great out-of-the-box.

Ghost did look at a high(er) pivot design for Poacha, but decided that an idler and extra chain length brought potential pitfalls for a bike it wanted to be very durable. Tim also said that he could achieve a sensitive beginning stroke as well as a rearward axle path with the VPP design, without any of the hassles of an idler. The damping is controlled by the excellent Vivid Air shock in a 250x70mm DH length with plenty of damping oil inside and a Zeb Ultimate fork up front with the same 180mm travel and the latest super-smooth Charger 3.1 damper.

The shock pierces the down tube in a shock tunnel and the burly twin rocker links wrap the upper part of the rear triangle that’s also wildly asymmetric at the chainstay side so it can be packaged behind the BB area and not get in the way of the chain.

Appropriate brakes for surfing volcanoes!

Components

I’ve talked about SRAM’s Maven brakes being almost too powerful before, but this kind of bike is exactly where you need that power. Masses of braking force on tap that never fades when you’re flying down a mountain on a scree slope is no bad thing.

The rest of the SRAM kit is all well-known and proven, and parts like T-Type mechs look like a good choice for a freeride bike where there’s a high likelihood of a few spills and potential knocks to the drivetrain. SRAM also provide the cockpit with its DH-rated Truvativ 35mm bore Descendant bar and stem. I’ve found these bars very solid in the past. I’m not sure whether it was this or the sculpted, oversized head tube area on the frame itself being super solid, but there was definitely a sense of a stiff and unyielding feel in my hands at the front end; especially considering there was a very smooth 180mm RockShox Zeb underneath.

Solid and reassuring, the SRAM Maven brakes are a great choice for a freeride bike.

Quality and very tough wheels come courtesy of DT Swiss with its FR 1500 package. These felt at the stiffer and more solid end of the spectrum to me. Fair enough I suppose when they have to stand up to the lap after lap abuse in the bike park Poacha is designed for. I mentioned the saddle being too high between my legs already and I’m not sure what the insertion depth is on Ghost’s own brand adjustable dropper, but assuming that if you fitted an aftermarket post like a OneUP V3 with a shallower internal depth, you could gain some extra standover clearance if needed.

Hauling through the lava dust!

Performance

Ghost’s claim that ‘no drop is too big and no trail is too wild’ for the Poacha is slightly above my pay grade and hospital bills to find out. But it’s clearly a bike that you can ride down a loony pitch on a volcano on, because that’s exactly what I did at Ghost’s incredible launch. Poacha feels so capable, it didn’t faze me reaching warp speeds down powdered lava fields. On the rare occasions we hammered off-piste over rocks or lumpy vegetated mogul zones on the sides, I could literally smash and gap from metre high bump to bump with minimal feedback and zero fear of being bucked or spat off. This kind of freeriding was unique and pretty daunting at first, but the Poacha basically just floated over it and sucked it all up.

How the bike actually rides or feels in terms of suspension on such a crazy moonscape is a difficult question to answer. When holding on and bombing down a couloir at high speeds or surfing weird floaty, super soft ground that’s not a million miles off sand or snow, I couldn’t really sense if I was on a trail bike or a 200mm downhill bike at times. I rode the freeride rig for two full days and certainly got into the spirit of it, but when lots of the riding is on a surface that literally moves like lava, it’s not the best terrain to test a bike.

Thrilling though it was, Etna didn’t really reveal the Poacha’s true colours.

On the second day, we headed for the north side of Etna and managed three uplifted full runs on a very long, repeatable, rocky enduro trail. Parts of the track were pretty fast and flat out and also embedded with big and sharp volcanic rocks, often right where you ended up landing off blind crests. I managed to get two punctures with Continental DH-casing tyres, which tells you how rough the terrain was, and also managed to get a slightly better handle on the bike.

It was hard to reach too many conclusions without enough time to cycle through suspension settings or set up, but I ended up much preferring the lower BB position and also wound off quite a lot of damping on the Vivid so I was almost fully open on high-speed compression.

The lights go out, but the party continues.

I really struggled most with the taller Poacha frame and seatpost feeling like it was always in the way between my legs when trying to lever the bike form side to side. I mentioned already how well the bike pedalled, but it’s almost ridiculous how urgent this bike is under power with all the travel it has, even with the massive Vivid shock fully open.

Cranking up a very steep fireroad out of the top of the cable car at around 2800m elevation, my lungs might not have been, but the bike was perfectly fine pedalling up to reach some of the lava chutes on Etna. Despite being 17kg, it doesn’t even feel particularly heavy either when the pedalling is this good at converting power into forward motion.

Like mogul skiing on black powder!

Heading off the smooth cinders and steep pitches to the roots and rock on day two, it turns out that the floaty feeling and a sense of a bike that is extremely isolating against the terrain wasn’t just a consequence os the smooth loose surfaces, and was in fact part of the Poacha character. My sense is the back end can be quite greedy with its travel against harsh high-speed hits and the way it’s so floaty off the top meant I found it hard to gauge what’s going on at the tyres on proper trails.

I also had a vague sense of the frame being so rock solid or the suspension not being the best at absorbing harsh/spiky vibration type inputs, or stabby, high-speed compression hits. It’s hard to say on alien terrain, but the whole package feels so stiff, the ride quality wasn’t the most comfortable and conforming on very knobbly terrain, even with tons of travel. My first impression then is the bike can feel a little bit sharp in terms of punchy/smaller hits, but it let me go bloody fast, and can steam through really serious terrain once you get a shift on.

Propain’s Spindrift was a smooth operator on the roughest tracks, and I’m not sure the Ghost is quite as forgiving.

Whether Poacha can be tuned to also have the same smoothness and comfort of Propain’s Spindrift I really rated here before, I just didn’t have time to fully investigate. The bike may be primarily designed for lording it up in the bike park, but thanks to Ghost for an incredible, once in a lifetime experience riding down a volcano on it. I can’t recommend this enough as a one-off, and, who knows, maybe it would be a lot scarier on another bike than this über-capable Ghost Poacha?