I just took the Era for a ride this morning (my first ride on it since I got knocked off my road bike and sprained my AC joint) and went for an uphill ride. I find it good for climbing. The coach I had a few lessons from always says "The "s" on the front of that specialized seat stands for "sphincter" and that's where it should be when you climb!" He's not subtle but he certainly gets you working well!

I find I don't have to be quite that agressive in pushing my stance forward to keep the front down. All I do is push a tiny bit further forward on the seat than usual and it seems very well balanced. I didn't get any lift on the front even on sustained grades of 18% this morning.

I find I am mostly a seated climber these days (post MTB) but I do like to stand and drive it over the top sometimes if I am in a gear a little high and I'm feeling too lazy to change down! I did that a couple of times this morning and after such a while off the bike, I did have to consciously think about where my weight was to avoid losing traction in the rear. There wasn't much in it but I just had to think about pushing my weight slightly back off the handlebars. So I guess I don't usually feel like I'm too far forward for comfort when I stand because I naturally went further forward than I wanted for traction.

As for logs and rock gardens - I just LOVE them now. Much easier to get over and more comfortable to ride than on the hardtail! The Fox fork is really nice and predictable and the brain just kicks in a you get a nice little "plop" as you drop over the rocks and it just takes the bashing out of it. Over logs I just had to adjust my style a bit in terms of weight positioning again, as I tend to drift into "ride like a sack of spuds" mode and would end up settling on the suspension too early through the obstacle and found I had less ground clearance than I was used to with the hardtail on a couple of logs. But as soon as I adjusted my style, took them a little faster and kept my weight lifted (if that makes sense) a little longer I had no dramas on those obstacles.

Most of my issues come from being a lazy rider on the full suspension and letting it do too much of the work for me!