Originally Posted by Zephyr11

Really? I used to have an '06 Tass (I think it was an '06, anyway) and I'm pretty sure it came with full Deore. Fork wasn't that great (Manitou Axel), but it really wasn't that bad of a bike. That bike was also like a $700 bike in '06, almost twice as much as the entry level Hardrock (and had the componentry expected at that price point). Unless the '01 Tass was a completely different bike, I can't imagine that one step down from the Tass (I think that was the Piranha? Same fork, Deore with Alivio FD according to Bikepedia) would have been designed as incapable of legitimately being ridden off-road.