(upbeat music)
- Welcome to the 2021 field test.
And I know, I know it feels like we just wrapped up
one of these things, but we're back.
This time with more travel,
slacker angles and absolutely no Lycra.
I promise.
We have 10 of the latest trail and Enduro bikes
with travel ranging from a sporty 130 millimeters,
all the way up to this bad boy,
Norco's 180 millimetre travel Shore.
Does that name ring a bell?
Norco's hoping it does.
We'll see if this brought back
any of Kazimier's free ride glory.
Now speaking of free ride,
we also have Propain's 180 millimetre travel Spindrift.
Propain says that this bike is good
for anything from bike park laps to flow trails.
And that sounds pretty free to me.
So in my mind,
it's Norco's versus Propain for the free ride honors.
Now it's 2020 though, and we want to talk enduro racing
not really drops and skinnies.
And if we're talking enduro bike debuts
well, it doesn't get
a whole lot better,
than Rocky Mountain's, brand 160 millimetre
travel Altitude.
Jesse Melamed race this bike to victory multiple times
last season, including during its debut race.
So at least we know its fast.
Keep following me, cause I've got another familiar
name for you,
this is Trek's new Slash,
this has been an ever evolving bike
and it's going to be interesting
to see, how it compares
to the other completely new machines.
And is it just me, or does this thing look like a Session?
Just me?
Yeah, I guess it's just me.
And then there's this blurry thing
that I'd love to tell you all about
but, well, there's a pesky embargo.
Actually, I didn't sign the NDA. You did?
Yeah, I could probably tell them a couple of things.
Just like one or two things, small wheels, big travel
and that's all I could say apparently.
Those were all of Kazimer's enduro bikes,
but I've got five trail bikes of my own to ride,
including this, this is Salsa's all new Blackthorn.
It's got 140 millimetres
of rear wheel travel, 160 millimetres upfront,
and a 64.5 degree head angle.
I've been calling up Barney for obvious reasons.
Let's keep going and look at something a little more wild.
This is Actofive's 135 millimetre travel P-Train.
And well, I mean, just look at it.
It has a Reynolds
853 steel front triangle,
and a CNC aluminium swing arm.
It uses a high pivot suspension
with an idler and be still my beating heart.
But, weird and interesting doesn't mean winning.
Although when you look like this,
who cares about winning?
The Actofive is made in very small numbers.
A guy named Simon Metzner
in Germany is only going to make about 20 of them this fall.
And we've got one of them here.
Looking for something a little more, rust-proof?
Maybe you want some computer controlled suspension.
This is Giant's 135 millimetre Trance X
it uses Fox's
live valve suspension that reads
and self-adjusts to the terrain, or that's the idea anyway.
Now I know some of us don't like the idea of computers
on our bikes and not just because they ain't inexpensive.
So the question I'm going to answer,
do all these wires add performance or just complication?
But there are those out there that would have you believe
that if you had the good old DW link,
you definitely don't need a computer.
This is Ibis's all new fourth generation Mojo.
It's a 130 millimetre
travel trail bike,
that uses DW link suspension and 27.5 inch wheels.
That's right.
This is an all new trail bike, that's not a 29'r.
I'll tell you what it does come with though.
Some very non-Ibis-y geometry.
It's a whole lot longer and nearly two degrees more relaxed
than its predecessor.
We'll see if that means that it's two degrees better
on the trail.
Let's take a look at our last trail bike
and it's Specialized's all new Stumpjumper.
And if we're going to do a group test?
We pretty much have to have the new Stumpy here.
Now the latest version looks a lot like the old one,
but it's longer slacker all that stuff.
It also doesn't have a Horst link suspension system.
Big change from Specialized,
it's a single pivot linkage driven rear end.
And I don't think there's any coincidence
that this bike doesn't ride anything
like the old one. More about that, in the full review.
Now those 10 bikes look nice and shiny now,
but they've been anything
but for the last month of testing
up here in Squamish, where I've been riding the trail bikes
and down in Bellingham Washington,
where Kazimer has been testing all the Enduro bikes.
They've seen a ton of single track during that time
and they've done it all on control tires as well.
Assegai's and DHRs for Kazimer's enduro bikes,
and DHF's and Dissectors for my trail bikes.
The idea behind control tires,
is that we want to concentrate on the handling,
and the suspension performance.
And putting matching tires on all the bikes,
limits the variables and also makes the timing
much more fair.
Oh yes.
Timing, just like all the other previous field tests.
The clock's always running.
We timed the climbs
and the descents, to give us an objective measurement,
of how fast these bikes are on the way up
and on the way down.
The efficiency test is back as well.
And that means that we're back using a power meter again,
that also means that I had to climb all of these bikes,
up a steep gravel road too many times at way too many watts.
Do I look tired? Because I feel tired.
And speaking of tired, the impossible climb is back as well.
And I pedaled or tried to pedal all 10 of these bikes up.
What I think, is the most difficult impossible climb
that we've ever included in the field test.
And what about the huck the flat,
well, with all these climbing videos
we don't have time to include that one anymore.
And we know you guys don't like it anyway...
That's not true.
The huck is back at the huck is never going to leave.
Jason Lucas is doing that.
And something tells me,
that he's pretty happy not to be doing it
on those cross-country bikes like last time.
We've also added yet another video to the Field Test family.
We're going to look across each model range
to figure out which ones give you guys
the best bang for your buck.
Someone had to do a lot of spread sheeting for that.
So I hope you guys enjoy it.
And just like that, welcome to the 2021 field test.
This time supported by Smith, Sierra Nevada,
and Dainese stay tuned for a load of video reviews
and a whole bunch of round table discussions
where Kazimer and I argue about which one of these bikes
impressed us the most.
As usual, there's a big crew behind the camera,
making all these videos possible.
So we hope you guys enjoy them.
Make sure to subscribe.
So you don't miss a single field test video.
(upbeat music)