- Welcome back, you beautiful people.
And today is a questioning day.
We all know that the enduro bike is capable
of all kinds of disciplines, from down hill,
enduro, XE, dead jumps, big jumps in a bike park,
to free ride lines in the mountains.
Ha, it's like its the bike to go for.
But before you start dreaming about that
all lovely such nice Enduro bike,
have you ever thought of this?
This is the hard tail, some of you viewers
probably have one in your garage.
This is probably the only bike you have.
But we get a number of questions down below,
and in our social media, on questions like,
can this bike hit a 20 foot jump?
Can this bike race down hill?
Can this bike race enduro?
Can it do XC?
Can it do free ride lines?
Well, today is one of those days where I'm going
to tick off all the things that this beast is capable of.
So let's kick it off!
(upbeat music)
Ha ha!
Well this is my new proof scout comp,
and this is an aggressive hard tail.
What this means is that this head angle is super slack,
there's a 140 ml of travel up front,
the frame is super rigid, has a low BB,
and you can throw anything on this bike,
and it'll take it on.
Whether its embracing your spirit for adventure,
or tackling all those single track trails in the woods,
to your local pump track, to your local dirt jumps,
even racing some four cross, down hill,
or enduro racing, this thing is built for it.
Okay, let's get down to business because we need
to know what this thing can do.
And I have a few things I want to throw at it to test it.
And I've come to the perfect testing ground
to do all of this, and this is Chicksands Bike Park
in Bedfordshire in the UK.
And it caters for a number of different disciplines
from single track loop, to four cross, to dirt jumping,
to dual slalom, to mini down hill, to free ride stuff.
So, has all the disciplines covered, I'm going to see
if this thing can do the whole bike park with ease.
Let's go! Haha!
All right, four cross racing, ho ho ho ho.
Speed, aggression, everything, if you don't know
what four cross is all about, basically its
four riders racing against each other down a track,
which is on a slope, its down hill, but has a number
of jumps, there's a number of turns,
there's big gaps, there's some different obstacles
out there that you have to navigate yourself through
against the other three riders.
So, I'm going to go flat town, I'm going to pedal
in turns, I'm going to see if this bike can handle it,
if it's got the grip, lets do it.
(light music)
Oh, wow.
The four cross is one discipline I haven't done for ages.
Its all about power, and getting that power down.
Hang on.
All right, I've got my breath back,
talking about getting your power down to that rear wheel
to get the speed, because you need a lot of speed.
Especially for those big jumps, like that triple there,
and that double, and that one double down there
into that turn, you need to get as much power down
to that rear wheel as possible.
But when you're having a full suspension,
like if I was to ride my Scott Genius on this track,
I'm going to have to be locking at that rear suspension
to get as much power as possible to clear those jumps.
I've actually got 35 ps on this, I've lifted a little bit
but I don't want that tire to deform in the turns
because I want to get as much speed as possible
to clear these jumps.
But this bike is worthy of racing,
you could race this thing on the weekend,
and then pedal home like I said,
or go for an enduro ride on a Sunday or a Monday.
Wow, let's move on to the next challenge.
Right so you find yourself in a bike park,
where there's little table tops, like dirt jumps,
and they get progressively bigger.
Which turn into doubles, which get progressively bigger
and steeper, but still get bigger.
So the question is, can it dirt jump?
Well, look at this, wow.
Well I can't obviously do a jump,
but, can I actually do tricks?
Well, here's a few simple ones on it.
(light music)
Ha ha! Whoa!
I've just shown you, it can, but there's a few things
you gotta take into consideration when jumping
an all around aggressive hard tail trail bike,
such like my new Groove Scout is that the dirt jump
bike's 26 inch wheels, its hard tail, the front
suspension is going to be really hard.
Because I run quite stiff suspension up the front,
these ones, 140 ml of travel, my dirt jump bike,
110 ml of travel.
But with these, they're quite soft, so you're going
to find that the front end dives into the take off
and it feels like your whole body weight
is shifting in to the left, which is not a nice feeling.
So you've gotta take that consideration
when riding steep lips, such like these ones.
Also, the front head angle is quite slack,
like I've said, it's aggressive so,
its going to be quite long.
The back end's going to be long,
whereas in dirt jump bikes its going to be quite
short and compact steep head angle, super light weight.
And to be honest, you're running 27.5 wheels.
And for me, I'm running a plus size, this is a 2.6.
So my tire pressures are quite low,
it feels quite sluggish on the jumps.
And you've got those compression setting on these
rock sharp revelations, and I've just basically
plused it to make it a little bit harder.
Didn't lock it out, because I didn't want suspension
when I over jumped a few jumps.
So I want that front suspension to work.
The dirt jump bikes, you're going to be running
quite high tire pressures, 80 psi, 65 psi, depending
on what tire you have.
Here, I've got 30 psi in these, there barons.
Wow, well there you go, it's worthy of pedaling from home,
through the woods, do some single track,
get you on to the trails, drop your saddle,
bust some tricks, bust a move out.
Let's move on to the next challenge.
All right, next question, can I actually
down hill free ride enduro, of course it can!
I'll tell you four eye, watch this!
All right, I'm going to put down hill, enduro,
and free ride all into one category.
Because they kind of share all the same aspects.
But what you would find with a normal hard tail,
there's more aim towards XE is that your top tube's
going to be a lot higher, your BB is going
to be a lot higher, your wheel base is going to
be a little bit shorter, and your head angle
is going to be a lot steeper,
compared to this all around hard tail.
And by having such elements done into a normal XE bike,
when it comes to descending, its going to be quite
hard to shift your body weight around.
Especially when it comes to steep sections,
where you want to keep your body weight quite far
over the rear and lean back so you don't feel like
you're going to go over the bars.
Whereas with the XE bike, there's more aim towards
climbing instead of descending.
But when it comes to running rough stuff on a hard
tail, well, to be honest, it is going to be a rough
ride, but it's going to be an
exciting ride, that's for sure.
Riding the same bit of section on an enduro bike,
I've found down just going flat top.
Don't worry about the line, I'm just going flat out
using my 150 ml of travel, to soak up all of those bumps.
When it comes to the hard tail,
I find myself concentrating a lot more.
I have to guide myself through that section,
and find the perfect, smoothest line,
just to get through without getting a puncture.
Well that brings me on to suspension.
Whereas the hard tail, you haven't got suspension.
So you're going to have to use your body as the suspension,
so you don't want to just sit back and relax
and get through the trail because your body needs
to work extra hard just to soak up all those bumps.
And by doing that, you want to keep your knees bent.
You want to keep your knees bent, let that bike
bounce up and down underneath you, constantly,
just to keep that suspension going.
Ahh, what about cross country?
No brainer, ha, answers itself.
(upbeat music)
Ha, ha, ha!
From the track to the great expanse of the outdoors,
yes my friend, this is cross country.
You find yourself exploring endless amount of country
lanes, with minimum fuss and ease.
Basically the high tails designed to ride across the
country with minimum fuss, and back to pure mountain bike.
And you find yourself racing XE on the weekend,
and commuting to work in the weekdays.
Spending hours of time in that saddle.
For me, the hard tail stuck in my heart forever
because my career was actually built on a hard tail.
So, I've got big love for the simple hard tail.
You can't get enough of it, super simple.
Nothing could go wrong, nice suspension bits on the back.
I'm going to go ride more.
Ha, ha, wow, well there's not a lot that the
trusty hard tail can't handle.
You can throw anything at it, and it'll do it.
Really, but I'm not saying go and put a massive
down hill world cup track in front of it,
and try to ride down it because you're going
to struggle, that's for sure.
But if you are looking into buying a hard tail,
then look at what you're actually going to riding.
If you're going to be riding a lot of cross country,
dirt roads, single track with a lot more climbing
involved, then look at getting
a pure bred cross country bike.
Because that's going to benefit you a lot more on a climb
but if you're wanting an all around kind of bike,
from a little bit down hill, free ride, enduro,
XE racing, dirt jumps, racing on the four cross,
whatever, well the aggressive hard tail
will do it all with no problems.
With simplicity as well because you've got none of that
moving gubbins on the back for suspension.
It's super simple, less fuss,
and its back to pure mountain biking.
Hopefully you enjoyed this video,
and it's given you a little bit more of an insight
to what a hard tail can do and its limitations.
I'd love to push this thing a lot more.
I want to challenge it actually.
I want to see how hard I can actually ride the hard tail.
But, if you want to see another video,
click just down here, on our five essential skills
to do in a pump track.
Then over here, hard tail versus fat bike on a pump track.
Click the globe if you haven't subscribed already,
because you are actually missing out on some good content.
And I'll see you on the next one!