[Music] Speaker 1: A superbike.
Mountain bikes can be pretty spendy these days.
Carbon this, titanium that.
It's actually not that hard to spend £10,000 on a bike.
Some of the biggest manufacturers have off-the-shelf superbikes, or you could go down the boutique
brand route and have something like a Pole, the Finnish brand that builds some of the
world's most high-end enduro bikes.
Speaker 2: Whoa, whoa, whoa premium Neil.
You don't have to spend a fortune on a mountain bike.
This VooDoo Hoodoo cost me £375, secondhand, but it's a really cheap proper mountain bike.
Speaker 1: I didn't say you have to spend the money, but if you've got it, this Pole
Stamina costs about £8,000.
This is my Pole Stamina in the EN build kit, which comes in at €7,950.
However, I've added some pretty special upgrades to this, the Trickstuff Direttissima brakes
and the SRAM access gearing.
Almost up to their top of the line LE build kit now, and this bike now costs about €9,000,
or about £8,300.
While supercars are lovely to look at, you do hear about repairs and servicing costing
tens of thousands of pounds on Ferraris.
What about living with that super bike?
What happens when the drivetrain wears out?
Then you have to cough up.
This SRAM XX1 cassette cost about £400, $450.
Speaker 2: More than my bike.
Speaker 1: Yes but lots of smiles per pound.
Speaker 2: There better be.
Anyway, let's go see the real difference between your superbike and my cheap bike.
Speaker 1: You're on.
Speaker 2: These are racehorses, not show ponies.
Not to be looked at all day through your Dior sunglasses.
Speaker 1: Dior?
More like SRAM Access.
Speaker 2: I meant D-I-O-R.
Speaker 1: Idiot.
[music] Speaker 2: Let's start with a completely arbitrary
measurement because why not?
Let's see what you actually physically get for your money.
Price per kilogram.
The VooDoo Hoodoo is an entry-level mountain bike with a budget suspension fork.
Costs £600 new, weighs 14.35 kilograms.
That is £41 per kilogram.
For this second-hand bargain that's £375 pounds, that comes in at £26 per kilogram.
Speaker 1: The Pole Stamina is 180 mil full travel, CNC aluminium enduro race machine,
where capability is more important than out-and-out weight, which is not designed to be super
lightweight.
Comes in at 14.7 kilograms.
Interestingly, they're so close in weight but not in capability.
Speaker 2: Hang on, you don't know that yet.
Speaker 1: £561 per kilogram.
Speaker 2: What?
Let's go back to the car comparison.
A Ford Fiesta costs £14 per kilogram.
A Ferrari 812 Superfast, that's £153 per kilogram, but there are a few more kilograms
in the Ferrari.
Speaker 1: Round one goes to the cheap bike.
Round two, desirability.
Yes, bikes are about riding, but lots of us love to sit back and admire our fine steeds.
Let's test out the desirability of each bike by parking them outside the cafe to see if
the general ride in public fancy an ogle as well.
An easy win for the superbike, now please go away, that's my bike.
That makes it one each for the cheap bike versus the superbike.
[music] Speaker 2: Practicalities.
I dare you to ride to the shops and leave it outside, or even insure it against theft,
I got a quote.
The VooDoo will cost me £71 a year.
Speaker 1: This is £520, but it doesn't leave my side.
Speaker 2: What about cross country ride one weekend, dirt jumping the next, pump track?
A bit of bike packing?
Speaker 1: This is an enduro bike.
It could run three bottle cages, and this is designed for proper mountain bike riding.
You could race an EWS, go to West for runs, do an epic ride around a Welsh forest.
Speaker 2: All right, whatever.
Let's call it a draw, two each.
[Music] Speaker 1: All right, sprint and break test
next.
Sprint first.
You ready?
Those [unintelligible 00:04:26] Three, two, one, go.
Speaker 2: Take that, posh boy.
Speaker 1: Anyway, break test next.
Good luck.
Don't mean it.
All right, brake test.
You ready?
Three, two, one, stop.
Speaker 2: What the?
How?
We both got hydraulic brakes.
Speaker 1: Yes, these are Trickstuff, the cream of German engineering.
With a one year waiting list, if you do actually want to buy, them for €450 euros a break.
Speaker 2: €900?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Come on, feel.
No one said excellence is going to be cheap, and I've got proper enduro tires, a deadly
combination.
What?
Another draw?
Could the cheap bike possibly take the win?
[music] Speaker 2: Trail performance.
Hang on a sec.
Are we comparing apples to oranges here?
Your bike's got 180 mils trailfront and rear.
This is a hardtail.
Speaker 1: Technicalities.
Speaker 2: All right then.
Let's start with something I know this bike should be good at, the pump track.
All right.
Are you ready?
Three, two, one, go.
Go on then.
I thought you were a racer.
[music] Speaker 1: Hardtails are the pump track masters.
The hardtail takes a 1.3 second win.
Now, it's up to the next challenges if the Poles have any chance of winning in the overall.
Right.
A timed climb.
Now, my geometry is designed to get me up the hill nicely to bomb back down.
Weights are about the same, but my 180 mil of travel and my big enduro tires aren't going
to make it that easy on the poly, but they will pay dividends.
Just you wait.
Speaker 2: Getting the excuses in already.
Right.
Watch this.
[music] Speaker 1: Faster again on the climb, but
we expected that one now.
There's a 7.3 second lead to the cheap bike.
The Pole has got a lot of work to do on the time descent.
[music] Speaker 2: Well, capture.
Something go wrong?
Speaker 1: Whatever.
Anyway, time downhill now.
[music] Speaker 2: You all right?
What you doing?
Speaker 1: Shut it.
[music] Speaker 2: It looks pretty serious and fast.
Anyway, I'm not ready yet.
[music] Speaker 1: Now, the super bike.
The Pole is in its natural habitat.
It takes a stunning win on the descent, 12 seconds over the hardtail.
On a short downhill, that is an emphatic win.
[music] Speaker 2: All right.
You win, but cheapo hardtail is better for some things, for a quick blast around the
woods, a lap of the pump tracks, some jumps riding to school, commuting.
It's pretty mental.
This bike is actually better for some things.
Actually, how much better is your nine grand bike overall?
Speaker 1: Not taking it off away from the hardtail, admirable stuff.
Actually, Blake racing mega avalanche hardtail, possibly his stupidest idea ever.
That's saying something for Blake.
This, it's designed for different things.
We're talking about racing multi-day, endurance stages, EWS races.
This is the bike.
hardtail, you're just not going to be able to do that.
This thing blows out the water there.
There's a wealth of experiences gone into this bike, the R and D, the pro-rider feedback.
It's all about designing the bike and actually, the performance of it.
That's where super bikes are judged.
Yes, you need deep pockets for this bike, but you also need the trails to necessitate
it at home or enough cash to get into Whistler or Madeira, then happy days.
It's great.
Speaker 2: Hardtails are great, especially cheap ones.
They're responsible for introducing so many people to the wonderful world of mountain
biking, but if we're talking about racing, endurable series, downhills or anything like
that, then they're not quite the same job.
Obviously, there's a big gap in the middle where most people sit for how much they spend
on their bikes.
The benefits increase quite quickly from 300 pounds up to 3000 pounds.
After that, the increments seem smaller for every pound or dollar.
That doesn't mean it's not there.
For some people, the humble cheap secondhand hardtail is just a ticket.
It's fun.
It's not all about the bike, and we're all in the mountain bike club.
Speaker 1: Well said Neil.
Speaker 2: Thanks Neil.