(Mike laughs)
- Field test.
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- Hey everybody,
I'm Mike Levy here to welcome you
to Pinkbikes fall field test.
We're here in a wet and misty Pemberton BC,
with what I think are some of the most interesting machines
that we've ever had at one of these things.
Now this time around,
we've got six aggressive trail bikes
with travel ranging from 135 millimeters
to 150 millimeters.
And six of something called downcountry,
with travel up to 120 millimeters.
Let's take a walk through the fleet
and see what we've been riding.
Starting with the least amount of travel.
This is Canyon's, mostly new Lux Trail.
Canyon's has made a new front triangle for this bike.
It's got 110 millimeters of rear wheel travel,
120 millimeter fork,
and in my mind,
it's sort of what a downcountry bike should be.
But we'll see how it handles the rocky
and steep terrain here in Pemberton.
Now keeping things a little more cross-country focused
is this Santa Cruz's new Blur.
Now you can get this in a full-out race version
or like ours, the TR model,
115 millimeters of rear wheel travel,
120 millimeter fork,
and in case you haven't noticed,
Santa Cruz ditched VPP in favor of a single pivot,
flex pivot designed to save some weight.
This is an interesting bike,
and we're going to see how it compares.
Now since we're talking redesigns,
have a look at this black beauty,
Rocky Mountains all new Element.
Now they've made it a whole bunch of degrees slacker
and way longer.
It's got 130 millimeter fork upfront
and 120 millimeters of rear wheel travel.
This is not your dad's Element.
And speaking of your dad,
who remembers Trek's full out cross country
race bike, the Top Fuel?
It's got a bump up to 120 millimeters
of travel on both ends
and much more relaxed geometry.
The next bike that we've been testing here in Pemberton
is Niner's all new Jet 9 RDO.
Now this thing has 120 millimeters of travel
and much longer slacker geometry than their previous bikes.
Now, I'm going to be honest with you guys,
Niner isn't exactly the first brand that comes to mind
when I think of capable downcountry bikes,
but we'll see what happens.
All right,
let's go take a look at our last downcountry bike,
that is unfortunately still under embargo.
As you guys can see it's black,
it's got some wheels,
and that's about all I can tell you right now.
And that is it for the downcountry bikes.
Let's take a walk and have a look
at the aggressive trail bikes.
If you're watching this on Pinkbike,
there's a good chance that you're looking for something
with a bit more travel and a bit less head angle
than those downcountry machines.
Which brings us to RAAW's all new Jibb.
Now, if you're familiar with their
160 millimeter travel Madonna,
you can think of the Jibb
as a shorter travel version of that.
It has 135 millimeters out back,
150 millimeter fork,
a whole bunch of aluminum,
and look at the size of that main pivot.
Okay, let's keep it in Europe for a few more minutes,
because our next bike is Ghost's RIOT Trail Full Party.
Now it's an aluminum frame,
with some very questionable purple graphics,
and interestingly for us,
it's wearing formula suspension and brakes.
So we'll see how this bike compares
to things that were a little more familiar with.
Now, we're going to stay in Germany
for just a few more minutes
to take a look at Propane's carbon fiber Hugene.
This is 140 millimeter travel trail bike
with a 150 fork.
And if it's anything like the last Propane we tested,
it probably pedals pretty damn well.
Now our next bike is from a brand new brand called SCOR.
This bike has 140 millimeters of travel in the rear,
150 upfront,
and it uses a new dual link design
that we haven't seen before,
along with a very toothpaste colored frame color.
Let's go from a new brand
to one that you might've heard of before.
This is Specialized's brand new Stumpjumper EVO Alloy.
And this is the aluminum version
of the bike that we called,
our mountain bike of the year last year.
It's much more affordable,
but it still includes very adjustable geometry.
You can take this head angle
from 65 and a half degrees
all the way down to 63 degrees.
So it should be able to excel
in almost any sort of terrain.
Now if Specialized is the Goliath
of the mountain bike world.
Our next bike is made by David.
This is the Starling Murmur.
It has 140 millimeters of rear wheel travel,
150 millimeter fork,
and in case you can't tell,
there's a whole lot of steel
and not a lot of pivots.
Now you guys know,
that we like to have an outlier at the field test,
something a little bit different,
and this bike definitely fills that need.
Pemberton is just up the road from Whistler.
And some might say that the riding here is even better.
Although I don't think the locals would admit to that.
And there's plenty of rowdy stuff here.
But given that we're riding trail and downcountry bikes,
we're being careful not to overstep
what the bikes were intended to see.
We've got a nice loop picked out
for the downcountry bikes that myself
and Henry Quinney have been lapping nonstop.
While Mike Kazimer and Alicia Leggett
have been taking the aggressive trail bikes
to some terrain that's a bit more challenging,
higher up on the mountain.
Now we're always going to talk about
how these bikes feel on the trail.
That's not going to change.
But just like previous field tests,
there is a whole bunch of time to testing going on.
We're timing both the descents
and the climbs to figure out how they perform.
Just like previous field tests,
all of these bikes are wearing control tires.
We've got Schwalbe's Wicked Will
for the downcountry bikes.
And for those aggressive trail bikes,
they've been shod with Maxxis' Assegai up front
and DHR two's in the back.
Now I know everybody out there
only watches these field test series,
because we do the efficiency test videos.
And we don't want to let any Pinker's down
who are waiting for a 10 minute video about climbing.
So Henry Quinney is up to bat for that one.
Speaking of climbing,
the impossible climb is here as well.
And we've returned back to the very first location.
This time around it's Matt Beer
that's going to be falling over instead of me,
which I am very grateful for.
And your reward for all those climbing videos,
where we always wrap up the field test series
with the Huck to Flat.
This time around the field test
is supported by Rapha apparel
and Bontrager shoes and helmets.
And just like every field test before,
there's going to be about a hundred videos
that come out of this going show.
So stay tuned for all sorts of arguing, laughing,
maybe a little bit of crashing,
plenty of climbing and some Huck to Flats.
Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss anything.
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