- I fell, I looped out
and I was locked into my stupid HT pedals
I couldn't get out of,
and I looped out and it was in my big pocket in the center
and I landed on the back, I had to go to the hospital.
I had to sleep on my front for two weeks.
Not good. (laughs)
(upbeat music)
Hey everybody, I'm Mike Levy
and welcome to the Field Test Round Table.
Today, we're talking about trail bikes.
I'm up here in Squamish, BC
and well as you've probably guessed
this field test has been a little bit different
because of Corona.
The border's closed so today we're talking to Mike Kazimer
who's down in Washington in Bellingham.
He's got a whole bunch of questions for me
about my five trail bikes.
Now those bikes include Giant's new Trance X,
the all new Stumpy from Specialized,
Salsa's also all new Blackthorn,
Actofive's wild looking P-Train,
and Ibis's fourth generation Mojo.
Kazimer, how's it going today?
- It's going well, yeah.
- I bet you've got some questions for me
about these five trail bikes.
- I do, yeah, you had a pretty interesting crop of bikes.
I mean, they're all in that 130 to 140 range
but I'm sure they all ride pretty different out there.
Yeah, I guess we'll kind of start with the usual question.
Actually, we'll start with
which bikes surprised you out of these five?
They're all like we said kind of similar travel brackets
but is there one bike that was
came in with some expectations
that didn't quite pan out like you thought?
- Yeah, well I mean,
they surprised me in a good way,
surprised me in a bad way.
I think the bike that surprised me in a good way the most
it was probably that Specialized Stumpjumper.
And as you guys know,
there are some big changes there on the suspension front,
they ditched that horse link
and now it's a linkage driven single pivot
and that pivot is actually a flex pivot above the axle.
It's on the seat stay.
Kazimer, you and I have talked about this a whole bunch
and you've heard me say this so many times now,
how sporty and fast that bike feels.
And honestly, it didn't really feel like it lost much
in the way of suspension performance or anything.
Like it's 130 millimeters of travel
and it still felt that way, it still felt just as active
and smooth as you'd expect that to be.
- Which one is the fastest and which one felt the fastest?
Sometimes those are two different things.
- Yeah, so which direction actually.
So this time for the field test
it was a little bit different.
My timed uphill section was on a different trail
than my timed to downhill section.
So are you talking ups or downs Kazimer?
- Now, let's start with climbing.
Yeah, which is the fastest climbing bike?
- Well, it's that Giant with that Live Valve,
dude that thing feels like a rocket ship.
You know how I like sporty feeling bikes?
That's a 30 ish pound bike with 150 millimeters fork,
135 millimeters of rear wheel travel.
But that Live Valve stuff, it makes it feel like a 24 pound
like cross country light trail bike.
There's sporty bikes out there
that Ibis with the DW link that I also have,
that doesn't feel like a slow bike
and that came second on my timed climb
but yeah, that Giant with Live Valve.
- And then P-Train
probably not the fastest climber out there.
- Yeah, not so much Kazimer.
This one panned out sort of how I had expected it to.
Part of it is that it doesn't encourage you
to like kind of stamp on the pedals.
Like even the mojo doesn't have Live Valve
but it has that DW link, it feels super efficient.
And when I'm on the P-Train,
yeah, it's a soft-ish feeling bike,
it's the heaviest bike here
but it also doesn't inspire me to peddle hard.
I didn't wanna pedal hard on it Kazimer.
You know what I'm talking about.
- Yeah, yeah, you just sit and cruise,
but then comes the descents.
And so on the downhill,
was that the fastest bike on the downhills?
- Yeah, and I don't feel like I even have to try.
Dude I want you to ride this thing, it's quite the bike.
It's got that coil sprung concrete shock on it.
I love that heavily damped, double barrel feel.
It feels like control to me
and the others all have air sprung suspension on them
on the back.
And obviously the angles and that high pivot,
I think it all just comes together to make a bike.
You know what it is, you know on an Enduro bike
when you're riding an Enduro bike
and you come down and it's just like
you know those like jumps into nothing
and you just land and you're like
as long as I land with my front end up, it's fine.
Kazimer you know those?
This is the only trail bike of the bunch
where it felt like I could do that.
The P-Train was the only trail bike of the bunch
where I went into a leap
and I didn't think I better hit the trainee.
It was like,
as long as I land with my front end up a bit,
I didn't really care what I land in.
That's a cool feeling.
- That's cool yeah, I'm sure that rearward axle path
has something to do with that,
it just makes that bike just kind of set.
What about that Salsa?
You haven't mentioned the Salsa yet
and that's kind of in that,
I imagine it falls into a similar category as that P-Train.
It's a little more towards like the
aggressive side of things.
- How many years ago?
Two, three, four years ago
people were racing on the EWS circuit on bikes like this.
So, I mean it's a pretty capable trail bike,
it's not the P-Train on the descents
but it's also definitely more well-rounded
than the P-Train everywhere else.
So I have a question for Kaz.
So you're asking me
I'm probably gonna send a couple bikes your way,
which bikes are you most curious in of it
out of my trail bikes?
- Yeah, I mean I think that Stumpjumper,
definitely interested in that
just because I rode a Stumpjumper Evo and that was cool
but I kind of wonder what that a little bit lighter,
a little snappier version of that would feel like.
Of course the P-Train just because it looks cool
and it's made by a guy in Germany.
It's German, right?
- [Max] Yeah, you just look where you wanna go,
the P-Train takes you there.
- Yeah, I think those are the two that stand out,
and the Giant looks interesting but there's that Live Valve
which is kind of a polarizing topic there,
like how'd that go?
- I didn't really gel with the Live Valve
on the descents here.
I understand, so I am the kind of rider
who likes a fast sporty feeling trail bike.
And before I moved to Squamish, I lived somewhere with
definitely smoother, less demanding terrain.
And on that stuff,
the Giant it feels like a rocket ship Kazimer.
But here the terrain is complicated,
it's been wet so traction is been definitely like on off.
There's tons of roots and rocks and slippery stuff here and
yeah, the Giant it just couldn't keep up
on the descents here.
It felt like I had less traction at the rear.
On smoother trails though where it was rolling
and I had to carry a lot of speed,
I mean yeah, it's a fast bike for sure.
- And the Live Valve was only
on the highest end version of that, correct?
So like if you want one down.
- So that's the thing that I wanted to say.
So this was the 0 model which is $8,500.
And I not think, I know that
if we step down I forget how much it costs
but whatever it is,
the next level down doesn't have Live Valve
and I know that bike would have fared better.
- Any disappointments?
Was there one bike that you had high expectations for
that just kind of flat out was like, nah
it didn't do what I wanted.
- It's hard not to be disappointed
with the performance of the Giant suspension, to be honest.
There's a pretty drastic difference.
And like I said,
that bike is gonna excel on smoother terrain
but if you're the kind of rider
who really wants to go hard on the descents,
it's not really gonna work for you.
It's definitely more for that 50/50 kind of rider.
The other bike that we haven't talked much about Kazimer
is the Ibis mojo.
And I don't wanna say that I'm disappointed in it.
There's a pretty drastic changes to the geometry there.
It's almost two degrees slacker and I dunno
the thing must be two feet longer or something.
It still feels like an Ibis, which isn't a bad thing.
But it still feels like the least capable
sort of trail bike of the bunch
if we discount the Giant with its Live Valve suspension.
On tricky downhills it still feels,
I was tiptoeing let's say on the Ibis
more than I was on the Specialized or the Salsa.
- Well, I guess we got to wrap it up
with some some of your picks.
Like let's say out of these five bikes,
which one would you pick for riding in Squamish.
Your everyday bike in Squamish,
you can just pick one to have
you get to ride it all year, it's your only bike,
which one's that?
- Jeez.
If I was living in Squamish and only riding in Squamish,
man I had so much fun on that P-Train.
So our trails are pretty rowdy.
People's everyday bikes here are 150 and 160 mil bikes
and everybody wears kneepads.
It's pretty tricky stuff and
the other bikes were a lot of fun
I really liked that Specialized,
but none of the other bikes except the P-Train
are bikes that I would just ride on any trail
here in Squamish.
All the others are bikes that I would be like,
well, I better be a little careful about this
or a little careful about that,
whereas that P-Train is the only trail bike of the bunch
that I would go ride all of the things.
It's hard to say no to that but also honestly
how well rounded the Specialized is
that ticks all the boxes for me.
- And which one, if you live somewhere like
with a little bit mellower terrain,
like where you used to live or maybe somewhere
say East Coast of U.S.
Not quite as rowdy, which one would that be?
Would that be the Stumpjumper or?
- Oh yeah.
That Stumpy is the master of all the things.
It's a very different bike than before.
It feels super sporty, but it's just as capable
and I know it's the S-Works 1
but I love the handling and the suspension performance.
And I would feel the same if DR or GX
or whatever was hung off it for sure.
All right, that's it for this cross border round table.
Let us know in the comments if you agree with our thoughts
or if we're totally out to lunch.
And also stay tuned for all the Enduro bikes,
we've got another round table coming up
where I'm gonna fire a whole bunch of questions at Kazimer
to hear what he has to think about his five Enduro bikes.
We'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)