- I mean, we just rode a hundred feet of trail,
so I don't know how you can parse from that.
- I've never seen a fork
so reluctant to stay down in the travel industry,
since it was like fully compressed and fully back,
fully compressed, fantastic.
- It's just, yeah, it's doing this a lot.
Welcome to "Budget VS Baller",
the series where we take two used mountain bikes
and systematically upgrade them
to see where you should spend your hard earned money.
- That's right, so one of these bikes is gonna have
the highest spec possible and the other bike
is gonna have, well, it's got the parts
that likely we've managed to find
on the far-flung corners of the internet.
- Now we are a big fans of the YouTube channel Donut Media,
and they have a similar series that they do on cars.
And we thought, hey, why not do it
with mountain bikes as well?
- But before we get started, I just wanna say
a massive thank you to Jenson USA
who made all this possible,
not least by supplying all those premium parts.
- Yeah, exactly.
Jenson USA is an online bicycle retailer.
And hey, if you're like me
and you don't have a spare kidney,
they have parts to meet just about any budget.
So check them out the next time
you need some upgrades for your bike.
- Now, when you are upgrading a secondhand bike,
you've kind of got two options.
A, you could equip it with parts
that are suitable for the saltwood every night.
So I'm talking unnecessarily golden drivetrains,
wireless everything, and also you have the option
of scrimping and saving a little bit more
and trying to get a similar performance,
but at a fraction of the cost.
So that's what we've done, we've got the high end bike,
and now we need to get some schmuck
to ride the low end bike.
- Henry, do you read the script?
You are that schmuck.
- Oh no.
I've always felt like a schmuck and I am. (yells)
- Yeah, Henry, unfortunately you are stuck
with the budget bike.
I think the reason why, you know,
you're a former world cup mechanic, you can tinker.
I don't know what I'm doing.
I need high end parts to cover my incapabilities.
- You know Jason, I've always respected you
for your patience and your tremendous writing ability.
I think we should, you know, we need to find out
it's not just all instant influencing.
We need to find out how you go on the cheap stuff.
- No, we don't.
(laughing)
I'm on the baller bike.
So let's introduce our bikes.
We've gone out and purchased
two almost identical used Giant Reigns.
They're sensible, they're alloy,
and they're a good mix for someone who wants to ride hard,
but not break the bank.
- So both these bikes have 160 mil of travel,
four or five eight reach,
which is suitable for someone like you.
You're at five foot eight, right?
- Yeah, exactly, yeah.
- They also have a four three four rear end
and save for a rear end that might need a bit of,
it might need a little bit of tweaking,
these bikes have all the same standards you would expect
to find on a brand new bike in 2022.
- Yep, exactly.
And my geometry is, well, it's what he said.
We have the exact same bike.
- But of course, all secondhand bikes do vary a little bit.
So what are we dealing with with ours?
And I think it'd be nice if we had a gentleman's agreement
that at least I get the better looking of the two frames.
- Okay, I guess that's fine.
I think the breaks work on at least one of the bikes.
So you can have that one.
So let's go grab the bikes.
Let's give them a good once over.
We haven't touched them since we bought them.
And then, hey, let's go on a shakedown ride
followed by a timed test lap.
- Well, that sounds pretty good.
And it's gonna be interesting to see how two bikes
that are supposedly exactly the same stack up.
So this is my, I would term it,
lightly bedded in Giant Reign.
It's got a few blemishes
and it's got some nice touches actually.
I mean the indexed headset is gonna be really good
for the choppy stuff, 'cause it's gonna stop me
from getting bounced off line.
I think if anything, I wouldn't want it any less worn.
Little scars on the seat posts,
they're useful to say it works.
It's always worked and it's had a good productive life.
What do you reckon of this?
- It looks, you know, honestly, for a used mountain bike,
you can ride it, you could take it to a trail right now.
Well, you shouldn't, you should definitely do a once over
and make sure everything's tight.
There's some questionable red flags.
I see some sealant coming out of your tires.
- Hey, okay, I've only got a certain amount
of edge knobs left and I don't like
what I can only describe as foul play.
Go easy on them, easy on them, easy.
I think the bike-
- They're just coming right off.
- Considering we just flied today,
we didn't allow ourselves to have an inspection.
Although I did get first dibs.
I think this is actually pretty good.
I think it's fine.
It's got most of the paint work, mostly original parts.
Of course, the original Giant spec things like power core,
which I couldn't imagine riding without.
And I think actually it's a pretty good bike and I'm happy
because at least it's in better nick than yours.
- (laughing) That's totally true.
Most importantly too, the frame, it's got a few,
let's call it, love marks on it, but it's not cracked.
It's, you know, still rideable and it's a good frame
to throw new parts on it, like you were saying,
the standards are up to today's standards
and I think it will serve as a good little canvas
for your oil painting to come. (laughing)
All right, we have my Giant Reign here.
As you can see pretty much identical.
Once you take a finer look, not so identical.
It's definitely had a good life.
- I think I've made a terrible mistake.
- Why?
- I've seen this brand new tire DT Swiss wheel DX.
What else, we've got some nice stuff here.
A saddle, look at that saddle, the Trailmaster?
(whistles) They don't sell this to just anyone.
That's a good purchase.
- It's true, it's true, however,
my fear is the whole backend there has been upgraded
because something catastrophic has happened.
- I would like to paint you a little picture.
- Okay.
- This went into this and then everything had to be new.
- Yes.
I think that's probably a likely story.
All right, let's get into it.
I'm gonna do the same thing as-
Okay, there's immediately sharp stuff there, that's great.
Hey, that's a healthy rub.
Perfect, it'll go, all right.
How's this back one?
Wow, these- what the?
(tire deflates)
Nope.
- Hey! (laughs)
- There's sealant in there.
(laughing)
- Just hoping for a blown shock, please.
Please give me a blown shock.
- There's definitely some- sounds like the hub.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Maybe a little bit of bushing play there.
Nothing that a new fork can't solve.
- Well that's like a races thing here,
you know, slightly loosen the bushes,
less friction, better small bump.
You reckon that's what they were going for?
- Maybe.
- That is so nice.
It looks smooth from here.
- Okay, that's- my fork might be blown.
- Yes.
- That's full slow.
- I described that as a fast return.
- Pro tip out there when buying a used bike,
turn the rebound around, turn the compression around
and make sure stuff is happening and stuff is changing.
'Cause that's gonna lead to some weird,
especially if you go to like pull up off a jump,
it's gonna feel super weird.
- And also like coming through technical sections
where your wheel is deflecting off stuff.
- Oh cool, we got a few of those in the past.
- Oh have we?
- Yeah.
- Honestly, I feel that has,
I feel like it turned it around.
- You know what, I'm kind of stoked though,
'cause now I can add a page to my excuse Rolodex.
If my time is poor, I can, my fork, unrideable.
- I'm looking at it the other way.
If I don't go quicker, you know what I mean?
- Yeah.
- I'll be like, oh god, Jason's fork doesn't even work.
- Yeah, but you got some issues of your own. (laughing)
Alright man, your bike's dialed.
My bike seems dialed enough.
Dialed enough.
Let's head out onto the trails where we are gonna do
a little bit of a shakedown ride.
Make sure everything we did here is proper and up to code.
And then we're gonna do a baseline timed tested lap.
All right, here we are out on this beautiful sunny day
and we are at the top of our test track hybrid
here in Squamish.
Henry, why are we here?
- We're here to do, and bear with me, a race run.
I don't know how much racing there's gonna be today.
I'm not feeling that racy.
So we're out to do a sighter.
I'm gonna come back up and get
a timed one in as a benchmark.
How's your bike feeling so far?
- It's feeling okay.
Honestly, my hands are pretty cold.
I can't really grab the brakes too well.
The fork is definitely gonna be an issue.
The top up there is pretty savage.
How about yours?
- Yeah, it's making some interesting noises.
I would say it wants to communicate
that it's not having a nice time.
Just peddling up that hill, it's like all the ball bearings
were squares because it was like (cracking)
and it just, it'll be fine.
I mean it's gonna shine on the downhill.
- Yeah, exactly.
It's just a downhill track, so, shall we?
- Please, let's do it.
(cool electronic music)
- Okay man, you're good to go.
- Sweet.
- Have fun!
- Wish me luck.
- See you down there.
- This is gonna be absolutely rotten.
(thudding)
(cool electronic music)
- There we go.
(thudding)
- Ho ho, yep.
(laughing) Oh my god, ah!
(cool electronic music)
(thudding)
- That is so dark.
(cool electronic music)
- Stay high there.
Lots of lakes to navigate.
Oh yeah!
Go Giant Reign, go!
(cool electronic music)
Oh yeah!
- Ah and the next bit.
Jesus wept.
- It's wild, brakes aren't doing much.
Don't need them.
- My first run.
It was pretty dark to begin with.
And then once I'd gotten through open,
visibility was better, but that's only puddles and stuff.
It kind of meant that although you could see further,
the trail that you could see itself was less consistent,
but hell, it went all right.
- Couple of pedals.
Tires are doing great.
Wow another lake.
Ah, (laughs) another puddle!
Here we go, home stretch!
Couple pedals, ah!
- [Henry] How was it?
- I think I drank a lot of water.
(laughing)
All right, well there you have it.
Our shakedown ride is done.
We've also set some timed test laps
that we can compare to later.
- Yeah, I mean they can be our baseline,
so we don't necessarily know if they're good
or if they're bad, we can come back to them.
Now Jason, what is the thing you're most looking forward
to changing on your bike in the coming weeks?
- Yeah right off the bat, I already said it in the shop,
the fork definitely is blown.
That rebound is super quick
and it's very noticeable on trail.
You know, there's play here and there on the bike,
whatever, you don't really notice it on the trail.
The fork is very noticeable and affects the ride for sure.
What about you?
- Oh, for me, I mean, the shock has got quite a step in it.
And so that initial part of the stroke isn't really damped
and it feels like you're kind of always free falling
through the bike and it feels quite unstable.
But for me, I would love to get this bike,
which I think is a really good benchmark to begin with
and just put some big rotors on
and some kind of more powerful brake pads.
And I think doing that,
it would've made it a whole lot more fun.
- Yeah, I think I have some of those
at the shop for my bike.
- And my bike.
- You get new brakes.
- Great, big path rotors.
- Yeah, they're colorful.
- It's great.
- Well, thank you guys so much for watching.
We are just getting started here
with "Budget VS Baller".
We have more episodes and in the next episode
we are tackling wheels and tires.
I've got some carbon beautiful hoops
waiting for me at the shop.
Henry has some other stuff, I don't know.
- I've got some bits and pieces.
- Yeah, subscribe!