This is a hardtail. This is a full suspension bike. We're going to
take them to the trails, and we're going to find out which is faster.
This is hardtail versus full suspension.
♪ [music] ♪
We've got two of the lightest cross-country bikes in the world,
the Scott Spark and the Scott Scale. They're almost identical,
wheel, same fork, same bar, same stem, same brake, same seat post,
same saddle, same rider, same drive terrain, same tires. But one has got 100
millimeters of suspension in the rear, and one has got none, and this is our course.
It's in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, home to the 2015 and 2016 Cross-Country Mountain
Bike World Cup. It's got to be one of the ultimate places to test the two bikes,
full suspension versus hardtail. It's got challenging terrain,
uphill, technical and also flat and then technical descends where it's really going
to test the capabilities of both bikes. To keep them fair, I've done pre-site lap
already. I know my lines, and I know where I'm where I'm going.
Its time for the flying lap, afterwards, we're going to break the section to really
analyze where the full suspension beat the hardtail and vice versa. Let's get going.
♪ [music] ♪
I'm not going to be beaten in your show any time soon. That's the full susp done,
now it's time to for the hardtail.
♪ [music] ♪
That was hard. That was a lot of fun. Well, I can't quite believe it.
The time for the single lap are in, and the hardtail won. It was faster.
Who would have thought that a technical track this, the Lenzerheide World Cup
Cross-Country track would be faster in a cross-country hardtail. We're going to get
back out on the trails and try and understand where it was faster and why.
On these flatter technical sections on our test track, the full suspension bike
really excelled. The terrain was quite rough, rocky, roots everywhere,
short little climbs into descent. To back up, you had loads of grip with the full
suspension and the hardtail was just bouncing around and you couldn't get
quite in a straight line same way that full suspension did. It was coming up the
time I climbed that I really began to feel that the hardtail was coming to a league
of its own. Every work that I was producing, I really felt has moved me
forward. When I got to the top of the climb, dropping into the descend in no
time at all. It was this green open pasture where hardtail really galloped
forward again. There's no problems grip, the full suspension. When I was out of the
saddle, it was fine to bob a little bit, and you could that suspension sucking
away my power. Out of the saddle in the hardtail, every bit of power that I was
putting in was moving forward, and I just started to excel. On the technical climb,
the full suspension bike definitely had a lot more grip than traction. Getting
over those roots and awkward little moments, you could use the suspension
push down on it, pull up, and you can get an easier hop. Whereas the hardtail,
it was really planted. You come into this stuff a little bit harder.
It would sort of skip and bounce. You'd lose your traction, and it just didn't
carry the same momentum. So, there you have it, two very fast laps. There
was a lot of sprinting in that track, and that's probably why the hardtail actually
was a little bit quicker. If you were going for a big dare, some of those
marathon races, I can definitely imagine that full suspension bike
would be a lot more comfortable and perhaps, that's why we saw last year,
Nino Schurter riding that bike here in the World Cup in Lenzerheide.
Anyway, for more great videos on GMBN, why don't you click just there, then you
get to "Can cross-country riders descend?" Or if you click over here,
you'll actually get to first look at these two bikes. As ever, don't forget to click
on the globe to subscribe, and why not check out the shop after you're here?
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