- Let's move on to this second part.
Nope, not yet.
(laughing)
Just joking.
(laughing)
I'll do the Troy Brosnan hands.
(energetic music)
Hey everybody, I'm Mike Kazimer.
Welcome to the Pinkbike Enduro and Free Ride Field Test.
We're taking a look at a batch of bikes
with more than 160 millimeters of travel,
that are designed for the descents,
but still lets you pedal them uphill.
Right now, you taking a look
at the new Propain Spindrift.
This bike came out pretty recently,
at 180 millimeters of travel,
front and rear.
And you can purchase it
with either 27.5 inch wheels,
29 inch wheels,
or go with a mullet mixed wheel setup
with 29 inch wheel on the front,
27.5 inch wheel in the back.
I went with the 29 inch version,
so front and rear same wheel size.
Propain say this bike is designed for everything
from flow trails, to bike parks,
they designed it kind of as their modern free ride bike,
maybe super Enduro bike,
big travel, but still pedal-able machine.
For that 180 millimeters of travel,
Propain uses what they call their Pro10 suspension design.
Basically, it's two counter-rotating links
that holds the shock in the middle,
a floating shock design.
And then as the bike goes through its travel,
one link rotates clockwise,
the other rotates counter-clockwise.
It's designed to have pretty high level of anti-squat,
at sag of 120%
and actually increases a little bit
as the bike goes further into its travel.
And then towards the end of travel it drops off
so you don't get too much pedal kickback.
Now, the bike's designed to be able to run
with air or coil shock.
There's enough ramp up at the end of the stroke,
so that coil shock is totally feasible.
Spindrift is available with either a carbon
or an aluminum frame.
I've got the carbon version here.
As far as little details go,
plenty of room for water bottle,
threaded bottom bracket,
internal cable routing.
It kind of takes all the boxes of things you'd like
to see on a modern mountain bike.
Also has SRAM UDH derailleur hanger
that's just designed to be kind of universal
across multiple brands bikes.
So, ideally in the future,
you will find that at most bike shops.
The bike also has additional sealing
on the outside of those cartridge bearings
just to help keep weather and grit outside,
keep things running smoothly
as long as possible.
I do wanna mention that the clearance
between the rear rotor
and the seat stay on this bike is super close.
I don't know if I've seen a bike
where it's that close before.
It's probably three millimeters.
It wasn't an issue on the trail
but if you did happen to bend your rotor somehow
it could potentially contact the frame, you know
that's probably pretty rare,
but just a design note that I noticed
and it's worth mentioning.
It's also worth mentioning that
there's not a super short seat tube on this bike.
This is a size large 470 millimeter seat tube.
So, riders that are deciding to kind of size up
to get the longest bike they can.
They might run into some fit issues
but we'll talk about that in a little bit.
All right, let's go with those geometry numbers.
Upfront it's a 64.5 degree headtube angle
and that's with the 180 millimeter fork.
That'll drop down to 64 degrees
if you went with 190 millimeter fork
as an option on some of the models.
Chain stays at 445 millimeters
and the reach for size large is 475 millimeters.
So, pretty contemporary numbers
but nothing too extreme or too wild.
This bike has Propain's highend build kit.
And highend is actually what they call it,
one word.
Remember they're a German company,
so things tend to be very literal.
Price for this one,
they're still working on figuring out the U.S. pricing
it's gonna to be available in the U.S. relatively soon.
If not, by the time you're watching this video,
it's gonna be less than $9,000.
So, good news.
So, what does all that money get you?
Well for one thing,
you've got wireless electronic shifting on this bike,
that's in the form of SRAM AXS Eagle Drivetrain.
So, battery powered and no need for cables and housing,
pretty simple, works well.
As far as suspension goes,
you've got a Fox 38 upfront,
like I said,
180 millimeters of travel, thats the factory addition,
so you get all the bells and whistles.
DHX2 coil shock with that SLS spring.
Again, that's the highest end
most adjustable version of Fox's coil shock.
For wheels,
you have Crankbrothers Synthesis carbon wheels.
A nice high end wheel set.
I had good luck with those in the past.
Dropper post, the Fox transfer post,
and it's worth mentioning
that Propain allows you
to really pick different parts when
you configure the bike on their website.
So, if you wanted a longer travel post
than what comes on this
you can do that and swap up other components.
Grip color, you can even choose that,
it's kind of a nice feature
and something that they allow you to do
to make the bike just perfectly tuned
for the way you want it.
And the final spec choice
is to highlight the Magura MT7 brakes.
Super powerful,
we'll talk about them a little bit.
It's kind of cool to see something
a little different than your normal Shimano or SRAM.
(upbeat music)
To get the Spindrift set up
we started by swapping up the tires,
to our Maxxis control tires,
something we did on all the bikes
in this category.
I also ended up switching the spring
from 450 down to 400 for my weight.
I weigh about 160 pounds.
I just needed to do that
to get right around 30% sag
or maybe a touch under.
It's a little bit finicky
getting that shock in and out,
but realistically you're not
going to have to do that that often.
I also ended up swapping out the grips
and the seat.
The seat was an important thing to switch out
in order to make this thing
rideable for more than 10 minutes.
So, I'll complain about that in a little bit.
But let's move on to the good stuff.
Before we move on,
I should mention the weight, this bike
sits at 33 pounds with the control tires,
which is very reasonable
considering how much travel it has
and that's with a coil spring as well.
So, you can go with an air shock
and make it even lighter.
So, pretty impressive for what this bike can do.
(upbeat music)
Normally a bike with 180 millimeters of travel
gets kind of a little bit slack
when you're talking about climbing.
After all, you've kind of all heard
it's all right on the climbs,
bat out of hell on the descents.
But the good news is
with this bike, it's better
on the climbs than I expected.
It has a really efficient feel,
I didn't have to reach
for that climbing switch at all.
It was my first time trying out
that Pro10 suspension design
and I'd say Propain did a really nice job.
It still has traction
that coil springs there.
It kind of keeps it tracking the ground,
getting some rough stuff, good grip,
but you know,
I took on some long fire road grinds
where normally I would just firm things up
and didn't have to touch at all.
So, really impressively efficient,
but the seated climbing position is comfortable as well
as the bike has that 78 degree seat tube angle.
So, it's nice and steep,
you're just upright.
You do notice that you're on a bigger bike,
there is no getting around.
It's not going to feel like
your typical trail bike,
just because you have
all that suspension sitting underneath you.
But for how much travel
it has very impressed with the climbing performance.
The weight is pretty reasonable too, 33 pounds.
Overall, I'd say it's probably one of the better climbers
out of all five bikes we have in this category.
Especially as far as efficiency goes
(upbeat music)
On the descent,
the Spindrift has a really fun
and energetic feel to it.
It doesn't feel like a big dumb sled.
It has 180 millimeters of travel
but it's a lot more maneuverable than expected
and a lot more lively than I expected.
Some of that may have to do with the,
I won't call it steep,
but 64.5 degree headtube angle
and isn't exactly super slack
for a bike like this.
But that helps to kind of keep it
a little more maneuverable,
to get tucked into some tight turns
and to kind of still get this thing around.
It doesn't feel like you need to fight it,
which is it's a cool feature.
They probably are gonna be some riders
that want it to be even a little bit longer
or even a little slacker,
but I'll touch on that in a moment.
But overall, the general feel
of this bike is that it's just energetic,
easy to handle no matter the terrain.
And even if you do get on some more
rolling meandering terrain.
It's not a single-mindedly focused
as a bike like the Norco Shore
This one can handle some stuff like that.
So, if you've got some mellower trails
you do have a lot of travel
but it doesn't feel like
you're carting it around unnecessarily.
Good traction from that coil shock,
but you still have plenty of bottom out support,
you know, to take this thing on some bigger drops,
no clanging off the bottom there.
With kind of looser dustier flat corners
it feels like it's gripping nicely.
You can push in, load it up,
transfer your weight to the other side.
Overall, it's a super fun bike to descend on,
it doesn't ask for that much from the rider,
you know, it helps you have a good time on the trail
without needing to really focus too hard
on what's going on.
(upbeat music)
For the time testing,
I put down my second fastest lap on the Spindrift.
It was less than one second
behind the Rocky Mountain Altitude.
Even those things build as kind
of a free ride bike.
I could see people using it
for almost a race bike.
And on a rough track
we still need to do some pedaling.
This bike can do the job.
(upbeat music)
It's worth digging into the components a little bit.
Standouts, I think one thing,
these Magura MT7 brakes,
I was impressed with them.
I haven't spent much time
on Magura brakes in the past,
they just don't typically come
on the bikes that show up for review.
But I'm a fan of these.
Theres not as much brake pad
to rotor clearance as some other brakes out there.
But overall,
the amount of power and modulation,
and the adjustability though give them high marks.
Once again, we've got a Fox 38 on the front here,
worked really well, plenty of support,
good traction, good grip.
Crankbrothers synthesis carbon wheels,
those worked well too.
They're not super stiff
which is kind of
their selling point.
They just have
a nice compliance to them
that kind of fade into the background,
they didn't make any weird noises,
worked well.
Speaking of noises,
that SRAM AXS derailleur
it kind of had a little more chain slap
than I wanted.
SRAM derailleurs across the board
no matter if it's the wireless electronic version
or the typical cable actuated ones,
they don't have an adjustable clutch.
And this access one that I had
that clutch seemed to have less resistance
than let's say something
that if you took a Shimano out of the box.
Actual shifting performance was great.
A little buzz buzz of the robot noises shifts away,
battery life is good.
It's cool but I wish it had a little more
clutch tension on there.
Now, for the low light of the whole build kit,
this seat, we don't talk about seats that much
cause they're pretty much personal preference, you know,
everybody is different,
but I don't know who would work well with this seat.
It's super soft here
and then you just end up
sitting on the hard shell inside there.
That'd be the first thing I would take off.
Don't even try to go for a ride with it,
get rid of it.
The final point in the component spec
has to do with that longer seat tube length
that I mentioned before.
This bike came with 150 millimeter Fox transfer post.
If I had enough room,
I could have run something longer
and if I was picking on Propain's dropdown menu,
I would go with something longer.
But that overall longer seat tube length
is going to limit some riders.
Let's say you wanted to run a 200 millimeter post,
not everybody's going to be able to do that.
If you wanted to size up a frame,
that could be potential limitation as well.
So, I wish they had just chopped
that down by, you know,
20 or 30 millimeters.
That's kind of the one downside
of this bike's geometry,
it's that longer seat tube length.
(upbeat music)
Pro's of the Propain Spindrift,
for one thing it's got lots of travel
without being super single-mindedly focused on the descents.
So, a little more versatile than you might expect.
Going hand in hand with that
is the fact that it's a very efficient pedaler.
If you do have to climb
this thing handles it pretty well.
(upbeat music)
Cons, I mentioned that longer seat tube length
that does make some limitations for riders
that want to run a really long dropper post
or potentially size up.
It's not gonna be an issue for all riders,
it's just worth to mention.
I also encountered some cable rattle,
something that can be fixed.
But the internal cable routing at the exit port
kind of slapped around a little bit,
a little bit of time with some masking tape
could probably quiet that down.
But that is con.
And then the final con,
I feel like this bike could be even slacker,
maybe a little longer,
but more slacker is kind of the thing
that I would like to see just as an option,
you know potentially with some flip chips
or something like that.
It has a 64.5 degree head angle,
which is slack you know,
it didn't feel like it was holding me back on the descents.
But because this bike has so much travel,
I kind of wanted the option
to at least turn it into closer to a,
closer to a downhill machine.
(upbeat music)
Who's the Spindrift for?
Well you can call it a free ride bike,
you can call a Super Enduro bike
or you can even call it an all mountain bike,
no matter how you slice it,
this thing has a lot of travel
without becoming unmanageable
and could work well for all sorts
of big mountain adventures.
There you have it.
That's the Propain Spindrift.
Keep on watching, for more content
from the PinkBike field test,
including our famous Huck to Flat,
and don't forget to like and subscribe.
Thanks for watching.
(upbeat music)