Well that was a lot of fun. It suffers from the same problems that all these tests do for me though. First they are not remotely scientific, but more importantly for me, they start with the false premise that all that matters is how fast you get down the hill. Mind you, I think all that proves is that I’m not really a mountain biker.

Given its a test of enduro bikes it’s not the biggest surprise that’s what they go for.

I quite enjoyed it really. Thought it was a bit of a shame they left the girls quiet apart from Tracey though.

I think rider fatigue and getting to know the track made a huge chunk of difference

Yeah, for these tests you need to blank the rider after each run.

Thanks for sharing. Enjoyed that.

Never before has ‘ride and decide’ been so fitting for choosing your mtb as now IMHO.

yeah good vid.

Pressures on the b+ seemed high. Necessary for the track perhaps. I run closer to 12-15 in Surrey. We don’t have long rocky black runs though.

Mate of mine is looking for a new high end trail bike right now. It’s a bewildering choice.

That Chris Porter is a cheerless …. isn’t he, seems unable to accept any opinion other than his own.

I think they also need a mid pack benchmark rider

All those folk are getting the best out of anything and push it to the limits

Would be interesting to see how big an impact technology plays under a flat average mildly unfit rider. Bigger gaps at the technology trumps talent, or smaller as the rider is the limit…

Really enjoyed that never been a great fan of Rob Warner but he’s beginning to grow on me but like that facial fuzz of his 🙂 decent real world test ..good work

Phil has it! *waves* I enjoyed that but couldn’t help thinking if you are aiming this at the ‘average’ bike buying rider then those are the people you want riding & testing. I guess ‘ we the people’ don’t make for such engaging telly 😉

Get out, go, be gone! Warner is a ledge – never quite made it big, but part of MTB history for me -and some of his commentary’s…

i thought this confirmed that for most normal do a bit of everything riders, a 29’er is a good choice – if they are competitive on this sort of track, combined with advantages on more pedally stuff / uphill / mud and slop, they make a great all rounder

Cool little video. More entertaining than a bunch of riders having a chat should be. Hardly surprising that the outcome was ‘ride what you find most fun’ though – isn’t that what we all do anyway?

And for me, Chris Porter came across fine. Maybe that makes me a miserable bugger too?

yeah that was my takeaway too, (and augments my confirmation bias). 29er for a trail bike or a proper DH bike for proper DH. in real life most rides are mostly pedally and most of us are not as skilled as that crew. 26.9 seems a bit pointless. that’s probably unfair, lickler wheels mean more travel options without building a monster truck frame.

he’s been told, I think he wants to find his own long way around back to the right answer I gave him on day 1.

Yeah that was very interesting, as a test obviously lots of variables, major one seems to be that especially with the racers that any runs later in the day will be faster, even with fatigue they will be hitting them better each time.
I wonder if they could sort the tyre issues out with 650+ that things could be better.
Glad they choose 50shades as its defo the best trail there but still relatively straight.
Which feeds on to the 650/29er debate, I read the results the other way, 650b the most fun option for the average trail rider but for out and out racers 29 is best.
That said I have a 650b Enduro race bike and a 29er trail bike !
I love both but ultimately the 29er can be a bit boring and the lack of pop and my inability to get it off the ground really robs the fun out of it for me.
I just wish I could justify a DH bike, they are so worth it for big terrain.
Also was Peaty subtley slagging off his Bronson at the start ?

Original video was good to watch.

I thought that the video below was very good at systematically comparing 27.5+ and 29 (don’t shoot the messenger!)

[edit ^ For a given rider / requirement]

Not been around here much then?

Downhill mountain biking (and presumably Enduro as well) looks, on the face of it, to be a pure sport and all about who is the fastest to the bottom. In fact, image is every bit as important as time (see, for example, the ban on skinsuits). If 29ers or plus-size bikes aren’t seen by the opinion formers of the sport to be acceptable then it doesn’t really matter if they are faster and anyway, there is a huge amount of confirmation bias with these “tests” i.e. if you don’t want to like a 29er you’ll probably be slower on it. Which just perpetuates the myths. It’s all just a bit of fun though.

I thought he’d just had an unfortunate choice of words that could have been construed that way, which Warner kind of picked up on and gave him a mischievous look and then they were both trying not to laugh.

I was under the impression he normally rode a 29er trail bike BTW

Warner is a top bloke who had no end of time/patience giving my brother and me useful tips when we were younger.

He did use to like waking everyone up on the race campsites by razing his moto around though. 😀

It’s almost like he dismissed them originally (like a lot of us) but can’t bring himself to go back on what he said.

It’s exactly that tbh. He keeps coming out with pseudoscience nonsense to justify it, like, apparently more BB drop is great on a 26er or 650b but on a 29er it makes the brakes stop working. TBH his opinions are always worth listening to but he seems to be one of those people that isn’t happy just having opinions, he wants them to be Facts. And he ends up undermining himself in the process. See: clutch mechs/chainless, as your perfect example.