Just a quick question about printed mag vs online forum reviews,I have recently been looking to replace my old bike ,well the frame at least but have found Uk magazines and forii to be all matey-matey believe the brand owners PR

The signal to noise ratio of my new purchase is awesumz over on MTBR especially makes it very hard to get any usefull info

Is test ride day the only real way now of figuring this out ?

Is test ride day the only real way now of figuring this out ?

Yes

There are some good reviews out there, mostly the ones that don’t mention any numbers. But ride feel is very personal it’s about what you think and what you want.

Maybe all bikes are really good now?
My advice is just to pick hardtail or full sus, set a budget and buy whatever bike hits near the top of that budget with the most money off.

Is test ride day the only real way now of figuring this out ?

IMHO, yes.

These days, it seems, there is no such thing as a bad bike with most brands being evenly matched in each price bracket. The last couple of bikes I bought involved lots of test rides ending with me buying what felt right to me – not what everyone else said were the best bikes.

My FS is a good example. The ‘standard’ answers to new bike questions didn’t sit well with me:

You must get a 29er – I just can’t get on with them (being a shorty)

If you have to ride a 26er then you need at least 140mm travel – err, no I don’t, well not for 90% of the riding I do.

You need to have either a DW Link or VPP set up to get the most out of rear suss – having ridden a variety of both, this is a load of guff.

I’ve even tried 650B now and, whilst I found it an improvement over the 29″ version of that bike, it still didn’t make me feel that I needed to change owt. Guess I’ll just stay living in the 26″, short travel, single pivot, dark ages 🙂

Better to buy a bike for your needs than one with rave reviews for a different intended use

I demoed a load of bikes back in spring when considering a new bike. Certainly out of the bikes that I tested it seamed that its harder to find a really bad bike than it is to find a good one.

Its worth the effort to get out and demo if you can, reviews are too open to bias.

There has been legal president set in the 90’s with IPC media surrounding reviews. From memory, they reviewed a yacht for their magazime and wrote a negative review of it. This was taken as liable / deformation and IPC were sued through the courts.

Ianal but I understand it is quite a famous case and therefore by extension all reviews can be treated with a pinch of salt.

catschroedinger – Member

Is test ride day the only real way now of figuring this out?

If you want to know if the bike feels right for you and suits your riding style then yes, a demo ride is better than any review.

Reviews might be useful in the first instance to narrow down your options though. Bike demos can be expensive and difficult to arrange in some cases so you need a shortlist first.

Not too hard to filter out the useful stuff, once you work out which reviewers are on your wavelength.

My pet peeve is when the mags get some hanger on to review a bike, and they clearly don’t have enough experience to provide a meaningful comparison.

Ditto on the web, if you come on this site enough – for example – it’s not hard to establish who knows their arse from their elbow – some people have been refreshingly honest about their new bikes on here.

depends on the review and the magazine or website IME
one of the mainstream mags was printing phrases like “obsolete wheel size” in a review of a 26er version 2 years ago. well 2 years ago, there were only a couple of 650b bikes, most (other than perhaps Norco) were just bike companies sticking a flag in the ground.

genuine review? or just pure marketing backhanders?

now *this* year I can accept a 26 vs 650b comment, because they are actually available.

and Formula K18/K24 brakes getting rave review by 1 top name in the industry, then 6 months later getting a 3/10 from the exact same magazine “because the market has moved on”. really? when everyone is on 2-3 year product release cycles? I spose Formula brakes stop working the day Shimano bring out their next model?

I reckon it takes a good year of reading reviews to suss out roughly who is a fanboi of which brand.

When I was looking for a new bike I found Bikeradar reviews OK, not the journalist ones but the user reviews underneath.

The journalist reviews tend to get the Top Gear view, if you are offered Zondas, Lambos and other exotic sports cars, a 3 series is never going to set your world on fire. But to the man on the street, the 3 series is more than adequate for our driving (and ability)

There are very few bad bikes out there, but there are probably loads that won’t fit you or won’t suit you for various reasons.

I’d look closely at your current bike, understand the length/reach/etc of that, and see what matches up.

The last couple of bikes I bought involved lots of test rides ending with me buying what felt right to me – not what everyone else said were the best bikes

thing is, unless you ride the same trails as me your “best bike” will be completely different to mine. Even if we do ride the same trails our riding styles may differ enough for us to ride different type of bikes.

There has been legal president precedent set in the 90’s with IPC media surrounding reviews. From memory, they reviewed a yacht for their magazime and wrote a negative review of it. This was taken as liable libel / deformation defamation and IPC were sued through the courts.

Sorry Scruff, I had to chuckle at homophone confusion! I like the idea they were deformed by the bad review though!

Back OT I think it is in part because bikes are all good now, so personal preference is a far bigger part of it. That and the idea of test rides has really gained traction, 10 years ago it was virtually unheard of, now with demo days and what not it’s a far more straightforward and ‘normal’ part of the buying process.

That and the idea of test rides has really gained traction, 10 years ago it was virtually unheard of, now with demo days and what not it’s a far more straightforward and ‘normal’ part of the buying process.

10 years ago I demo’d 5 bikes over a long weekend in the lakes with spec, Kona, white, marin all showing up with demo fleets. They did this most years and I think it’s now rolled up with the mountain festival.

I’ve never bought a bike based on a magazine review. Has anyone? Ever?!

I would say the most important point of test riding a few bikes is working out what sort of bike you actually want (and need)!

Every week in mags & online there will be some rave review about the new “bestest thing ever” so i don’t really worry too much about that sort of thing!

The following steps are important i think:

1) Set your budget
2) Decide if you are buying a complete bike or just a frame
3) Pick a few bikes you can get an easy demo of, with differing amounts of travel, geo, and heaven forbid, even different sized wheels

Use that^^ info to help you work out what “sort” of bike would most suit you and how / where you ride, then:

Step 4) Buy the one you like the look of most!

Job done!

There has been legal president set in the 90’s with IPC media surrounding reviews. From memory, they reviewed a yacht for their magazime and wrote a negative review of it. This was taken as liable / deformation and IPC were sued through the courts.

Ianal but I understand it is quite a famous case and therefore by extension all reviews can be treated with a pinch of salt.

Not quite correct.

The sail company made some big claims about the performance of their sail, which the magazine could not re-create. The magazine said that the performance did not live up to the claims.

the sail company claimed libel on the magazine, believing the magazine was saying that they were liars and were trying to mislead customers, whereas the magazine said that the claims were just careless and irresponsible.

Even the sail company’s expert witness couldn’t recreate any of the claims that the sail company made, so it’s a bit of an odd one that the jury found in favour of the claimant.

Law on the defence of fair comment is very clear on reviews and has been updated relatively recently. If you test fairly, are accurate in presenting the facts and you are honest in your opinion you can be covered by that defense regardless of how rude you are about a product (which is why Fox are unlikely to attempt to sue Dirt over them stating a recent fork was ‘crap’). It is up to a reader whether they believe a review or not.

IANAL, but I have had plenty of training on the legalities of libel, defamation and it’s implication on writing reviews.

I remember the good old MBR reviews that always seemed to score based on the back page ad. The text would pan the tyres, bar, stem, gears etc then it would get a 9 where another would get knocked back to a 7 for losing some grip once. Then the long termer test where they took off the peg bikes and swapped heaps of bits so they were more how the liked it 🙂

I’ve never bought a bike based on a test ride.

In fact I’ve never bought a bike I’ve had a test ride on and it’s 17 years since I bought a bike from a shop (and I’ve owned at least 15 frames in that time).

Wasn’t there an MBR test of a Trek that snapped and they still gave it a 7 or something?

As we all know, cycling is the new golf

magazine reviews are probably more relevant now than ever before

you only need to go and spend a bit of time in a mass market retail bike shop (concept store, evans, surgery etc.) to see the punters that come through the door and just want the best.

bike sales are not focused on nadgery miserable bastards who have been riding for years, know what they want, know where they ride and what suits them, and more often than not don’t buy complete bikes anyway – its the mass market sales that make up both the bulk and revenue in the industry

reviewing and selling mountain bikes is probably easier than ever because the ‘golfers’ who are buying them at the moment are all riding them on the same scaelextric tracks trail centres, so you know the biggest variant is taken out of the equation at the start.

if magazine reviews mean nothing to you, its more often than not because you’re no longer target market for either them or the manufacturers, you’ve transcended mass market – wear it as a badge of pride.

10 years ago I demo’d 5 bikes over a long weekend in the lakes with spec, Kona, white, marin all showing up with demo fleets. They did this most years and I think it’s now rolled up with the mountain festival.

Alright, 15 years ago! It never used to be as common as it is now.

Wasn’t there an MBR test of a Trek that snapped and they still gave it a 7 or something?

Bikes break, to give it a 10 would’ve been a bit odd, but it’s a fair assumption they aren’t all going to snap, it was just unfortunate the test model did.

Wasn’t there an MBR test of a Trek that snapped and they still gave it a 7 or something?

I seem to remember that too.

My favourite was WMB giving the ‘coveted’ Bike of the Year title to a GT iDrive that only came third in their review it was included in a few months previous. Funnily enough, I think 6 months of endless GT ads appearing in the mag followed.

I’ve never bought a bike based on a magazine review. Has anyone? Ever?!

Not sure, I remember lusting after a Dekerf after reading a steel hardtail review in MBUK. Saw one for a good price second hand a year later and bought it. Couldn’t tell you now how much I knew about the brand before that.

I think it’s important to love your bike at least a bit. So looks, some vibe about the brand and positive reviews, (whether users or mags) will all help narrow things down before you demo or buy.

I definitely love that bike. Would I love it quite as much without all the positive comment that surrounds the builder and the bikes? Dunno.

I’m getting a Solaris on Sunday with luck, 99% of my logic is based upon reviews from the lunatics on here !

Magazines give pretty much all bikes favourable reviews these days, after all the manufacturers fund the magazine through advertising so the magazine can’t really bite the hand that feeds it. Almost no bike scores any less than 7 out of 10 these days for anything (which sounds great) so I’d now assume that a 7 out of 10 bike is a below average machine, whereas a 9 or 10 out of 10 review is bike that would be a pretty great ride.

Demo day is a must though as sometimes I’ve read great reviews of a bike and had my heart set on a particular machine, only to then be disappointed on a test ride. I tend to narrow down my bike choice using magazine or online reviews, and then go to actually ride the shortlisted bikes at a demo day for the final shakedown.

I just bought a new bike off the back of user reviews. No mag tests had been published at that point. I’d been riding the same bike for 12 years prior to that so figured everything was going to feel different what with geometry, forks etc. all changing so much. Liked the spec, price was right, people seemed to love it, so I bought one. It’s worked out just fine. Perhaps without much experience of lots of different bikes and therefore not knowing what else I might be missing I’m content enough?

DezB – Member
I’ve never bought a bike based on a magazine review. Has anyone? Ever?!

Bought a Saracen Ariel on the basis of a review by Southern Downhill (now Ride-it-out), they had the bike as a long termer (always more informative in my opinion) and were able to point out its faults as well as the good stuff, the review ended with them saying they’d parted with their own cash to buy the bike instead of giving it back and that it was now out in the Alps doing sterling service as a guide bike.

They’d tried a range of forks during their time with it, the standard Fox 32s 140mm it came with, they’d put on Fox 36s at 160mm before settling on Revelations at 150mm….they kept the Shimano running gear saying it had been faultless and on that basis they couldnt justify changing to 1×10 just for the sake of it…they mentioned maintenance of the single pivot system only to say that the bushings system hadnt needed any attention, didnt develop any play and was noise free….it seemed a good real world review and seeing as i was buying the bike for Mini-DH, Enduro etc their take on it was helpful, perfect even.

I’d be a bit more sceptical about a review where the journo has the bike for just a single ride, if i’m buying a bike for gravity type riding i do tend to pick up a copy of DIRT to see whats in vogue at the moment, for all the criticism Steve Jones’s writing style gets he isnt afraid to give a bike a poor review which i like, he also has an open mind with new manufacturers bringing bikes to the market or companies like Orbea dipping their toe in the long travel/AM/Enduro segment for the first time.

Mags like MBUK, MBR etc i stay away from, they seem like little more than advertising and poorly disguised advertising at that.
I find sites like this pretty good too, noting like hearing the good and bad from owner of whatever it is you’re thinking of buying.

The Cotic Hemlock had repeated problems such as snapping etc. but still got 2 and 4 stars in Future mags reviews. So how bad would a bike have to be to get 1 star, kill the rider?? Planet-X early road frames were terribly flexy but still got good reviews, anyone would think the mags don’t want to dis their mates shoddy products. Then consider all the bikes that do well, and fully enough the makers put a lot of adverts in the mag.

Don’t believe bike tests they are biased towards their mates / marketing budgets.

If you know what you like and your size then you can probably just go on the geometry numbers and things like frame material and weight. Last 2-3 bikes I bought without every seeing them in the flesh before they arrived and both have been brilliant.

ERM it was a boat test. The magazine lost and went out of business.

bike sales are not focused on nadgery miserable bastards who have been riding for years, know what they want, know where they ride and what suits them, and more often than not don’t buy complete bikes anyway – its the mass market sales that make up both the bulk and revenue in the industry

This made me laugh

I think that for many the reviews are a comfort blanket. For the customer who knows nothing about bikes if you bought the test winning bike then when you get to the trail center then you cam feel confident that everyone else isn’t giggling about your choice

I didn’t buy my FS bike on the basis of a review. But reading Single Trck Reviews really helped. I knew what a single pivot was and pro pedal. Why top tubes had got longer etc. I’d read reviews of similar bikes and could understand why the one I bought should work for me.

I had demoed loads of bikes but not the one I bought. The demoes helped in some ways but not in others. Looking back I suspect if Giant the Anthem I demoed with the correct air pressure in the forks I might now own one

In fact I’ve never bought a bike I’ve had a test ride on and it’s 17 years since I bought a bike from a shop (and I’ve owned at least 15 frames in that time).

Anyone else see the flaw in the logic here?

The above is why I think quick demo rides are over rated. Pressures and shock settings make a massive difference and when you start thinking of things like swapping tyres and stems etc you can change a feel of a bike completely.

Can’t say that I’ve bought a bike based on reviews but I have discounted bikes based on them which means amounts to the same thing I guess.

I think that for many the reviews are a comfort blanket.

Definitely.

But for experienced riders they’re more like a canary down a mineshaft.

Everything about a new bike might look hunky dory on paper, but you just like to see a review from a writer you trust so you know there’s no nasty surprises in store.

A good review might flag up that the suspension is too wallowy, the geometry doesn’t really work or the bike’s a bit on the porky side.

There’s a lot of money to be made from the “I need a bike, what does the internet say?”.