Hi,

I’m currently looking for a new bike and got interested in the alpine. Had the opportunity to try a 2012 five and it felt spot on! For me it felt like the perfect combination of stability and playfulness.

But i would prefer to go up in travel from my current bottlerocket. My hope is that the alpine feels like the five but just have more travel.

Anyone that has ridden both, is the alpine as playful as the five? any thoughts about how the two bikes “feels” is welcome.

I mostly go downhill but still want to be able to do trail and i will not be able to try a alpine myself..

Thanks

Ive had 4 Five’s and 2 Alpines. All recent ones.

My last five got stolen so thought id give the alpine another try. I mainly ride round Cannock Chase and off-piste stuff.

My Alpine is spec’d with X fusion Vengeance and CCDBC and weighs 33lbs. Ive just bought an RP23 for it. Trying to get it below 30lbs.

In answer to your question, its not a playful as the five but nor do you need a be as “careful” downhill. Whereas the Five, you have to ride the trail due to it bouncing around more due to less travel but the Alpine you can just straight line it due to the stiffness and the fact that it ploughs over rough stuff.

I recently did the 30k Coed y Brenin enduro on it with a 34t upfront single ring and i didn’t feel like it held me back to much. It is obviously going to be heavier than a Five but for me, it descents much better than the five and thats what i like to ride.

p.s. The RP23 will put it to 31.5lbs and a set of Pikes will get it to 30.5lb so a light build is definitely doable.

Hope this helps

They are quite similar, although to some degree depends how you set them up. An alpine with ccdb and coil forks, will feel quite a bit different to a five with rp23 and pike/float. Both really versatile from my experience.

Playful?! My patriot was ok with a coil shock but great with a rp23. Buy two shocks for one frame I reckon

Thanks for the answers, my bottelrocket is not light and really not build light either but it felt much more playful, but not at all as stable compared to the five. I really liked the lenghty low feel of the five. But im a little worried that the alpine will feel too much comming from the rocket.

So a five, heavyduty build compared to a light alpine is really not that much diffrent in feel then?

how is the alpine to manual with its more lenghty chainstay compared to a 2012 five?

thanks

hora – was? what happened to the patriot?

Why not just get the 2012 Five AM- which is what I have with Fox 36 Float and CCDB air and its brilliant from Alps riding to anything you can throw it at in the UK and built as it is not an overweight/overbiked compromise if you just want to ride trails.

No Im not you Rob 😉 I still have it but with a RP23

Well done Mark, you only need to keep it for six more days to hold true to our pact! I’m still loving my Blood. 🙂

Pbooker I can’t believe you’re going from an xfusion and ccdb to an rp23 and pikes! It’ll be lighter but you’ll ruin your ride. Fine if your focus is riding uphill I suppose but I thought alpine were made to point down 🙂

I used to own both. Loved the Alpine for ‘Big Stuff’ (Alps, Scotland, etc.) but always felt it was a bit too much bike for anything else. A couple of trips doing Big Scottish Stuff with the Five and I started to realise that it was almost as capable – I certainly wasn’t finding the limits of the Five! Appreciated the weight saving on hike-a-bikes too. Where the going got more pedally or rolling (particularly trail centres and local rides) then the Five was always quicker and I felt fresher at the end of the day – fresh enough for another cheeky descent or two 🙂

I’m not sure playful is quite right – coquettish, yes, maybe even flighty at times but not playful at all IME

Glasgowden. I see what your saying but it’s a trial if you like.

For me, the CCDB is too good. I like to have a simple suspension setup that I can setup and just leave, plus a bit of extra cash.

I’m not too sure on the forks yet.

I can get the new pikes for just over the £500 mark or the X Fusion slant for £320 so these are tempting me. Just not sure, if it will still be as stable. Chances are, I’ll keep the x fusion vengeance I’ve got now as they are just so good.

You should keep the ccdb and xfusion as I predict you’ll want them back!

Alpine + manual = does not compute. Or it could just be me that’s crap at manualling.

I’ve never ridden a Five, but I suspect that it’s a far better all-rounder. The Alpine is more what somebody once described as a “winch and plummet” machine – it will go uphill but it’s hard work, but point it downhill and as has already been pointed out you can plough through just about anything other than a full-on World Cup DH rock garden without much trouble.

Less playful, more enthusiastic. In retrospect, I’m glad I went for an Alpine over the Five but I am definitely “over-biked” for most of the riding that I do. That said, I’ve never had an issue with it – you can just get on with the riding and admire the scenery.

“Playful” is always going to be very subjective and entirely dependent on how you like to play.
All depends how you build it.
I have a Five as my all-day default bike but I’ve tended towards burly and capable.
Coil 140 Marzocchi, CCDBC, dual ply on the back. It all adds up. Mine is about 35lbs I think.
If you want a light Alpine, I suspect you don’t want an Alpine.

I bought one of the last of the 26″ Fives and ride it as my general xc/trail bike in the Pennines – chose it coz it’s ridiculously fun, sub-30lb and handles everything, including 35+ milers. You do have to be more careful and descend certain downhills a bit slower than on a bigger bike, but that’s cool with me – adds interest.

I have a Patriot for abroad/Lakes etc, and I’m probably going to flog that frame and spec up a new Alpine. Tested the Alpine thoroughly this year, and it will be a better all-round ‘big’ bike than my Patriot – I’ll stick coil 55s, strong wheels and decent tyres on it. It’ll probably weigh around 32-33 lbs but it’ll be great whenever I want a super-slack and confident descender that also happens to climb remarkably well. It won’t be quite as nimble as the Five but it’ll be nimble enough, and perfect in the Alps and Lakes or on super-steep technical stuff etc.

Thanks for the reply:s! Anyhow the alpine will probably be a better on trail than my current bike. Im ok with not being the fastest on the trails so i guess that it speaks for the alpine. By building it light i meant going air shock and fork and try to keep the weight down but not go crazy about it.

With playful i mean it should be fairly easy to throw around, manual and wanting to be in the air. I don’t really want to go down in travel, thats the main reason i’m looking at the alpine.

My biggest worries on the alpine is that the rear will feel to long so it will be hard to lift the front.

What differ between the five am and a regular five? is it just a bigger fork? or did they change the geo as well?

Bagstard. I like it. Alot.