Slightly controvertial conclusion, perhaps? Not the bike I would have chosen, anyone here have an opinion?
(Yes, I know exactly what I wrote there. Everyone on here's got an opinion). 😈

not read it yet, what was the conclusion then?

Hmmmmm… let me guess, was it an OnOne that won, perchance? 😉

Being Brant's mates 'n' all..

(Clique-y, clique-y)

Nope… the Ti456 wasn't tested. You're close though 😆 Suprisingly enough there is a new 'ultimate hardtail' on the pedestal… cynical, me? 🙄

Let me guess……does it start with R and end with agley?

do the new ratings go up to 11?

Oh.. what-a-surprise then..! 🙄

What a bunch of consistently self-serving gits.

Ragley got beat by Whyte 19. Sounds like they prefer the Cove Hummer over the Ragley as well, although all 3 scored 9/10.

I wonder if the 456 TI isn't being tested because it's still THE ultimate TI hardtail and that if it was included the Ragley may not shine quite so brightly?

I am not a fanboy of either and would never consider an on-one nor a ragley (though do have an on-one top that we bought for a moment for which you had to be there 😉 ) but it would make sense to test the newcomer against the current ultimate ti hardtail.

Ragley got beat by Whyte 19. Sounds like they prefer the Cove Hummer over the Ragley as well, although all 3 scored 9/10.

lol

I'm finding mine difficult to fault – an OnOne Ti29er (ergo the name).
The more I ride it the more dust my Turner Flux gathers.
I did read that one of the freelance testers, Guy Kesteven, has fallen for his Lynsky Ti29er too, against both his and other's expectations.
I too took the time to try the OnOne against other bikes, not something most riders generally get to do with this brand.

I love my 19Ti (but I also love my other two 19's as well) 😀

I heard an independant bike mag reviewer was the best man of the owner the new Ti frame company thats about!
Is that an unbiased independant review then?

psychle and no_eyed_dear i agree with you both 😉

I wonder if the 456 TI isn't being tested because it's still THE ultimate TI hardtail

Bah, the ultimate Ti hardtail is still the mighty Kobe.

i bumped into the people testing the bikes. There was a 456 Ti amongst them, but it wasn't included in the test because apparently it was no longer in production (though it still seems to be for sale).

Not ridden any of them, but if it were my money i'd buy the whyte

cove :. canadian :. I'll hate the way it rides

Brant/P-X/O-O realy seem to struggle when it comes to making good looking bikes, In know it shouldn't matter, and on a £125 steel hardtail it probably doesnt. But at a grand?

mogrim – Member

I wonder if the 456 TI isn't being tested because it's still THE ultimate TI hardtail

Bah, the ultimate Ti hardtail is still the mighty Kobe.

For ultimate Ti hardtail read Jones 3d spaceframe [cough] [cough]

I'd forgotten about the Jones!! 🙂

cove :. canadian :. I'll hate the way it rides

you should read mike ferrentino's column in the latest stw mag. 🙄

all 3 scored 9/10.

So obviously none of them were as good as the ti456, which scored 10/10. Simple.

Don't get the moaning. Surely at the top your moaning that Brant's bike wins but it doesn't, the Whyte does. So what's the shocker?
If the Radley did win despite not being the best then there's a problem and you can complain about mates rates and all that but it didn't.

my Ti456 is a far better big hitting trail bike than the 2006 Hummer which preceeded it….the Kobe before that was also an awesome bike, but the Ti456 has such an excellent layout, long TT, short stem, great BB height, it's just so well executed.

i'd like to hear guitarhero 's take on it too as he preceeded his Ti456 with a Hummer too……

I think they concluded that the Whyte performed as most people would 'imagine' a Ti hardtail would ride out of the bikes on that particular test which is an important distinction.

I think they decided the Ragley was just a bit too radical. Again compared to the bikes on this test…

forgot to mention that the new Hummer has taken it's lead from the Ti456 with a Lynskey built frame and revised geometry, but they've continued along the lines of a short TT meaning a longer stem is still necessary, and this is one of the beauties of the Ragley and Ti456 in that the long TT allows use of a 50 / 70mm stem which provides brilliant steeering input, etc.

sorry for my poor punctuation above 🙁

the Whyte performed as most people would 'imagine' a Ti hardtail would ride …which would suggest that comparing "Ti hardtails" was a fairly meaningless exercise in itself, as the key thing that determines a bike's characteristics is not frame tubing material.

I really, really struggle to care about scores in these reviews. If something is definitely rubbish, I want to know. Most things aren't. But the idea that a mark out of 10 in one of these tests is any serious proof that one bike is meaningfully better than another is daft. I'm sure the Ragley is super. I'm sure the Whyte is super. Which one people buy is just not going to be that influenced by the review, it it?

Yep. You're probably right. Wrong test really, the bikes are pretty different from each other, only common ground is the material.

I thought it was a very fair review, focusing very much on "who" would like each bike and illustrating how bikes can be made from similar materials and be very different in terms of purpose and handing; not better or worse, just different; horses for courses; blah blah.

what a lot of bitchy comments at the start of this thread!!!!

stop being such magazine snobs and go and ride your bikes

The bit that annoyed me was the way they marked the genesis down for not being "extreme" enough. It's not meant to be FFS! They didn't really mark down the ragley et al for not being milemunchers etc etc.

Just because they're all titanium HTs doesn't mean they can all be tested against the same criteria.

I'm sure the Ragley is super. I'm sure the Whyte is super. Which one people buy is just not going to be that influenced by the review, it it?

Probably, yes. People take magazine scores waaaaay too seriously.

I did find the MBUK ti HTs roundup a more informative read than the ST one, although that wasn't just because they'd given marks out of 10.

I read the article and to me it really didn’t make any sense to me at all. I seem to remember reading that Brant had told them to run a short stem but they tried it with a 90mm stem anyway. On the score thing at the end the Ragley was best or equal best for Value (8), Climbing (10), Descending (10) and Single-track (9).

The Whyte 19 won but they basically said it wasn’t that much better than the Aluminium version and the Ragley didn’t win because it's the least “Ti like” that’s my reading of it anyway.

slight hijack here – but how independent is any bike review? Is the fact that specialized bikes never get less than 9/10 connected to the thousands they spend on adverts in every copy of MBUK or MBR?

I know people in the industry who claim to have been threatened with legal action if they give a bad review.

At the end of the day, it's just someones opinion and we all like different things in a bike.

why, what's he say?

Unless the canadians have droped their BB's by an inch and lengthened their TT's by a similar amount and steepened the HA's (i.e. what most british manufacturers are making) then I hated them years ago, and i'll still hate them today.

So if the Whyte won and didn't ride much differently to the Aluminium version, I've saved a fortune buy keeping my Al. one… Result!

i never read bike magazines TBH nowadays but if i was to buy a Ti frame it would be a Merlin, mainly because i've always grown up and wanted one and in my eyes its the pinnacle of titanium frames. OUt of interest, whats other peoples conclusion on the Merlin, is it still a fab bike in todays standards or is it a retro yesteryear bike needing a makeover?

mainly because i've always grown up

No you aint shorty!

No you aint shorty!

Least i aint grown out. Shouldn't u b working anyway??

The worse thing is i was measured at 5'8 at school and am now just over 5'7. I'm shrinking, aahhhh

interesting corollary to reviews and advertising in the motorcycle world. Bike magazine (biggest UK circulation m/cycle mag) slated the Ducati 1098 in stand-alone and head-to-head tests. Ducati pulled all its advertising, and Bike commented on that fact.

Then Bike got a Ducati 1098 as part of their long-term test fleet, and you know what, they loved it.

Totally coincidentally, Ducati now advertise again in Bike.

What a strange selection of comments. People seem confused because the test doesn't really fit any of the conspiracy theories. Personally I thought it was a well rounded overview. Predictably, they all scored well because they're all great bikes. I'm guessing the One One wasn't in there because they've already tested it 🙂