I thought it was just me, There’s a pretty unpleasant undercurrent about some of the comments.
Nahhh - Dirt Mag is full of bollocks as well, but journalism within the industry in general is pretty terrible. STW seems reasonably well balanced, the Germans at least try to introduce some semblance of analytical testing whilst NSMB is usually fairly sardonic in its assessments of the industry and cynical about the next big thing. That's about the only half decent magazines I can think of.
Most of the time, the industry seems to get obsessed about some in fashion metric like reach and then the reviewers end up suffering from some kind of bandwagon effect and belief bias. We are told reach is good for high speeds (I do, personally like a longer reach) but then a lot of DH riders don't get on with long reaches for fast steep tracks - so then we are told - oh it's because it helps to weight up the front on shallow tracks. People make up reasons to suit their choices.
And the comments about internet experts passing judgements? Give me a break, do some of you just blindly believe whatever bollocks journalists spout out of some kind of deference to authority? Test ride, learn what works for you, instead of letting a magazine tell you what is the best UK trail bike for you to go and piss 5k up the wall on. Someone in my family is an ex sponsored semi-pro DHer - and definitely doesn't get on with long reaches, I ride a bike with a 480mm reach - so Kimbers comment is bollocks.
And those photos do just look like that bike is too big for the rider, whether it's the 800mm bars, the saddle height, the reach, the 29er wheels or a combination of all four I'm not quite sure.
£5k is too steep for the spec and the frame. There are better bikes out there fro the money.......