[Closed] MBUK's Ti bike test...

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 [i]is[/i] 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 [b]still[/b] 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 [i]out of the bikes on that particular test[/i] 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 🙁

[i]the Whyte performed as most people would 'imagine' a Ti hardtail would ride [/i]...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 🙂

Have to say, I was the marketing man for a bike company and distributor about 10 years ago - we had no/very little advertising budget and very rarely advertised. We did however always supply bikes and products whenever we had something that would fit in a group test and our products usually got good, fair reviews (we even won the WMB bike of the year one year). I know it does help if you have a good relationship with the writers, but I don't think it's all about the budget. Most of the big advertisers are big, well funded companies and most make really good, if often mainstream products.

Hicksy

But the test they carried out is flawed from the beginning. Surely if they are testing frame only they need to build all 4 bikes using the same components, using the same tyre pressures etc...

On that basis every comparative test in every bike mag is flawed

Interesting to come back to this now folks have had a chance to comment. My take, FWIW, which ain't much, truth be told, is that it was a pretty fair test, trying to get across the characteristics of four fairly different bikes, so that riders looking to blow a wad of hard-earned aren't so likely to waste time looking at a bike that isn't really appropriate to the style of riding they do. I've read all the reviews and opinions of the Ti 456, and, as an owner of two On-Ones, that would be the obvious choice. I also owned a Hummer, so on the strength of that background, my choice of a new Ti frame, should I be in the market, would be between the Cove and a 456Ti. In fact it would be the Ragly. I really like the look of it, and it looks like a bike I could abuse without feeling guilty about it, whereas the Cove would have me holding back, in case I dinged it. Irrational, perhaps, but that's me all over 😉

I own a VN Mamtor and I don't recognise the review in ST at all, I'm very happy with it, but I guess thats my opinion...What I do know and can't be disputed is that it's a darn sight cheaper than the other options based on frame price alone.

For other reviews I've seen my previous bike Pace RC405XCAM described as the 'ultimate UK trail bike'..pound for pound my GF HiFi was a better bike..and nearly half the price!

I think allot of these reviews should be taken with a very large pinch of salt. Use them as a part of the judgement process, and not the complete deal