My friend is in the market for a new bike so we went to the demo day they had on.

I recently bought a Salsa Horsethief, tbh without riding any other similar bikes – I just bought it cos it had loads of money off!

First bike, a £6k-ish carbon Cannondale Trigger that’s not for sale yet. XX1, Lefty, ENVE wheels (I think)
Wow! So light – similar to my road bike I reckon. Very smooth on the downhills too.

I also had a go on an Orange 5 and a Whyte T129S.
The Orange was nice though felt a little clunky on the uphills. Took care of business downhill too. Whyte was nice enough but seemed a little tired (it was a hire bike, not a new demo one).

However, neither of those bikes were better than my Salsa. They weren’t worse per se, pretty similar. So I’m not regretting getting it!

The Cannondale was the highlight though. Quite a pricetag for it.

Supposedly I was the second person in the UK to ride one.
First person to chuck it in the back of the van and steal it though 😉

Yes the Trigger was a nice ride I was impressed with the lefty too !! The full bling orange 5(neon yellow) 650b was nice too and felt like any 26’r I’ve ridden(mind you it’s only 15mm)

The 29er’s were however very different in a good way 🙂

I also headed down on Saturday, go there first thing, just in time for them wheeling the Cannondale Jekyll out the van, it’s the bike that I really wanted to like, like the Trigger it was carbon XX1 carbon wheels and weighed the square route of nothing. Unfortunately, I just couldnt get on with it (comparing it with my Commencal Meta SX) The Magura brakes were hopeless, I felt like I was really having to use all the travel in the levers to get it to slow down, I also didnt feel stable in the corners/berms.

The highlight of the day, for me was the Saracen Ariel 151, nice and playfull, manuals for fun and pedals very well for a 150mm bike. My only gripe is the spec wasnt brilliant but you can buy a frame only option and spec it how you like.

The worst bike I tried was the Treck Remedy 29er, it felt like it had been well abused (it was a hire bike)

In summary, no bike I tried was better than my Commencal! although the Saracen with the right spec may well come close if not edge it for being that bit lighter

I took out a 129, a big and little remedy and the hopped-up five 29er… Loved the Remedy 29, I was stravaing the things and got personal bests on falla brae and lower falla brae on it, went back up afterwards on my own bike and pretty much matched it to the second but that’s on a bike set up perfectly that I’ve been riding for years. So, very impressed, possibly the best trailbike I’ve ever ridden.

The others were a mixed bag… The whyte wasn’t set up well, it was the worst bike of the day but could probably do better. The Remedy 650b was incredible fun, popping and bouncing off every root, but dog slow compared to the others. The Five 29er was an excellent spec, last one I rode was let down by its wheels and tyres, this one was miles better but the different suspension made it feel deader and less fun. Almost as fast as the Remedy though, just not as confidence inspiring or fun.

Good day out, not sure why they keep these things so secret! I want another go on the Remedy 29 on some more interesting terrain though (should have pedalled up the other road to the black sections or something)

but the different suspension made it feel deader and less fun

Totally, that was odd. It felt overdamped for some reason.

Almost as fast as the Remedy though, just not as confidence inspiring or fun.

I had the opposite experience 😉 Although I do think the 150s on the Five29 are 10mm too long, so make it feel a bit unbalanced, and not really as responsive as with the 140s.

I took out a Five 650b too, which was fun, poppy, and agile, but just felt like a 26er, with none of the benefits of 29 wheels – so confirmed that I’m sticking with big wheels.

The chaps at Alpine bikes and Orange were amazing, proper nice guys – spent a good amount of time with me, setting up shock and fork pressure, flipping the stem, adjusting spacers, brake position, tyre pressures. Was a great day out, was riding from 10 – 4, doing reps of the hill up to Falla Brae.

Some numpty also took out the only Orange Five29 in small from 12.30 – 3pm, my missus was thinking of buying one, but wanted to try it out first before comitting. So we waited around for three hours for you to come back in.

The demo look was 30 – 45 minutes long, we took out quite a few bikes, all at about 30 minutes a time.

It’s a demo day, isn’t it? not a free bike hire day for numpties. They nearly lost a sale due to whoever that was, if it’s your mate – poke him sharply in the eye.

It’s a demo day, isn’t it? not a free bike hire day for numpties

I noticed a few people there in the morning that you could tell just didnt really know much about the bikes or cycling in general, loads of people with no helmets and wearing normal clothes

Yep, which is fine – as long as they’re not taking the pee. I couldn’t give a monkeys who turns up to try a bike out, as long as you’re out for less than an hour I think that’s fair, but 3 hours is just not fair – especially when there are people there, waiting to try out a bike that they might actually spend their hard earned cash on.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter really, as we had a great day, had a coffee and a panini, and played on some bikes. Not much I prefer doing really 😉

I rode the 3 bikes present that actually fitted me. If a fairly big demo day at one of the biggest trail centres in the country can only stock 3 XL demo bikes then you might get an idea how awkward it can be getting test rides on things I’m actually interested in. I imagine that people who ride small bikes have similar trouble, too.

The 3 XL bikes were an Orange Gyro, a (650b) 5 and a Santa Cruz Tallboy LT. The 5 and the Tallboy were both out when I pitched up so it’s not like I was the only lanky rider looking to test bikes on Sunday! I wasn’t much excited by the Gyro and the 5 was much more enjoyable in comparison, despite the Gyro having a noticeably better spec (upgraded wheels and finishing kit). The Tallboy was very nice but didn’t bowl me over enough to make me want to give up my Mojo just yet. Plus when I got back onto my Mojo’s 26″ wheels they did seem to require noticeably less effort to spin up, though perhaps the ride was a bit rougher too.

I had a bash on a SC Butcher and Blur Tr, Remedy 9.8 650B and the Saracen Ariel 151. The SCs were fine, really plush, but both left me a bit cold. I can’t really put my finger on what it was, they just weren’t a great deal of fun. The Remedy is fantastic up and along, but it left me feeling a bit beat up on the way down Falla Brae although that may have been down to set up. The Saracen was a revelation. I’ve got a 14X which I like, but the 151 is in a different league. It’s a lot longer and slacker and feels really stable. It made me want to go at frankly inadvisable speeds and try new lines, which I didn’t get from any of the others. I still think the frame is a bit pricey, but when I come to replace my current Ariel this is going to be pretty close to the top of my list.

Some numpty also took out the only Orange Five29 in small from 12.30 – 3pm

legendary numptiness! bet they thought they were being really clever too.

Didn’t have a go of any bikes this time round, didn’t know it was on until we happened to pop into the shop(why do they keep it so quiet?), and we didn’t want to risk the parking nazis by staying too long. I do like demo days though.

It’s strange how little publicity it seemed to get. I’d vaguely heard about it a while back but when I came to checking out what weekend it was actually on all Google could provide were links to information about demo days in 2010 and 2012.

I saw a couple of people out on those Oranges (inc the small 5 29er) up at Berm Baby Berm about 2.30 asking my pal and I for some trails that ‘didn’t just go through the forest’. We were on our own bikes by that time.
Didn’t seem like the normal Orange customers – very wobbly on the bike and wearing street clothes.

Saw them dropping them off around 3.30 when we went for our final sign out we’d forgotten about

bigjim – Member

we didn’t want to risk the parking nazis by staying too long

I finally met one, he was really nice.

Ah now I feel bad. It must be a pretty awful job telling Audi drivers loading their carbon bikes that by scrimping on £1.50 they’ve incurred a fine.

I live in Inners and didn’t know this was on! I’m always amazed by how little events are advertised around here.