Pivot Mach 6 with utterly useless Fox 34mm forks, I had it for the day,took it back after 3 hours after trying everything to make the forks work. The guy in shop was not surprised saying yep the forks are rubbish, our customers always fit Pikes ! I gave him a withering look and asked him why he had not said this earlier, he said he didn’t want to put ideas in my head. After a short terse discussion he gave me 50% of the test fee back. I also tried a Spesh 29″ full suss a few years back. Under specced ,over priced lifeless junk.
The only one I really enjoyed was a Trek day at the bike shop in Kendal (sorry names escapes me)Wanted the 29″ but the whole UK large stock had sold out a few weeks earlier which was very frustrating.
Quite why bike shops nearly always throw buying opportunities away is a mystery, dreadful routes on organised days,wrong tyres,suspension badly set up the list goes on and on.