My question was: are proper enduro bikes noticeably better at that type of riding?

As I said before, what is ‘noticeably better’ to you? Feeling safer, going faster, doing bigger jumps, etc?

Personally, I would say no, they arnt noticeably better than a really good trail bike. But clearly I’m in the minority with my views.

My musings are very much on the difference another 20mm+ travel at both ends would make.

The answer is, as always, it depends. Is comfort the most important thing, or outright, raw speed?

A current (modern) Enduro bike is now a pretty niche ownership prospect, to one I repeatedly question the benefit of actually owning one, or a well set up trail bike, with a couple of setup options which might allow for a coil shock & a heavier duty wheelset & tyres.

I think in 98% of scenarios, my trail bike is faster than my enduro bike – and the other 2% doesn’t make up for the 98. That said, I don’t ride at machine built places like Dyfi or Antur, I’d much rather be on some dirty, scraped in, off piste fall line.

I can see more of a benefit to having something bigger for that type of riding, if that’s your thing 🙂

Missed off your measurements, what’s the stack height of the frame?

if you’re riding off the back of the bike already, slackening it out further will give you even less front end grip. Same applies for a going shorter on the stem.

Is that an Intend shock? What’s it like?

It is. It came with it (and some others) so I’ve not had a huge amount of time on it to be honest, I chucked a coil on for going away.

Ill swap back when I’m home as I think with a bit of messing around with the air chambers it could be close to a coil in terms of feel.

Back in the day, moving one’s weight back for descending and central for single-track was the thing, and it worked really well.

Mostly because people were riding bikes far too small for them, with hideous geometry, so the only way to create space was to ride off the back of the bike.

Is weight forward the done thing these days?/

The challenge, was then translating that to a modern bike. If you hang off the back of a longer & slacker bike, you will literally have no front end grip.

Assuming you are referring to a Reactor (which is still pretty conservative in terms of geometry, for a modern bike) it will be significantly bigger than 99% of the old 26” abominations we used to ride, so you style needs to adapt, to get the most out of it.

So yes, in short, move forward, hinge at the hips, drop the heels, elbows up & chin over the stem is a decent starting point, which will feel alien for quite a while. Try and force yourself forward when descending- it’s such a classic on really steep techy stuff you see unconfident riders going further & further back off the bike & it’s literally the worst thing you can do.

Even the pro riders who ride in a style of ‘swinging off the back of it’ (Fairclough/Moir, etc) are so aggressively over the front of the bike compared to the average rider, it’s a totally different position.

185cm on an S3 here for reference.

Still enjoying the Alps on mine, the big bike isn’t really even getting a look in this trip.

Im doing the classic of wondering, with a couple of sets of wheels & swapping out between the air & coil shock, this could be a middle & big bike solution for most of my riding & racing.

Another week out here yet & off to Finale in September, which bike will win out…

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130mm Pike Ultimate on mine, as I have bigger trail bike & wanted a bit of distinction between the two.

I bought mine out to the Alps, along with my big bike & have ended up riding it more, generally as I prefer shorter travel bikes.

I don’t tend to ride the battered main lines, so I don’t need lots of travel & it’s been surprisingly good down the Pleney mega steeps, I’ve genuinely not wished to ride the other bike over it.

My only real issue so far has been in the sticky clay, where it’s been drying out here is it still packs mud into the lower link & it gets compressed as the suspension returns, but the weather has been pretty unique here this week & my usual riding conditions are not like that.

Does it feel like it has ‘more’ travel? No, I’d say it just feels like a very good trail bike, which has a different take on how it deals with things. I would say due to the high pivot it rides better on chunkier stuff than any bike I’ve ridden with 150mm of travel, or less though.

This one can stay for a while.

Blue skies & sunshine today, but there is quite a bit of devastation from yesterday. Some roads will be shut for a few days while they clear debris out of the way & I am giving riding a miss as it will be carnage on the trails I expect.

Went for a run today up to Nyon & down to SJD & there is a hell of a lot of debris about, with some bits turning into a landslide scramble.

Looks like it should be hot & dry for a few days after today then a bit showery, so normal alpine weather really.

Yep, it was pretty intense for an hour. Most of the roads are blocked with what I would call minor landslides.

I rode this morning until lunchtime & it was half a day from being all time dirt, although some of the Pleney off piste had patches of absolute death still, from being deep in the woods.

Other than this, I would say the weather is as it usually is, hot, with showers for the next week or so.

If your looking at dipping into your pockets for a full build, the all new Scott Ransom is suppsoed to be pretty bloody awesome

Un-necessarily complicated lock out, headset cable routing, PF BB, linkage design with zero thought for riding in mud & it looks like an ebike.

Scott, yet again, making bikes that no-one wants to buy 😆

I think I could build a better bike for £2700 by going frame only and parts/secondhand. I think 14.8kgs for this bike is actually pretty poor, this should be coming in around the 13kg mark tops.

I’d be surprised if you couldn’t build one out of new parts of a higher spec & less weight, with the deals out there at the moment.

Also, a 3kg frame & fairly average parts, never going to weigh ~13kg,  at best – most higher end XC bikes (Spark, etc) are that sort of weight & 3 times the price. The PB article had one at just over 12kg (with pedals) & that was XXSL Transmission, a 1200g carbon wheelset, etc.

And in answer to your other question. Hunt Wheels. They are yes bad.

My Druid V2 is about 14kg, nothing silly light, so it’s easy enough to get to that sort of weight.

Having had a 916 & my other half has a Claymore, the Druid is a considerably more versatile bike overall. I took a tape measure to mine as it also ‘felt’ bigger than the numbers suggested – it’s slacker & longer than the charts state.

I wasn’t after one, but found a barely used, cheap second hand frame, which. I could just punt on if I didn’t like & thought why not -it’s still here, so that probably says it all.

One of the best features of the Stumpjumper Evo, IME, is the ability to alter the geometry from uncompromised downhill, right through to reasonable trail.

In theory, yes, in practice I don’t think they quite got it right, as some of the settings were too compromised (yes I did own one a few years ago). I still put that bike down as one of the most frustrating bikes I had owned, as it was so nearly the one, only to be let down by that utterly ridiculous shock ruining clevis mount & the paper thin downtube.

But don’t fully agree with that.

I think a lot of people get blinded by the tough bits on a trail & overlook how much quicker trail bikes are on the rest of it in most cases. I know where sections of trail I am faster on which bike, but overall, the little bike mostly wins out (S. Wales off piste style riding). it just goes to show that you can turn up to something like an EWS these days & still win on a small, or relatively short travel trail bike though, thats how good bikes have become.

IMO there’s not much point getting a heavy 140 travel bike that uses the same forks supplied with 160+ travel bikes

To a point, but most 160+ mm bikes are running Zeb/38’s now, hefty tyres & in quite a lot of cases DH shocks too. There was a recent article on Pinkbike of the weight of racers bikes & they were all over 16kg & up to 19 in some cases, which is fine for racing big mountain enduro stuff, but screw that for every day riding.

If you are building a 16kg 140mm travel bike, I would suggest you might be doing something wrong, or you live in a place where brutal trails & absolute reliability are number one priorities.

Enduro bikes are very much one trick ponies now & IME it’s less to do with the weight & more to do with the uncompromising geometry.

I think if I was going for the one bike solution, it would be a modern trail bike, as they are considerably more versatile, more fun more of the time & 99% of the time as fast or faster than a big bike. My middle bike (Druid V2) which between that & my Tallboy I spend most of my time on, is about 14kg & I’m still yet to ride anything on it & wish I was on the big bike.

I would however, pick weight over something like a Stumpy Evo & their reputation for cracking. The downtube is frighteningly thin (almost as thin as the frame protector they put on them).

Anyone got any pointers for finding this? I’ve had a look for trails running down to the village after the WC track meets the road but never found anything.

Do you know where drum & bass (trail) is on that hillside? As you are at the top of the mountain looking down the DH track, it’s to the left. There are actually a load more, higher up. The first fire road crossing off the WC track rather than carrying on, go left down it (for quite a way). Eventually you will hit a meadow with a chalet with a red tiled roof, in the wood there on the right are some spicy numbers.

Be warned though, they are similar to the OG Champery track (not the watered down version it is these days) – they are f*cking spicy.

earlier said Goat Hut type bar/ride.

That looks like the place/lake round the back of the top of Mossettes, where you can ride the ridge back to the top of the Chatel Bike Park.

I think I can leave everything else (chainset, chain, 1×12 cassette) the same and simply fit an AXS mech and the new Pod Shifter – is this correct?

Yes, you are correct. Contrary to what others have said, you don’t need the cassette & chain as well. It works fine with any 12 speed setup.

The ‘only’ incompatible part is T-Type chainrings with old chains. You have to run a flat top chain with it. Flat top chains are backwards compatible however.

I prefer it to mechanical, mostly due to a knackered thumb making a normal shifter pretty uncomfortable to use, I do prefer the older AXS shifter to the new style pod however. FWIW, I haven’t really noticed any difference in the real world, when it comes to shifting speed either.

That issue is for spacers, not bars.

It’s not, raising bar height, by stem spacers, or higher rise bars all have the same effect of reducing the ‘virtual’ reach.

Reach is a fixed measurement at the top of the head tube, because any height increase is not vertical above it, it eats into the space available, making the fit smaller.

Have you tried some properly high rise bars?

The issue with that of course is, if the sizing is marginal, anything on the steerer tube or bars is eating into the reach & cramping the seated climbing position further.

The Tallboy is the highest stack of the lot, for reference.

If stack is your issue, the Spur isn’t that much better than the Top Fuel.

The Element is better still, but the short back end is unbalanced to the long front.

The Tallboy is definitely more trail than the Top Fuel though, so it’s a bit of a case of picking your poison.

To be fair, I’m 185cm (or 6’1” & a bit) and the large was considerably shorter once you ran a bit of steerer tube & some higher rise bars to ‘fudge’ the stack up to what would be more normal for that size of bike.

I’d say that’s precisely the reason to size up. It’s only going to be a bigger issue on the smaller bike.

Are you 6’2” or 198cm? As they are quite a difference 😆

I would suggest an XL, due to the low stack, they do feel quite small.

The only challenge will be the seat tube height – you will be limited on longer droppers.

I see this point (along with lifting it onto a roof rack of a car, etc) raised a few times, but in 5 years of riding ebikes, I have never once, needed to lift it over a gate. Maybe it’s not a thing on the England/Wales border.

Obviously, YMMV, but it’s really not an issue in my world.

What clever witchcraft have you done with your Rail? Mine is same frame/size as yours, but I’m a full KG heavier – and I can’t imagine you’re not on DH tyres. Carbon wheels? (and out of curiosity – what brakes?

Battery lock removed (with all the plate, gubbins, etc it’s ~500g alone!). Running Conti Enduro casing tyres, reasonably light sets of wheels I had spare, Trickstuff brakes, light saddle, XX T-Type, etc. I reckon I could probably get it close to 23kg with a lighter shock too.

That sounds ridiculous, as I didn’t intend to build it light, and to a degree, I don’t really care about weight on bikes (as long as it wasn’t a 28kg tank) but I had some nice bits spare, so this is how it ended up.

Having had & ridden various ‘SL’ ebikes, I still am of the opinion I wouldnt bother with one, as they still don’t offer me anything more than a normal bike, apart from some of the outlier spurious range/elevation claims which are more than my 62kg Elite XC racing riding buddy can manage on one. 😆

By the time my Kenevo was was an appropriate spec, it was nearly 21kg. My Rail is 23.5kg with a 750wH battery.

I still maintain if it was my only bike, then it might sneak back into the ‘maybe’ category, but then I think I would just be p*ssed off with the reliability aspect, also not being able to race it, taking it abroad is a PITA, etc.

I’m pretty much 780 on everything, which nets at 800 with grips.

Apart from one with a set of 800mm carbon bars which I couldn’t be bothered to cut down.

185cm tall for reference.

Not ebike specific, but I am pretty much a full time trouser convert, regardless of whether the bike has a motor or not.

With the lighter weight versions, I don’t feel any warmer than when most of my skin is covered with shorts, pads & socks anyway.

As for the rest, can’t help you there, but they do love a layer or two 😆

I can’t quite work out why the various reviews keep comparing the more recent Tallboys to the Ripley, which by the numbers should sit right next to the Epic.

Other than the travel, they are very different bikes. I wouldn’t even compare the Ripley to the Spur/Element.

Looks good that. I’m still a bit sulky they didn’t stretch the sizing, as I’m still stuck between the L & XL. The XL Jibb V2 is almost ideal, but I have a great small bike already.

I am not too bothered though, managed to get a Megatower V2 full bike for less than the Madonna frame was going to cost. Fits well & will be ideal for the small amount of riding I do on a big bike these days.

By the sounds of things, the Blur might be more suitable.

Compared to even the Spur it’s significantly stiffer & feels much ‘bigger’. You can build it light, but your probably giving up a decent amount of weight in the frame alone.

It is a really good bike though.

Given the reputation these have for a paper thin downtube that cracks if you even look funny at it, stick with the alloy.

It could even be that the original Nukeproof/Vitus teams had some new stuff for 2025 that was fully or partically designed and developed, and the new owners will simply ask the factory to ‘build whatever those guys designed for you” and then no doubt take the credit and flog it.

There were people already out on the new Reactor, so it was already designed & being manufactured.

Fine, but a 34 Stepcast is almost the same weight and perhaps more reliable and for summer tyres, I always run higher pressures anyway.  I’ve only damaged one tyre in 3-4 years of riding and that was on the Quantocks going waay faster than I should’ve been as I could’t really slow down.

I wouldn’t run one of those either to be fair, but as I said we all have a different view of what trail riding is, which is why bikes like these & various specs exist – to suit what you do.

As to what a trail bike is these days, given quite a lot of XC bikes are up to 120mm travel now, I think it’s generally more than that, with geometry thats designed not to have you sat there in Lycra, chewing the stem off for hours at a time.

There are bikes like the Epic Evo, which is right at the XC end of the spectrum, with the Spur & Element not far behind, then I think something like the current Top Fuel & then the shorter travel stuff thats more capable and can take the abuse, like the Tallboy & Spectral.

They all have their place & they are all great bikes, just a case of picking the one that suits what you do best.

On summer tyres it saves around 250g and with a lighter dropper, brakes, groupset, etc, you’d be able to get another 500g off it fairly easily.  So, low 10s for a 120mm trail bike is easily possible.

Yep, which is fine if you are riding blues & reds at trail centres, but from experience, the SID’s on other half’s Spur lasted a matter of weeks before they got bushing play, the damping cartridge was consistently leaking & the shock went back repeatedly for leaking & knocking. As many a suspension service centre has said, they just don’t belong on a bike like that.

I appreciate my idea of ‘trail riding’ might be different to others, but experience has taught me to accept a weight penalty for reliability & it seems to be around 13kg with suitable parts is that point.

If I want to go & ride my (very) local trail centre, I have a lovely set of very light wheels with Fast Tracks on & the bike is nearly 12kg, but it its not going anywhere near the off piste, as I don’t want to be walking home with a hole the size of my hand in a tyre 😆

I think I need to borrow some scales from other forum users, some of these bikes are remarkably light 🤔

As a confirmed fan of short travel bikes, they are great fun, but if you build them light, they do have their limitations in terms of of reliability, if you are riding tougher & bigger stuff.

We have had 2 bikes that sit right in the ‘downcountry’ genre which is kind of what you seem to want as you have quoted the Epic Evo as an example which have both suffered terminal failures (Spur & Element) so have moved on to slightly heavier built short travel bikes (Top Fuel & V5 Tallboy) which, mostly depending on wheels & tyres are anywhere between 12 & 13kg.

Still great fun & I do most of my riding on one, hopefully just a bit more reliable 😆

It is important

I’m not sure it is.

I’ve got it on one bike with a 55mm chainline, and another with a 52mm & they both shift fine (none with the SRAM crankset).

Some of the posts in this thread have a slight air of entitlement and a lack of empathy about them. Plenty of business do well, in fact thrive, by paying fair wages above the minimum. It works

Equally, the view could be considered that as a lower earner, just because you are a lower earner you are ‘entitled’ to a bigger increase.

We have plenty of lower earners in our business, who are often described as the plodders. They come in, do a job, to a level that just about keeps them off a PIP & go home. The ones who over achieve, tend to move up the ranks & earn more, and get better pay reviews.

We’re not going to devalue the over-achievers efforts, for the same reason we shouldn’t over value the others.

For reference, I say lower earners, our lowest paid basic factory worker & pickers/packers are on £15.50 an hour.

If employers really have limited headroom for pay rises, than absolutely those on the lowest, minimum or near minimum wages, should be prioritised. People gotta eat before other people get their status enhancing extras

Lovely sentiment, but in the real world, we prioritise those who deserve it the most, regardless of their position, or current salary.

Yep, I spent a summer in Whistler about 6 years ago forcing myself to ride clipped in, and never really broke the back of it, went back to flats & was instantly more comfortable.

Last year I made a concerted effort to spend all year on clips, on all of my bikes & I was comfortable by the end of things, but still never really ‘got it’. The only point I noticed a bit of a difference was on super rough, fast trails – and that was mostly due to me being lazy & not dropping my heels.

I’m not an XC racer, so I don’t care for the few % of extra efficiency they give & I think it’s well proven enough now that you can run flats or clips in most gravity disciplines & be one of the fastest riders in the world, so just ride whatever is more natural & comfortable. Being on one or the other doesn’t magically bring new skills or speed, but being clipped does mask a whole lot of bad technique (heels down, picking the bike up, etc).

I went back to flats, because I actually think less about foot related things when I’m riding, so I can focus on that instead.