MTB for a roadie vol 2: Help Choose The Next Bike!

[defblade]

First off, thanks for all the advice on my first thread. It's been emotional

With the Trek up for sale and my determination to get something 29", slacker, trail/all round, still in XL... I've got to choose something!
I'm riding blues and hoping to progress to reds with training and practise; road riding is still my first love though, so this bike will be used probably once a week or so on average.

Bad news: The plan to hire/demo a few has been thwarted by a complete lack of XL bikes at the local hire place , so I'm back to guessing a bit.

Good news: my company got bought out recently, turns out the new lot do Bike2Work, and I creep into the 40% tax bracket, so suddenly buying second hand looks pointless as 40-odd percent off a new bike is better than a lot of second hand prices at the moment!


I've trawled the partner sites, focussing mainly on head tube angle and actual availability. Exact fit not too important according to my bike fit guy as I'm very flexible. Budget is somewhere between £1000-2000 as I think it'd be hard to buy a terrible bike in that range, especially sticking with hardtails.

So what's top and bottom of the charts out of this lot?
Listed in no particular order; there's a couple I'm more drawn to, but not for any good reasons as far as I know!
There's a slightly more budget joker on the end, too.


Ragley Big Al, £1400
Ragley Big Wig, £2000
NukeProof Scout 290 race, £1300
Whyte 529 v4, £1450
Whyte 629 v4, £1750
Ribble HT Al 29, £1700 (cheaper and more expensive builds available... it's Ribble, after all!)
GT Zaskar LT Elite, £1350
GT Zaskar LT Expert, £1650
Orbea Laufey H30, £1500
Orange Crush 29, £1800

And the cheaper one (might be all I need, at about half the price?)
Vitus Sentier, £850


Massive thanks in advance to anyone who even reads through that list enough to have an idea!

Edited by defblade on Friday 22 April 21:57

Edited by defblade on Saturday 23 April 23:39

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@ TGCOTFD: I'm 6' 4" and perched on my 2012 bike. Sadly the 2nd hand budget would be more like £1k as no B2W 43% tax saving... hence this thread

OutInTheShed said:

Not perhaps helpful, but are you sure you want hardtail?
Bunch of people I know all bought Calibre full sus bikes for a bit over a grand and have said they're great.
If you want to do the slack geometry thing, isn't that taking you towards the areas where full sus is a benefit?
I'm not saying you're wrong, more asking you to share your thoughts as I'm in similar circumstances (except being more of a secondhand kind of buyer!)

I'm sticking to hardtails on my list as there mainly seems to be a break at £2k where the FS starts... and that's really pushing the budget for this bike, even on B2W. I'd be a 2nd hand buyer, too, if it wasn't for B2W... but I'd probably still go hardtail. As Missing the VR6 says, the general spec of a hardtail at this (or I guess any) price point will be higher than a FS - there's a much less complicated frame and one less shock to pay for, at least.

Maybe weirdly, the part of riding downhill trails I really don't mind, is the back end skipping around and sliding a bit. I found the same when I did an off-road motorbiking course many years ago... nervous as hell about what the front end is doing, but happy that the back end will follow in it's own good time (or even riding kind of diagonally along the flat with the front wheel in one rut and the back in another).

But being nervous about steep-ish bits and knowing what that front end is doing is pushing me to the slack geo... I've had a very quick pedal up-and-down-a-bit on one, and it felt good.



@TT1138: PlanetX bikes are certainly on my radar, I like the style and I'm not welded to brand names (as you can tell from my "short" list!), but they don't work with my employer's B2W scheme, so they've got to be 40% better for a given price to compete... and I suspect they're close, but not quite.
The Ribble 725 is out as I definitely want 29" wheels... I'm at the top end of their sizing on that one, too (again, probably the wheels).

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pablo said:

I really liked my Cotic BFe, it was perfect for UK trails, big steel hard tail, 140mm forks and 26” wheels. I don’t know enough about forks to advise on the different models listed but I’d Be confident there’s no bad bike amongst them. A 29” hard tail would still be my choice for UK trails.

I really like the Cotics, but the price is a little too high (and IIRC, they don't use the right scheme) so they didn't make the short list.

W00DY said:

Of your list the Big Al stands out for having a great (but not flashy) spec for a very good price. Cheaper steel frames are heavy and give, at best very little ride improvement.
If I was spending more I'd feel robbed by some of those compared to a Sonder Cortex
https://alpkit.com/products/sonder-cortex-sx-eagle

I couldn't see that the Big Wig offered nearly half as much again, and there does seem to be plenty of Ragley love on this thread
I've not studied the Sonder spec and it might be interesting... but Alpkit don't use the right scheme either

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

So at 6'4" OP ideally you want to get a bike that is 500mm and over in 'reach'.
This will give you a fast stable bike that you sit in rather than perch on - less chance of out the front door moments as the bike will be more forgiving.
I'd also look at one that has enough space in the rear to run mullet+ (I. E. 27.5 rear wheel). This set up will allow you to run a plus sized rear tyre which makes a hell of a distance comfort wize. Second hand 27.5 wheels are cheap and plentiful.
In your list of bikes, I'd be looking at the one with the best forks as this will be thing you notice most when pedalling off road. Brakes / groupset - even the lowest spec stuff is good these days.

I'll go back through the list latter with those things in mind - all sounds like good advice, thanks...


...and again, thanks to all taking the trouble to help

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defblade said:

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

So at 6'4" OP ideally you want to get a bike that is 500mm and over in 'reach'.

I'll go back through the list latter with those things in mind - all sounds like good advice, thanks...

Only the Whyte bikes have more than 500mm reach; the Orange is the shortest by some margin and toppy on price so removed; similarly I've pulled the Big Wig as, while it's undoubtedly very nice, I think I'd have to use it hard and frequently to be worth £600 more than the Big Al (which shares most of its geo, apart from headtube length, as far as I can see.
And I'll take out the cheap bike, too - also short in reach, has received zero love... and... I'm not going to buy it over some of the other lookers, am I?

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Oh, this doesn't get any easier!

I've been out today for 6 hours of mtb coaching. Utterly brilliant, and although I'm going to have to practice lots to get it all into muscle memory, I've got a good grip now on what feels right and wrong starting from general riding position, little functional manuals, pumping (too good at that! Back on the brakes a lot!), cornering including berms, small drops (tho enough to accidentally get some air... which feels much less scary that I thought it would) and bigger rollable drops... like the one that threw me OTB 3 weeks ago (very nervous the first time on those!).

But the coach agreed that the Trek is a bit small for me and that, while it's no bad thing to learn on a less forgiving bike, the same skills on a modern geo 29er that fits me better should give a ride that's super smooth and stable (well, for a hardtail). Pics and/or video may appear for your amusement when they come through



In the meantime, I'm still trying to balance reach vs recommended rider sizes - I really want something that I'm going to sit in. I'd ignored the Big Dog as it says up to 6'3" (I agree the price is such that just buying it wouldn't feel too painful without B2W). Same with the Hello Dave.

I've also spent some time on reviews... So gone from the list are the NukeProof Scout (sounds like the sizing wouldn't suit); the 2 GTs - not for the reviews as such, IIRC, but as much as anything I just can't bring myself to like the colour of the nicer one, and that's the one I'd want; the Ribble - not much info available, and it doesn't float my boat as much as some others (I think the reach may have been relatively small, too?); the Orbea loses to the Ragley Big Al in terms of spec vs price; and the Whyte 529 on exactly the same basis.




Which leaves the Big Al (and I've found one video review where the guy waxes very lyrical about the compliance for an ally frame) and the Whyte 629.

For the Whyte, I'm bang in the middle (runs to 6'6").
For the Big Al, I'm at the top end of recommended height.
I've added the Big Dog to comparison sites, and the figures come up very similar to the Ragley, yet I'm above their suggestion.

Comparison site one
Comparison site two
These might be more useful to someone with more knowledge than me?!

The effective prices for me on B2W would be £812 for the Big Al, and £1015 for the 629 - £200 in it, and both very reasonable given current pricing generally.

The Big Al has the Marz Bomber Z2 forks which get lots of love; the Whyte has RS 35 Gold which get lots of "meh, they're ok" and "the stiction frees up over some miles and a decent service".
The Big Al runs Shimano Deore M5100, which again seems to be more popular than the SRAM NX Eagle on the Whyte (although I've got basic SRAM Apex 1x on my road bike, and I'm completely happy with that).
So, on the whole, the Ragley looks like the better buy...
...but...
(a) I'm concerned about the frame size; essentially that's why I'm here. Components are less of an issue to me - I'm not going to pushing anything super hard anyway.
(b) I'm really drawn to the Whyte I like the clean looks and colour. And MBR.co.uk give it a write up that sounds exactly what I'm looking for: " Yes, the size XL is long – in every way – with a 505mm reach matched to a stubby 35mm stem. Factor in the low 300mm bottom bracket height and you really do feel centred and sitting in the bike."



So unless anyone can give me a good argument not to go the Whyte way, I think I'll crack on and start the B2W process Monday

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GravelBen said:

To repeat myself a little from earlier in the thread (though you may have rejected that option for a reason), the Merida Big Trail 600 has similar spec and geo angles to the Big Al but has an XXL size option with 500mm reach. Depends whether its in your discount scheme and finding one in stock too though.

Sorry, I missed replying to you... I did look for one, but as you guess, I couldn't find one in stock in the right places.
I just tried again and in fact, I only found one place that even had the XXL listed at all! (And it was out of stock...)

I suspect there probably would be at least twice as many bikes on my list in old fashioned "normal" times, but it seems those covid shortages are still firmly in place.

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BaronVonVaderham said:

Have you checked out bird bikes yet? UK designed and assembled hence you can spec exactly what you want.
I ended up with a gulf mclaren blue with orange hope bits

https://www.bird.bike/product-category/complete-bi...

Oh yes, very pretty, and reasonably priced... until you add a suspension fork

W00DY said:

Personally I'm not comfortable on a 500mm+ reach hardtail (at 6'4") and prefer something in the 480 range so I would recommend trying one if possible.

Oh, here we go again!
I'd love to try a few out, but there's nothing less than several hours' drive away - the downside of living in West Wales (but fantastic riding on or off road, when you get the right bike! ).

...


Ok, I'm back to writing this after going down the garage and doing some stack/reach research on my current bikes, and taking some photos.

So my road bike has a stack of 612mm, and a reach of 404mm (according to the manufacturer); with a 120mm stem I measured 515mm ish to the centre of the bars. My road bike fits me well, no probs doing 100k rides on it (so long as there's a burger van somewhere halfway or so ).

The Trek has a stack of 630mm, a reach of 440mm, a current reach to the bars of 490mm with the 90mm/35' rise stem and it would have been approx 540mm with it's original 120mm/7' stem on. The Trek felt quite comfy and familiar just riding around to me as a roadie with the original stem, but it put too much weight on my hands off road, and that weight felt too far to being over the front axle for descents.


I lined the 2 bikes level by BB centres as best I could. Turns out the chainstays are within 3mm of each other by official specs, and the saddles pretty much lined up - I've clearly got my rear triangle sorted.
What surprised me then was that the bars lined up in forward/backward terms to, although the mtb bars are obviously higher.






My head is starting to spin a bit now...
So the Trek has higher stack (with added stem rise) and lower reach, both of which would give a more upright position... and I just looked at the picture I posted above, and suddenly realised that I ride on the hoods 90% of the time on the road bike... back to garage , new road bike reach of 515 + 120 to the hoods = 635mm. That makes the figures make more sense; riding the tops is far more like the mtb position.


What I do know is that both an experienced amateur and very experienced/trained/accredited trainer have both said "...that bike does look a bit small for you, to be honest." I'm going to have lots of pics soon from the training day, but they've not turned up yet. I wonder if they would help pin down what would suit?



The Whyte has a stack of 658mm and a reach of 508 + 35mm stem = 543mm. That's back to about the same reach as the original stem on the Trek, but the stack is 28mm higher which would mitigate that a bit (?), and with a slacker head angle meaning the weight should be further behind the front axle... it's clearly all going to be interdependent, which makes everything just so much less clear

Then the Ragley is only 480mm reach, but with a 50mm stem to get 530mm overall, with 6mm less stack than the Whyte (still 22mm up on the Trek).

Easy to either way with stem size on the Ragley tune fit, but not so much if the Whyte feels too long...


I'm really not sure any of that has helped at all!
And, of course, to cap it all off, we're not really interested in how the thing rides when seated anyway beyond working "good enough" to get back to the top of the fun bits, so I can see that more reach and wheelbase gives a greater range of movement and therefore it should be easier to control?

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take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

Set of golf clubs instead?

Gonna need a bike with rack mounts, then



I've been doing a lot of watching and reading this evening. The thing that looks most helpful is based off this video from Joy of Bike - essentially a way of making sure that you can best pivot around the bike in a natural arc using a measurement called RAD (I think someone forced that acronym a little ). Their formula puts my best reach at 482+-10mm. Your extra inch puts you up to 488+-11mm, so you're on to your 500mm reach.
The actual RAD distance (there's a linked video on measuring your own body's) can be worked out, if you can't actually measure the bike, by Pythagoras-ing the stack/(reach+stem)... it won't be perfect, but should be a good idea.

I'll be looking at my RAD height tomorrow (ok, today) and measuring my bikes to see how it works. Roughly, without direct measurements as I'm not going back down the garage past midnight, I think I'm about 800. The Trek is coming in at 768 from my maths, ie, too small/short/cramped; my road bike at 882 which is too long for an MTB and you get plenty of weight on your hands, but that's road.
Does look like it should give a way of balancing all the geo against my body and I've got a sneaky feeling the Ragley will be back in the lead as the first formula suggests 480mm would be my starting point, but I think I'll work through most/all the bikes on the list (and maybe a Merida Big Trail 600 in XL... I think I've seen those around!)

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GravelBen said:

Definitely merit in the RAD method - after trial and error with stem length, spacers and bar rise etc to get a fit that felt right I learnt about RAD, checked it out and the RAD agreed almost spot on with where I'd ended up the slow way.
One more factor, many people prefer a bit shorter reach on a hardtail than they do a full sus because of the way geometry changes as the suspension sags. So its worth taking that into account if you are reading sizing advice based on full sus.
A hardtail gets longer and lower in the front because only the front sags, a full sus gets a bit shorter and the bottom bracket drops lower increasing stack. Basically RAD stays the same but the RAD angle changes in opposite ways, swapping some stack for reach (or vice versa).
Jeff Lenosky has a good video digging into it here:

From my own experience of that (at ~5'10" I'm often in between M and L sizes), I have a size M Giant Reign 29 (FS) and a size L Merida Big Trail (HT). They both have 455mm reach but I have a 50mm stem on the Reign and a 35mm Stem on the Merida, and the Merida still feels slightly longer.

Suspension changing the geo is something I've pretty much decided to ignore... it's going to happen on all bikes, and I'm having enough trouble trying to work out the basics! I'll watch the vid later (and TGCOFTD's as well)

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

The problem with RAD is that attempts to simply model a highly complex system which no one can agree on. For example, it doesn't really account for rider skill and terrain.

Absolutely, but it is the first thing I've found that makes some sense of the variables in geo... and can be roughly applied buying online.

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

(lots of sizing stuff)

It's a shame you're Wales based, if you were near the N York Moors, you could have come over and tried a load of XL frames ranging from 480ish to 535mm.

One thing which may help you decide... During your coaching session.... Did you enjoyed learning to wheelie and manual more than jumps and drops? A longer bike is a pig to manual and wheelie and hold it up over distance. But the longer bike is typically more forgiving on jumps and drops.

And a final point... Whatever you get will be night and day better than your current bike. If you do get the bug, the next step is full suspension, so it's cheaper to experiment with geometry on a hardtail. Also, It might help to go shorter as it be less of an extreme leap from your old bike.

Yeah, N Yorks is a bit of a drive from here!

The bit I enjoyed most was learning small drops... but that maybe because having been sent OTB by one 3 weeks ago, they were also my biggest fear in process. He taught me hanging-off-the-back, which works ok but I wasn't a massive fan of, then crouching-over-the-front-and-pushing-down which is brilliant and really clicked immediately. I may also have been getting a little air at the end of my faster and more confident runs which also felt far more natural than I ever expected. Manuals... well, I can now get the front wheel a few inches up for a bike length which obviously will help with bigger drops/jumps eventually, but that needs practise.

And again, yes, I know whichever bike will be a big improvement, and really feed into all the stuff I learnt at the weekend - watching a couple of vids, it's definitely the "new style" rather than "old skool" styles of riding that felt good to me, even on an old skool bike.

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take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

Just picking up on something you said re being told to hang off the back. It may be lost in translation - hopefully it is - but this is poor advice.
{big cut of good advice}

I saw it shown exactly in a video yesterday. My coach said there's 2 ways to do drops, he calls them "passenger" and "pilot".
Passenger is this: https://youtu.be/k0E4ZuwbNb8?t=55
Pilot is this: https://youtu.be/k0E4ZuwbNb8?t=225
Once I'd tried pilot, I refused to go back to passenger on the next set

GCH said:

Missed this thread.
I have a 2021 ragley big al.... although I bought the 2.0 in purple, not the 1.0 in red that you are looking at, and I made that choice because of the colour.
It is an AMAZING bike. Seriously, it's so, so good..it has gained a lot of fans - hartailparty on youtube was one of the first to review it, which I am sure you have seen in your research. The big wig is absolutely identical to the big al in geometry, just in steel vs alu.
I ride a size L, and the XL is bang on for your height.

Stock has been practically non-existent for ages due to covid and popularity - restocks on CRC/wiggle (who own ragley, along with nukeproof, and vitus) genuinely sell out in minutes - so if, as you appear to have done, you can find one in stock in your size , especially at the price you give with your scheme, jump on it. XLs don't sell out as fast, so that might be your saving grace here. Do it - you won't regret it.

Yes, all the numbers I'm crunching at the moment seem to point to it... although I keep going back to the pics of a 6'2" guy on the Whyte and he looks happy enough...

ETA: also just had a quick message with someone also 6'4" on an XL 629, he said it was fine, quite upright...

Edited by defblade on Tuesday 26th April 00:05

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GCH said:

Get it bought!

Working on it now
Turns out the B2W voucher thing makes it all a bit more complicated, so hopefully the bike (don't know if they've got more than one...) won't disappear in the meantime, as they won't reserve one for you.
But on the bright side, if it does vanish, there's a good few places with 629s in XL

[defblade]

Finally!!!!!









Only unpacked it so far, putting pedals on, protection kit, etc will have to wait for the weekend.


In the meantime, the paint on the welding by the hanger has picked up some rubbing in transit, clean through to the metal in a couple of small patches.
Is this worth complaining to the retailer about, or just accept and forget?
I don't really buy enough new bikes to know what is or isn't acceptable.

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take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

Not remotely acceptable.

Fairy muff... I've sent a pleasantly worded email
Although it's from a discount/end-of-line retailer (StartFitness), this was full RRP so I only feel slightly picky complaining.
I do want to keep this bike tidy; I've got a Dyedbro kit waiting to fit to it before anything else.

Suspect I'll end up with a small credit note or a discount code given their usual business model.
And if nothing, I'll just forget about it :shrug:

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GCH said:

Finally!
I can tell you first hand that all current ragley frames will have some sort of paint defect somewhere as standard in fact, mine had a mark in pretty much the same place as yours when it arrived - it's still there

But, an email certainly won't hurt for some freebies as a gesture of goodwill. It should also have come with some factory touch up paint - check the box.

Looking forward to seeing how it rides for you. My Big Al is one of the best bikes I've ever ridden. I love it.

No touch up paint in the box (It wasn't in the original box)
But I have emailed Ragley to ask if any is available.

And fair play to Start Fitness, they've come straight back and offered a £30 gift card to make up for my terrible suffering, which is quite generous for what it is IMO I would/will be spending more than that with them over time anyway


Lots of work on in the week and a busy weekend (wife's 50th birthday) means sadly I probably won't have a chance to get out riding as such this weekend, or even next week... I think I'll be lucky to squeeze in getting it set-up properly...

BaronVonVaderham said:

Don’t understand the obsession now with paint protection on MTB frames. I like to look after things but it just seems overkill.

I'm not sure I understand myself... if hadn't have noticed a half price kit, I might not have bothered!
And not only will an mtb pick up more damage regardless, this one is ally, so it's not like it's steel that'll rust if the paint goes through.
And I haven't worried about my old steel tourer - I just Krust the chips - or my year-old ally road bike. I think it's mainly seeing how nice the Trek was when it came to me that has made me think about keeping the new one tidy... And I get to spend money on bike stuff

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defblade said:

[

BaronVonVaderham said:

Don’t understand the obsession now with paint protection on MTB frames. I like to look after things but it just seems overkill.

I'm not sure I understand myself... if hadn't have noticed a half price kit, I might not have bothered!

And I started fitting it (DyedBro kit)at the weekend... gave up fairly quickly. Got a half-reasonable finish with the crank protectors and the transparent bit that covers under the downtube, but the patterned stuff just massively dulled off the paintwork as it was so thick and matt. No point having pretty paint you can't see!

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GCH said:

Looking forward to seeing how it rides for you. My Big Al is one of the best bikes I've ever ridden. I love it.

BaronVonVaderham said:

Enjoy the new bike!! Looking forward to hearing how it compares to the old school geometry.

Finally had the time (and weather) to get out into the woods today.

First off, having said it just about fits on my roof rack, the wheel straps on the chocks wouldn't go around the tyres until I'd let most of the pressure out! New straps ordered...
Oh, and the portable stand I've got for setting up/washing doesn't reach the back axle on this one. Just about works on my road bike with 32mm/700c tyres, but this it just too tall for it. So I'll getting something else for that.

I grabbed the front mud guard off the old bike for now, even so it flicked a lot more stuff up into my face. Happily, for the first bit, I was doing the final descent to the car park, so I grabbed my clear riding glasses on the way past. I also stopped to move the controls inwards a good inch.

Modern geo... this bike is not quite as slack and lazy as the 2 FS bikes I've had very short goes on, but that may be down to being a hardtail anyway?
It's far less twitchy at the front end than the Trek; it feels like it takes longer to go off line, and easier to pull back on when it does... like it's working with you to stay calm where the Trek is a bit hyper as you correct the correction. I like.

Although talking of hyper, the back end on this thing is exactly that - which I don't mind. It's more noticeable at medium speeds; as the pace goes up, it seems to settle down a bit more. I think the chainstays are similar in the length to the Trek's - I wonder if the CF Trek is a bit more compliant than the ally Ragley? It's there on climbs, too.

The biggest confidence boost was when I came to steeper bit on the blue descent. I didn't like it on the Trek, and still pulled to a halt at the lip on the Ragley. The difference is, it was easy to then continue on down it on the new bike - the front wheel is still ahead of me, whereas the Trek on the same bit felt like I was already over the bars/front axle. On the Trek, I had to back up a bit and screw some nerves up to get in position/back before reaching it; on the Ragley I just restarted and rolled. In fact, I noticed several times that it was far easier to re-start when pointing downhill on the new bike, it feels like there's time and stability to get on the pedals and into position... that alone makes it worth it.

By the time I was 8-10 miles in, I was using far less brakes and even pumping occasionally! It felt far easier/safer to carry some speed.


Incidental to the bike, the pedals I got for this bike (£40 HT plastic ones) suit me far better than same-price NukeProof ones on the Trek - I had no foot bounce at all, but was still able to re-position with ease. I found the NPs stopped me moving without totally taking my foot off and putting it back on again, but still spat me off from time to time. (Maybe the tail of the Trek isn't more compliant after all???)

Not at all sure about the tyres. Although it seems to be widely considered meta for bike parks and big DH stuff, the Minion DHF/DHR2 combo in 3C EXO+ feels like total overkill for my riding, so may be swapped out in favour of something a bit lighter and more roll-y.


Finally - maybe a weird question, as I've never seen anyone else do this - but is there any reason not to put a second set of grips, or maybe some bar tape at least, inboard of the controls each side? I'm narrow in the shoulders despite being XL (I changed down to 40cm bars on my road bike) and found it was much nicer holding the bars inboard either side of the stem when climbing... but not very comfortable on my hands!

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I don't even think about the bars when I'm going downhill, it's only dragging up the climbs. I think I'll bodge something on there (I've got some thin pipe lagging foam that would probably do the job) for now and see how it goes.
I could try moving the grips and controls inwards instead, but then I'd run out of room for my hands in the middle and just end up with a more compromised position for both jobs...

I'm certainly going to look at swapping the tyres out; as the Minions are very popular, hopefully I can end up cost-neutral on that one
(Or I might tell myself I'll sell them on, but actually hang them on a hook with all the others... "just in case" )

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defblade said:

I'm certainly going to look at swapping the tyres out;

Just ordered a pair of Vittoria Barzo tyres.
They seem to get decent reviews for general trail use, and at the price Merlin have them (£25 each, down from £60-odd, if you don't want to click the link above), I decided they were well worth a punt. Going to run them tubeless, the bike came with the valves and apparently has the right tape fitted from the factory, so that's two experiments in one

[defblade]

New tyres are great! Much nicer climbing, and keep me rolling over all the little lumps that needed a pedal stroke or two with the Maxxis.
Although I'm generally nowhere near the grip limit in speed terms, the new ones do seem to have a fair bit more available under braking, especially at the rear. Might be partially going tubeless though? But I certainly wasn't pushing the bottom limit of pressures today - I need to get a puncture kit first, at least!


Speed has definitely picked up overall - I had 14 achievements across 16 segments on today's ride around Brechfa
I even actually cornered on a berm instead of wobbling around the bottom of it slowly/upright

Damn hot out today though, one lap was enough.

Now, while these tyres are just £25, do I order another pair?