WELCOME TO PINKBIKE x BETA 2022
BICYCLE VALUE TEST
9 Full suspension and hardtails, driven and rated
Words by Mike Levy, photo by Tom Richards
Do you remember that we once inspected a $ 9,000 bike and it really disappointed us? Yes me too. It turns out that when you throw a bunch of exquisite parts in an exquisite frame, the final product is also exquisite and probably not nasty, which sometimes leaves us with little to say except old-fashioned banalists and trivial criticisms about cable routing or chain protection pen.
But dial that number for less than $ 3,500 for a full suspension bike or hardtail that costs less than $ 2,100, and things get a lot more interesting. This time, the crew headed south to Tucson, Arizona, for our annual Value Bike field test, which saw nine reasonably priced machines face each other on rough, rocky desert trails. Two weeks of riding later and we can (almost) agree on which bike is the most impressive, which scares us the most and how much the orca can eat the human body before it needs serious medical help.
Let’s be honest: hardtails can be a lot of fun, but I suspect most of us would prefer to ride a bike with a full suspension most of the time. The downside for some is that while they can certainly provide you with more comfort, traction and speed than just the front suspension, additional moving parts also mean more money, weight and complexity. It’s less of a worry if you’re good at spending big money, but it’s a different story if your budget exceeds $ 3,500 or less, as we did with our five full suspension bikes. Then there is something to talk about in our upcoming reviews. Want to get a mountain bike, but don’t have a lot of money to spend? While full-suspension platforms made almost entirely of carbon fiber get most of the titles, hardtails offer a simpler and therefore cheaper way to get into driving. And because you don’t pay for the extra engineering, material, and all these axles, they often have an impressive spec sheet that a dual-suspension bike at a similar price can’t even come close to.
But they’re not just for budget motorcycles, as those who can’t get through the riding season without breaking another set of chains, destroying another set of bearings or blowing another blow may be more fortunate – and less time off the bike – by choosing a hardtail.
How do we choose bicycles?
from “choose,“What I really want to say is,”Please just send us any bike you have in stock.“If you’ve been trying to buy a new ride at any time in the last few years or even just parts of a bike, you already know that you’re more likely to come across the Ark of the Covenant than the 12-speed chain and derailleur that you were actually looking. However, Casimir somehow sweetly paved the way for five full-suspension motorcycles that retail for $ 3,500 USD or lower, and four hardtails that sell for $ 2,100 USD or less.
Yes, a few more bikes would be good. Yes, some of the prices went up after the fact. And yes, the Casimir can be downright charming when he wants to be, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell him how disappointed you are that he failed to pick up the exact motorcycle you wanted – you should – see a review of this field test.
This is our tenth field test, and it doesn’t even include all the trips Casimir and I have made over the years before we have a name for them, so the testing process is locked so far. It’s not complicated: head for a short test tour and then do another. Then make another one, and another one, and then a bunch more. After doing this, we head to a few test tours before heading to some test tours after returning from performing test tours. Then, when we get back, we go for a few more la … Okay, you get the point; there is nothing better than short, repetitive tours of a route that suits any type of bike we ride.
This consistent testing is key because it allows us to compare, uh, comparable bikes much better than if we ride them in isolation, and highlights the exceptional differences in geometry, suspension performance and bike specifications. Just don’t call it a shootout, do you?
All these tours would not matter if the trails were with a pom-track rather than a single track. But on the same hand, as much as we like to look like we know what we’re doing in pictures of us sketching terrain, none of these reasonably priced motorcycles are designed for do-or-die lines. In fact, they have to be ridden on a single track that meets their intentions, which I would say is riding on a light to moderately busy track with some rough stuff thrown in for good measure.
And that’s exactly what Tucson gave us; wavy paths with a mixture of difficult, low-speed ascents and fast, rough descents, all of which were paved into sharp rocks and either all traction or no traction to keep us on our toes. The trip was mostly smooth, although there were a few crashes during our two weeks of driving, as you might expect, and we also had some mechanical concerns that we’ll talk about in the upcoming review videos. Oh, and this time Palmer had to sew his Maxxis rear tire by hand to get out of the desert before dark, but we’ll get to those backstage stories in a future podcast.
Our field tests for value bikes are slightly different from normal group reviews in that we are less concerned about using control tires to equalize traction and efficiency and put much less emphasis on lap times. Why? Well, we suspect that if you’re looking for a bike in this price range, you probably want to know more about how it performs the way it does, rather than how it works, once we’ve installed $ 250 in a tire that’s much better than any tire. availability of the motorcycle.
In other words, if you’re spending all your hard-earned fun tokens on a bike that costs $ 3,500 or less, the spec definitely matters, and we didn’t want to overlook such an important factor.
Speaking of ignoring things, determining the time of our tours will always be something in these gatherings, as it gives us another indicator for comparison and discussion, but we also know that a difference of a few seconds between two profitable bikes is certainly not important does not mean that one is better than the other. After all, maybe our legs felt better in the morning, or maybe it was all the orcha that made me go so fast and miss Casimer?
However, given that our nine test bikes differ so much in geometry, suspension performance and specifications, don’t be surprised to see some notable differences in the timing table. However, how much stock you put in these numbers is up to you.
Impossible ascent, (non) performance test, & Huck to Flat
While the stopwatch doesn’t lie, we all really base our purchasing decisions, don’t we? I mean, it won’t be a field test without some pointless climbing before you get to the bottom of a flat platform pancake, so you can expect the series to end with Matt Beer driving all nine of these bikes up something steep and after it starts with something stupid.
What we are not doing this time is the efficiency test. I know, I know, you’re probably as angry about it as I am, but listen to me; since cheap motorcycles have different tires and four of them are hardtails, we thought our time could be better spent on something else, so the extra climbing was replaced by a video that breaks down each of the components in all bikes, which impressed us the most. In it we will talk about which budget forks, actuators, brakes, dropper and other parts worked best, along with a few things that definitely did not.
Mike Casimir, Alicia Leggett, me and Ryan Palmer of Beta spent two weeks in Tucson, Arizona, evaluating and comparing our nine test bikes as we ate Mexican food for each meal of each day, including lunch before noon, second dinner and a warm midnight churos .
As usual, the test duties were divided among many riders to give us some perspectives on how each of the bikes performed; we agree on most things, but not on everything, and this allows us to calmly discuss our different opinions as well-adjusted adults. Yes, that’s how it went …
Matt Beer Height: 5’10 “/ 178 cm Weight: 170 lb / 77 kg Notes: Technical editor, allergic to everythingMike Kazimer Height: 5’11” / 180 cm Weight: 160 lbs / 72.6 kg Notes: Managing alien Legget tech editor, noted: 10 “/ 178 cm Weight: 148 lbs / 67 kg Notes: News editor works as technical editor Mike Levy Height: 5’10” / 178 cm Weight: 155 lb / 70 kg Notes: Technical editor, no I’m sure it’s aliens or people from the Palmer lizard: R6 183 cm Weight: 200 lb / 90 kg Notes: Beta’s senior technical editor, too poor to be this snob
Although Ryan, Casimir, Matt, Alicia and I are in front of the camera for these field test projects, the five of us don’t even know how to pull the focus or where to install the film. We would be completely lost without our overloaded video and photo team – Max Barron, Tom Richards and Lear Miller – who not only make sure we’re mostly in focus, but also manage to make us look much better than we really are. . And then, after filming for two weeks, we lock them in the Pinkbike editing cave and feed them only Timbits through a small hole in the wall until they come out on the other side pale, thick, and with a finished video series.
Speaking of ready-made videos, which bike review do you expect the most? Which bike looks the least promising?
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