Eurobike has come and gone. And for me the highlight of the show was the new SCOTT Genius. Not only is it a great advance on the previous model. But it is the lightest 150mm travel frame and shock available. And for me, it rides really great!
On the second day of the show, the guys from SCOTT added an absolute showstopper to the stand. A genius that weighed 8.92kgs! The bike features hydraulic gear shifters, which actually seemed to work!
This year Eurobike is once again dominated by lightweight parts. It seems all the innovation is going into making parts super light. On the bike front, I found some interesting suspension designs from Corratec.
The Trek lineup looks really hot for 2009 and my feeling is that some manufacturers are taking a step back. The new Epic from Specialized does not excite me at all. The rear shock is really tiny in real life, and I can only wonder what it rides like since I did not get a chance to ride it at the demo day. Giant must win the award for the most boring bikes of 2009! Then to make things worse, it seems that
Enjoy the pictures!
I have just come back from the demo day where I managed to ride 7 bikes. And pretty much, tire myself out! What you have to remember at these events is that if you want to ride lots of bikes you need to be pretty fit.
I started out riding the Scott Spark 20. This is really a great bike. it is very XC biased and seems pretty fast. The 120mm travel up front seems to work well and the bike still climbs very well. The rear with 110mm is very good and the tracloc lever on the handlebar helps you to keep everything in control.
I them moved to the new Scott Genius, and for me this was the best bike of the day. The tracloc lever adjusts travel from 150mm to 93mm to locked out and to match, up front there is a Fox Talas, with 3 adjustable travel settings. The bike rides really light, and the question I kept on asking myself was; with no weight penalty at all, why wouldn’t you want this as your do it all bike. I am pretty sure this bike can be raced, and you can have a stack of fun on it!
Then I rode the Trek EX. This was a very good bike too. Full carbon and very active. The only issue I seemed to have was that my heel kept on clipping the seat stay.
The worst bike of the day was next, the
I rode the Merida 96 for about 500m then took it back. It was too small and the rear suspension felt much like my hardtail. The bike is way to firm in the beginning of the stroke.
The Specialized Stumpjumper, rode very well. The futureshock was a problem for me. I could not get the rebound right and when I tried to wheelie it made big cluncking noises! When I hit the first roots on the technical downhill the bike nearly three me off! I guess I just needed some help to get the set up right?
Then on to the Cannondale Scalpel. This bike, is like a road bike! it has super aggressive angles that make you feel like you are riding downhill all the time, the lefty worked pretty well, to my surprise. But the rear is terrible! I found that the bike worked the best when it was locked out at the back. Can you believe that?
Tomorrow the show starts, so watch this space for more updates on what is hot in MTB!
