12 Aggressive Trail and Downcountry Bikes Tested For Efficiency | 2021 Fall Field Test 

hard not to love Henry!

Because he's a normal man and not a 1-dimensional industry bro.

Pinkbike looks the right place for him. He looks happy there way more than at Gmbn. I also watch more Pinkbike than Gmbn.

He was my stand out favourite at GMBN I was gutted when he left

@@finroddd nah, he looked just as happy over there.

Someone else that watches the Peak Torque and coach Dylan channels. :D

@@VincentJGoh Not just these, but of course =)

This isn't the fault of the power meters. This is the fault of different tires between the DC bikes and the trail bikes. Aside from that, the test is properly controlled, and fixed power at the pedals is the appropriate way to control the test, and the results of the test contradict your criticism, with the Giant indeed expressing a difference in efficiency between the climb and trail damper settings. If the methodology was flawed, you should expect a different result (no difference or opposite difference) for that test. I'm sure that subtlely, the differences in riding position between the different bikes *might* make the controlled power output "feel" easier or harder, but at the end of the day, you're expending the same energy output, and since we *do* get differentiation across the bikes in ways that align with our intuition about how the bikes should stratify based on the qualitative descriptions in the reviews, I don't see a reason to doubt the accuracy of the results.

@@thatspsychotic I don't disagree that the tires play a huge role and some having "Race XC tires" and others "Minions" will definitely make a difference. Not 20 sec over a 160 sec course, but would make a notable one. And if those were indeed hardtail bikes with control tires, I would not scrutinize it much, but since there are the aforementioned tests, both from a "lab" study referenced in Dylan's YT channel and tried - for proof of concept - by Peak Torque in real-world and are more elaborate than that PinkBike performed (control (same) tires, way more repetitions etc), I would not trust pinkbike's specific test - or your opinion - over the more elaborate findings. Also, on the Giant with and w/o LiveValve, they timed 163 sec with and 165 sec without. This is 0.98% difference for those counting, and for a real-world, loosely controlled course test, probably well within the expected deviation. I doubt you would get less than 2sec spread consistently running the same bike up and down ten times without changing any settings. Thus you do MANY repetitions and you iron out/normalize results in tests that want to hold to the most basic scrutiny. Would not make the best bikes in this PB test challenge the results of the slower ones, but differences of a few seconds up or down are negligible IMHO. Yes, the power meters don't lie, but if you read my initial comment, I never claimed the opposite. I also see no validity in the thinking "I will test everything with open shock, even tho some bikes come with remote lockout lever in the cockpit". You are clearly tailoring the test to favor some bikes, by using others outside what their design and marketing aimed for. I am not calling for a "double blind" test, but please, that is just too basic. In the past, they did at least have control tires, now it seems they don't even try. This was the least informative video of this series IMHO. At least in the others, they were recognizing their subjectivity. Here, trying to imply being objective, is what "ruins" it.

Bingo! This is the correct answer, and why they kept feeling like "a bike should be faster, but clock is the clock". Power at the pedal is half the story.

Well.. me living in the netherlands, I did a couple of timed lapes on Michelin wild enduros 27.5x2.4 vs vittoria barzo's 27.5x2.6. On average flat terrain, say 20 ish kilometers, the vittoria's saved me about 15 mins. around an hour for the enduro tires, and45 mins for the agressive xc tires. same bike, propain tyee.

@@kevinbindervoet3872 ya I imagine the difference is quite drastic, having raced xc and enduro, going back to my enduro tires felt like riding with a boat anchor

You asked THE good question ! This video is useless 🥳

Top Fuel rides on XR4 2.4 … do you consider that knobby or not. I would certainly not call those xc tires. Tires are part of the total package. Of course you can swap them out for faster rolling or more grippy tires but at the end of the day there is little point in putting xc tires on downhill focussed bikes or vv.

95% tires, 2% weight of bike, 2% rider induced variation (gearing/cadence, line choice, posture/aero drag, luck, coincidence, error), 1% bike make and model, 0% price of bike. All DC rides were within +/- 2.5% of each other, trail within +/- 1.8% of each other. Trail tires 20% slower than DC tires.

they roll pretty good. lol u need mud tires

Def thought the blur would be most efficient, but not too surprised about the Trek

That bike is absurd. People will ride anything if they think it makes them faster.

@@sapinva you think the bike is absurd or the live valve?I think it will be a great bike without it

@@lee.j7077 Yes the valve. I'm sure the bike is just fine.

lol

That’s a huge part of it. Especially the MaxxGrip compound.

Bike weight would also be a factor. Downcountry would generally be reckoned to be lighter. Maybe as much as 3kg depending on the model. The wheels and tyres alone are 1.1kg heavier on my Trail bike compared to my Downcountry despite them both being carbon.

About 90% is the tire. And then for each 1% of lower system weight (bike+rider) you get 1% faster climbing speed.

You mean between xc and trail tire efficiency. With same tires all bikes would have much smaller differences.

i wonder the same thing...

the tires, it makes an insane difference

@@ostankovalex1176 this is the correct answer, don't be fooled by this test.

I'd say around 20,000$, but thats still possibly as much as the truck itself!

If you're putting out the same power, it doesn't matter how tired you are (albeit maybe some other physiological losses like others have mentioned).

@Lala Indeed

First, the bike might be heavier. It may also force a more upright position, which leads to aerodynamic losses. Better pedalling feel is usually code for “minimal suspension bob”, but that doesn’t tell you much other than the suspension isn’t squashing under pedalling forces. Weight and aerodynamics are likely to dominate the actual times.

In the value bike field test, the Ripley won the efficiency test, which agrees with the sporty pedal feel reported. But the pedal-bob Polygon scored a second behind. In the end I can’t tell what the advice is. It undermines the case for expensive and sophisticated suspension.

@@sivanm2130 in some ways, but the complexity of the suspension is about how you want the bike to ride. How well it climbs on a gravel road is one aspect, but how well it goes up and down technical sections is another. We saw that the Element was the only one from that group to make it up the impossible climb, so how much do we care that it wasn’t the “most efficient” up this one? Even with simple designs, there’s a lot of ways to get them right or wrong. I’ve been riding single-pivot and 4-bar suspensions for a long time, and they’re better now despite having the same fundamental designs as in the past.

They measure the amount of watts measured with a computer to accurately test the bikes efficiency... They also have the same suspension settings with the same sag, so they should have a pretty accurate test for the bikes.

Because downcountry bikes are designed as a XC with an extra for downhill stuff, hence the the name

Downcountry is basically XC

@@theguy1633 so downhill is the opposite of xc, but down country is pretty much the same as xc? Perhaps we should start boycotting the brands that keep introducing all these BS marketing terms.

@@2bfrank657 Downcountry is basically just aggressive XC. Doesn't deserve its own name imo which us what I just call it XC or "Agressive XC"

It's between a verticality and cross-mountain bike. Like what used to be called an all-track bike but with geo more like a rock-county/sender frame. Personally I don't see any advantage over a good old rough-course rig with 150/140mm travel front/rear, otherwise you might as well just step up to the free-duro class. Having said that, there is a we bit of overlap in these categories and you could probably cover every style of mountain biking with just seven or so different bikes.

@@2bfrank657 all of my bikes are rigid single speeds. I guess this is just beyond me.