The World Cup circus really deserves its name! Because what did a circus do to people in the past? It fascinated them with the unbelievable: high-wire artists - without a net! Lion tamers - oh God! Fire breathers - come to the rescue! Circus, that was: Danger! Drama! "I can't even watch it!"
That's exactly how we feel in the FREERIDE editorial team when we sit in front of the energy drink internet player on Sundays and watch the fastest riders in the world ride the razor's edge. "Woah, Danny Hart almost highsided into the premature end of the season at Mach 2! Whaaat? It starts to rain and Gwin still sets the fastest split time? Aaah, Greg Minnaar's far too big rear wheel is shot again!" We age faster as we watch the pros zoom down the mountain. And start discussing immediately after the end of the race. What part did the rider play in the victory? What about the bike? This year in particular, the material was the subject of more heated debate than it has been for a long time: the Santa Cruz Syndicate put 29-inch downhill bikes on the starting line at the season opener in the pilgrimage town of Lourdes. What a sacrilege! From now on, buyers and manufacturers were looking at the results lists with double anticipation: would the tractor tyres crush the competition and send all the bikes currently on sale to the scrapheap before they even went on sale? In the beginning it looked like this: The team with 29-inch tyres set fabulous times in training and could only be slowed down in Lourdes by the weather god (blasphemy!) via flash floods.
You can find the test results of these World Cup Big Bikes in the download area below:
- Canyon Sender CF 9.0
- Intense M16C Pro
- Mondraker Summum Pro Team
- Specialised S-Works Demo 8
- Trek Session 9.9 DH 27.5
- YT Tues CF Pro Race
Now the season is over - and all the peaks are quiet. A 27.5-inch bike has won the overall World Cup. A 27.5-inch bike has won the World Championship. Not a revolution. No leftover ramp for bikes with smaller wheels. Thank goodness! In the end, five of the six bikes in this test still correspond to what the pros had under their bums in the race. With the YT Tues, the Canyon Sender and the Specialized Demo, the top 3 of the final ranking is even represented. The Mondraker made it to 6th place under Danny Hart, with only the 29er prototypes from Santa Cruz and Intense in between. And only the Intense M16 is "outdated", because the 29er carbon frame from Jack Moir (he rode it to 4th place in the overall classification and at the World Championships) appears to be ready for production and should soon replace the 27.5 model.
We tested in two waves: On the first day, the FREERIDE crew rode the bikes through the Bischofsmais bike park. On the second day in Schladming, we engaged World Cup pro Wyn Masters (neutral, as a GT factory rider) and asked for his assessment. Surprisingly for us, his riding impressions and tuning recommendations were very much in line with ours. Only when it comes to personal set-up are there literally worlds apart between amateur downhillers and professionals. Wyn, for example, ran 50 PSI more in the Rockshox fork (125 PSI!) - in our opinion, this made the bike unrideably firm. And the comfort wonder Specialized Demo, our favourite of all, was far too soft for Wyn Masters.
ConclusionThe World Cup circus not only brings us spectacular action, but also spectacularly good bikes. It is hardly surprising that there is little to complain about in this Formula 1 test field. The scores are at a very high level across the board. The manufacturers now know exactly what they are doing - and we customers benefit from this.
