Shooting on the cheap? Wait a minute. 3000 euros is a lot of money and certainly not cheap. But if you consider what you get for it - "cheap shooting" does apply to our test. In other words, cheap in the sense of good and inexpensive. We pitted three mail-order big bikes against each other. Why only three? Well, there aren't that many manufacturers who can produce a big bike for 3000 euros.
You will find these bikes in the test
- Canyon Sender AL 6.0
- Propain Rage AL
- YT Industries Tues Base
- Reference bike: Specialised Demo Race 29
Otherwise, Radon was still part of the party with its beautifully light Swoop 200 (15.8 kg). Unfortunately, this is no longer available, although in our last Test (FR 3/18) could still win the test. Shipper Rose is currently working on a new double-bridge Soulfire, Bergamont didn't want to send its Straightline, and Commençal was forced into the home office by the corona crisis. The wild Furious had to stay in Andorra, even though we would have loved to test it.
Keyword: Corona. Yes, we're suffering too, because - bike parks? All closed. Really all of them? No, we got a special permit at the Geißkopf. This time we engaged World Cup racer Johannes Fischbach as our celebrity tester.
Big bikes are the motocrossers among mountain bikes. No other bike class exudes as much sexiness as the double bridge bikes. And no other bike is as much fun when it comes to destroying metres in altitude - even if some enduro bikes (see Test in the Enduro Special) increasingly mutate into mini downhillers. The stiff double-bridge forks with the extra suspension travel alone boost confidence and forgive riding mistakes. So if you are considering a big bike as a second bike, we can only recommend these bikes.
You can download the complete comparison test of three affordable downhill bikes under 3000 euros from FREERIDE 2/2020 as a PDF below the article. The test costs 1.49 euros.
Why not free of charge? Because quality journalism has a price. In return, we guarantee independence and objectivity. This applies in particular to the tests in FREERIDE. We don't pay for them, but the opposite is the case: we charge for them, namely tens of thousands of euros every year.
