Enough suffering! The days of bulky race hardtails with a rack feeling are over. The new generation rides comfortably and manoeuvres nimbly around every bend. But how much do you have to invest in a thoroughbred racing machine? To answer this question, we have brought two real cross-country pros into the test team as reinforcements.
The pros Markus Schulte-Lünzum (Focus) and Simon Stiebjahn (Bulls) scourged eleven exciting race hardtails for the 2017 season around the race track of the Bike Arena Obertraun. To make the test even more exciting, we have invited two categories for comparison. Prestigious top models have to justify their prices of between 6000 and 10,000 euros against the supposed middle class for under 5000 euros. Our pros were surprised at how aggressively the cheaper bikes stood up to their expensive counterparts on the racetrack.
Read on to find out how much fun these hardtail bikes really are and who wins the test.
in BIKE 1/2017 - on newsstands from 6 December. You can also read the complete issue in the BIKE app (iTunes and Google Play) or in the DK shop order:
