World Cup fullys: The fastest bikes in the world put to the test

Professional racing is the innovation driver of the mountain bike industry. Because where fractions of a second decide victory or defeat, the material plays a decisive role. The fact that the crème de la crème of the cross-country scene will be meeting at the Olympic Games this year for a major showdown has prompted some manufacturers to revamp their race bikes. We invited three professional bikes that will be competing for the title of the fastest bike in the world to a shootout in Tokyo - BMC Fourstroke, Santa Cruz Blur and the brand new Scott Spark RC (at the top of the picture: Nino Schurter and the Spark RC celebrate their premiere in Leogang)..

With victories in both the marathon and cross-country world championships under Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Jordan Sarrou, as well as the winning era of Julien Absalon, the BMC Fourstroke has long since written itself into the annals of racing history. This year, Ferrand-Prévot will attempt to add another entry to the Fourstroke's list of successes in Tokyo.

Santa Cruz's history of victories, on the other hand, is less spectacular. Until now, the Californians have tended to appear in the Downhill World Cup with bikes focussed on downhill racing. This is set to change this year. Not only have the developers completely redesigned the Blur, they have also signed Maxime Marotte - three-time bronze medallist in the overall World Cup. However, Marotte will not be competing at the Olympics. Instead, his team-mate and Italian champion Luca Braidot will have the honour of driving the new Blur around the Olympic course.

Of course, one bike that should not be missing in such a comparison is the recently launched Scott Spark RC - Nino Schurter's workhorse. Its predecessor was already a real podium guarantor. Together with the riders of the Scott-Sram team, the Spark took more World Cup and World Championship victories than any other bike. But the new race bike probably heralds a whole new era in cross-country racing.

The new Scott Spark RC for 2022: Watch the video for a detailed introduction and first test impressions of Nino Schurter's bike.

It's no secret that race bikes with 120 millimetres of travel are becoming increasingly popular. Accordingly, Santa Cruz and BMC also offer the bikes we tested as 120 mm models. For weight reasons, however, most pros like Marotte and Ferrand-Prévot opt for the lighter 100 millimetre models. Scott, on the other hand, has completely banned the classic race bike from its range with the new Spark (more information on this from page 14) and is thus fully committed to the trend of downhill race bikes with more suspension travel. It also comes with 2.4-inch wide tyres as standard and an extremely downhill-oriented geometry. We have already seen in this test that the concept works. Because with the technical demands of today's racetracks, extreme lightweight construction is becoming increasingly less important than more suspension travel, wide tyres and dropper seat posts.

You can download the complete comparison test of the professional bikes from BIKE 8/2021 as a PDF below the article. The test report costs 1.99 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 BIKE. We don't pay for them, but the opposite is the case: we charge for them, namely tens of thousands of euros every year.

• BMC Fourstroke 01 Two
• Santa Cruz Blur CC XX1 AXS RSV
• Scott Spark RC

ELITEPARTNER: The three professional bikes from Santa Cruz, BMC and Scott are of course not the only candidates that will be represented at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. These five racefullys will also be competing with their riders for victories in Tokyo and at the World Cup. We have already extensively tested all of their available offshoots:

• Cannondale Scalpel Carbon Ltd ->> to the test report
• Specialised Epic S-Works ->> to the test report
• Trek Supercaliber 9.8 GX ->> to the test report
• Canyon Lux CF SLX ->> to the test report
• Orbea Oiz M Team ->> to the test report

Downloads:

The bikes of the pros (pdf)