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The trend is towards a second bike! Admittedly, this statement may sound decadent to many bikers who only have one bike in their garage. However, it is actually due to the increasingly specific material development of recent years. And this, in turn, ultimately has its origins in the ever-increasing demands of bikers. At the beginning of the mountain biking wave in the 1990s, it was absolutely clear that mountain biking mainly took place on gravel tracks! Back then, the core of the sport was the combination of physical exercise, the enjoyment of nature and the feeling of freedom. Today, the technical challenge and the associated adrenaline rush have also become a big part of the fascination for mountain biking. In response to this trend, the industry has shifted its development focus to the extremes of bike sports: for decades, designers have either built bikes that could be used to conquer ever more extreme descents or particularly lightweight competition equipment tailored to the needs of professional athletes.
If you want to savour the full spectrum of the sport in 2021, you basically need an enduro bike to stimulate your adrenaline glands downhill and a lightweight mountain bike so you don't die of hunger pangs on extended tours. But that is now a thing of the past: The latest trail bikes with suspension travel of between 120 and 140 millimetres aim to satisfy all bikers' needs equally. Can this test field really return to the days when you could do everything with one bike?
You can download the complete comparison test of the eight trail bikes from BIKE 4/2021 as a PDF below the article. The test report of the bikes 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.
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- Cube Stereo 120 HPC SLT 29
- Giant Trance Advanced Pro 2
- Müsing Petrol 4C 4.0
- Radon Skeen Trail 10.0 SL
- Trek Top Fuel 9.7
- YT Izzo Pro
- Rose Ground Control 3
