Therefore, unload the front and lean towards the back. When it was (truly) steep, I felt a little ‘forward and exposed’ due to the short top tube in combination with the low front, wide cockpit and the 26-inch wheels. The main feeling: the rear wheel stuck to the ground and provided loads of traction. I did not get precise feedback on how the ground conditions were affecting rear travel. Due to the linear spring rate curve of the rear suspension, it was hard to actively jump. As we reached a rather narrow and steeper singletrack, the bike felt a little cumbersome. The rear seemed to stick to the ground and absorbed hits with ease. The wide cockpit (780 mm handlebar, 50 mm stem) and plush 160 mm chassis offered top-notch control and safety. But what did I really discover? Rough high-speed sections with jumps defined the first section of the descent. Unfortunately, the same happened here: I expected an extremely feisty, joyful, and active bike – not least because of its 26-inch wheels. Wealth of experience is a good thing, but always ends in prejudice. As mentioned before, this bike primarily likes to go downhill. pedals) and 1×10 propulsion, you should not expect a mountain goat for long ascents. The rear suspension can be comfortably adjusted via a remote lever that is mounted to the handlebar (climb-mode of the CTD systems). Little effort was needed to keep the bike firmly on course. Despite the super-slack head angle of 65°, the SX is nicely pedaled uphill – not least due to the 73° seating angle, allowing an efficient seating position. We took the swift gondola to the middle station and started off with some pedaling power to reach the summit. After a quick setup with the Fox specialists, we headed to Vallord bike park. From the first day – which started off a little drowsily – I knew that the SX would be the ideal bike for the first descents. “An enduro with downhill spirit” – Commencal’s definition of the Meta SX makes it clear: this bike wants to ride downhill, with lots of reserves, ready for the rowdiest routes. Over the course of two days, we had the chance to test all three bikes with different wheel sizes – in the bike park, on a mountain top helicopter freeride tour, and on extensive tours with up- and downhill sections. This is, however, not due to a lack of decisiveness, but due to their philosophy of offering the perfect bike with suitable characteristics for every single field of application. Instead of focusing on only one wheel size, Commencal offers their Meta model in all three sizes. Little blah blah, lots of riding on nice trails chosen to exploit the bikes’ (and our!) limits.
We were invited to Commencal in Andorra to find out how ‘enduro’ can be interpreted in many different ways and why the postulation about the pros and cons of wheel sizes and categorization is pointless.Ī press camp held in an exemplary manner. Over there, they simply call them ‘trail bikes,’ and that is exactly what enduro stands for. The fact is that a categorization based on wheel size is difficult and also extremely superfluous! Let’s have a look at Great Britain. The sense and nonsense of this categorization is disputable. In between and above, there were also the categories of freeride-light, freeride, trail, XC, and additional creative creations for bikes that simply were supposed to provide fun on trails. Instead of focusing on the ‘inner values’ and fine points of geometry, the bike’s category was strictly established by outside criteria: 140 mm of travel became categorized as all-mountain, 150 mm clinched the decision for all-mountain plus, 160 mm was an enduro and a 170 mm marked a super enduro bike. Diverging according to its rear travel, a bike was allocated to a category. This was about the time when the media started to report on new inventions, new bike categories, disciplines, and their fields of application.
#WHEEL SIZE COMPARISON HOW TO#
One wheel size, no hard choices to make – and if there was a choice to make, it was little more than how to fit a Schraeder valve into a standard rim. The new wheel sizes have stirred up the bike scene quite a bit during the past few years: our peaceful little world, the stock levels of distributors, the manufacturers’ power to decide, and of course also you guys, the riders!Įverything used to be easier.
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