YT Decoy 29 Core 3 review: still the best ebike?

The original Decoy was a 165mm travel electric enduro mullet that marked a new era of ebikes that were actually fun handling. What effect has hacking 20mm of travel off the Decoy and slapping on some bigger wheels had on this modern cult classic?

Looks versus hucks

The effect of the aesthetics of mountain bikes are interesting. If a bike looks like it’ll be ace, does that affect the rider’s experience? I think the answer is fundamentally… it depends.

Given two bikes of equal capability but of differing levels of prettiness, the prettier bike will be the one that people rate higher. Quite often I’ve fallen foul of exciting bikes that look ace but turn out to offer a disappointing ride experience.

Although it’s tempting to write “and vice versa”, in my experience, the instances of ugly-duckling naff-looking bikes turning out to be amazingly rad swans are extremely rare. It’s seemingly hard to break the self-fulfilling rule that pleasing function inherently leads into pleasing form.

Why am I going on about aesthetics, ducklings and swans? Because the YT Decoy, to mine and many others’ eyes, is a rad looking bike. It certainly looks loads radder than some five-figure ebikes from so-called premium bike brands.

And the Decoy rides just as rad as it looks.

I’m normally not swayed by carbon but if carbon is what it takes to achieve the look of the Decoy, consider me sold on the black stuff. And yeah, the ‘Ice Green’ colour of the YT Decoy 29 Core 3 is really freaking cool too.

Geometry inspector

Although I was wholly sold on the looks of the Decoy before I had even ridden it, I had some serious reservations about the geometry. The head angle (65.8°) sounds rather steep. The reach (483mm on this XL) looks a bit on the short side.

During the very first ride on the Decoy I stopped and got my phone out. Not to take some vainglorious Instabanger (for once). I fired up my phone’s clinometer app and had a measuring sesh. Hmm. Once back at base I grabbed my workshop angle-finder to have another look.

Yep, turns out the head angle is around a degree slacker than YT claim. At a bit under 65° it’s still not exactly wildly progressive but it’s certainly noticeably more stable/confident/fun than you’d expect from the geo chart.

The fork is also of the olde worlde 51mm offset variety. Which I always tend to prefer on 29ers unless the geometry is significantly lengthy and/or slacky.

That wasn’t the only figure that wasn’t as expected. The chainstays are longer than the claimed 458mm. They’re closer to 470mm. These lengthy stays are actually most welcome in my opinion but that’s the opinion of someone who rides L-XL bikes.

Short riders: YMMV. Anyhoo, if you aren’t a tall human being, go for the Decoy MX. It has the chainstays you’re looking for. This mullet-for-modest-height riders is reinforced by the relatively high rise bar and generously lengthy headtube. The front end felt bob-on for me but shorter riders may feel a bit ‘lost’ behind the front end (especially when factoring in the relatively low BB ride height).

How does it feel?

Back to the chainstays. I do think there’s all kinds of guff spouted about the cliched benefits of short chainstays though. Especially on ebikes. A bike weighing over 50lbs is never really going to ‘pop’.

That said, there is great feel from the rear suspension and this, combined with the supportive fork up front, does make the Decoy perfectly adept at unwrighting the rear wheel to instigate drifts, step-outs and rear wheel lifts. The bike is not permanently stuck to the ground, nor always locked onto a line of its own choosing that you just have to relent to.

The key factor here is balance. Neither the front tyre contact patch nor the rear tyre contact ever feel like they’re too close to you. And you can choose to weight or unweight either of them at any point you like. Similarly you can weight both tyres equally a really rip around corners like some kind of Valentino Rossi (in your mind, at least).

Bits ‘n’ bounce

The rear shock looks a bit weedy to those of us used to seeing fat piggyback shocks on ebikes these days. In practice, it was totally fine. It possibly got a bit warm by the end of descents but I wouldn’t make any claims to have noticed it had any appreciable effect on the ride. I would imagine if your usual riding involves descents that last longer than two minutes (not the UK then), you may wish to have a beefier shock.

The V4L rear suspension works really well. Compared to YT’s non-assist V4L full-sussers the anti-squat figure has been toned down. This is a sensible move for an ebike. Far better to sacrifice some pedal efficiency in return for as more consistent and capable feeling back end.

Spec-wise, the Decoy 29 Core 3 is typical of a YT. They know how to spec a bike where it matters. Good brakes, good wheels, good suspension. They’ll never please everyone with finishing kit but at least there’s nothing wholly unsuitable out of the box.

In fact, aside from the balloony front tyre, the only thing I’d immediately swap out are the grips. I can’t imagine anyone liking grips that firm and slippery. Putting nicer grips on really does take the sting out as well as upping the overall control.

Overall

The YT Decoy 29 is quite a different machine to the original mixed-wheel Decoy (now classified as the Decoy MX). As well as essentially just being better suited to taller riders, the Decoy 29 is less of an all-out winch-and-plummet woodland session shredder. It’s become much more of a trail ebike. Great uphill, stable downhill, as involving as electric gets on contouring stuff. It may be losing some attention in the modern era of bigger battery bikes but, to my mind, the Decoy 29 is the best ebike experience I’ve had to date. And it’s still the best looking too.