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Anybody rode both or has strong opinions on these two ?
Thanks in advance
Anthem is a good bike but lots of reliability issues with the shock mounts on the frames I,ve seen, the blur xc is on a different level, where abouts are you we have a demo mediun blur xc if you wanted to try it.
Im in the midlands where abouts are you?
I have owned both, the Blur xc (old alu one) was my first full sus bike after riding hardtails for about 15 years, really loved it, felt very 'bike' like, and felt nice and fast and confidence inspiring. Criticisms would be, the bearing life was not the best, and were a bit of a pain to change, and the head angle did at times feel a little steep (although I quite like a fairly steep head angle).
I bought the anthem x as a replacement due it being a good deal with the fox fork (needing a new fork at the time) and due to the above issues, stupidly ignorant of their own problems with bearings, although didn't own it/ride it enough to experience any.
Never hated a bike before but hated this one, no matter what I did changing saddle position, stem and bar length and height and tyres and shock pressure. It always felt sluggish uphill and as if I was tipping off the back and to steep and tipped in going down. It was so bad going down that for a while I thought I had lost all my descending skills till I rode another bike (actually a cotic roadrat)and realised it was more the bike. It also felt very uninvolving were as the blur felt like it had a 'personality'.
So sold it, to one very happy customer, he seemed to love it like most others, shows that it's completely personal.
The blur made me move away from hardtails the anthem x saw me return to hardtails. Couldn't really afford a full sus frame after the anthem disaster but much happier to be back on the hardtail, would say it was 100% better, for me than the anthem do miss the blur though.
This is all personal opinion, get a test ride of both as theres no reason why you might not love the anthem like most. Not sure if that helps or not?!?!
Just got back yesterday from 4 days of hard riding at Coed y Brenin on my Anthem x1. Fantastic bike, never let my down, so fast and very good over the rough stuff even for a short travel bike. 😀