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That may be a bit unfair Bruce, it sounds like Ben has given the bike a clear and fair appraisal — and it could suit a good section of this site's demographic.
I ride an older Boardman hardtail a lot, even more XC focused than this. It's great fun and often my bike of choice, but I don't (successfully) try to do the same things I would on my enduro bike.
Nice to see they got ride of that hideous shaped frame on the last version. The old one was ugly
That there is an slx cassette 😂, even says so on the back in one picture.
Yes the big black aluminium sprocket gives that cassette away as an SLX M7100.
I suspect I'd be one of the happy plebians. 130mm travel is good for a do everything bike in my book. However if it is too slack and long then it'd be slow/hard to wrestle around the tighter stuff on an XC circuit.
Does greater slackness really increase capability/speed on steeper stuff, or does it just make things feel more stable?
“Does greater slackness really increase capability/speed on steeper stuff, or does it just make things feel more stable?”
The former because of the latter!
I experimented a lot with this with my previous pair of hardtail and full-sus bikes, with anglesets, fork lengths and flip-chips. It made more difference than I expected when riding trails nearer the upper end of my gnar-ability.
The slacker the head angle, the longer the front centre and the lower the BB, the better the bike was on steep and rough trails. I didn’t take things very far, so I’m sure there’s a tipping point - but I got down to about 63.5 deg, sagged BB height of about 290mm but not so long on the front-centre (bikes were only about 450mm reach and 27.5 160mm forks).
My current bikes aren’t quite as low or slack as those extremes but the front-centres are longer (and the chainstays a bit too). That seems to work better all round for me - but I’m sure some would find them too slow to turn on twisty trails, they do require an active riding style.
My 29er hardtail is at 63.5* with a 130mm fork (SuperStar -2* Slackerizer)It’s only got a 440mm reach and 440mm rear centre but being 2* slacker than when I bought it has made it so much better at descending without it becoming worse on the flats and climbs.
My old Orange Alpine 160 was about the same after I fitted a -2* headset, longer fork and offset shock bushings and again rode better in all directions.
My ebike is about to get a Slackerizer to bring the head angle down to a about the same while allowing be to run it in the High/steep setting to allow a slack head angle but keep the same at angle and BB a bit higher.
I have yet to try a bike that wasn’t improved by a slacker head angle (although I haven’t ridden many modern super slack DH bikes enough
Not a bad bike by any stretch but in the current climate £2,500 buys you a heck of a lot of bike.
canyon selling spectrals with far far better spec (and more “modern” geometry) from £2,300
saracen Ariel 30 posh edition is £2,500 (and won Singletrack bike of the year at £4K rrp)
etc etc