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I am after a chunky trail bike for local rides and alps trips. Has anyone ridden either of both of these and have any thoughts? Both can be had half price right now in my size and are pretty much the same price. Trek is 2 kg heavier with slightly lower spec suspension and ali frame but lots of adjustability and lifetime frame warranty. Cube is carbon and has dodgy headset routing and a rear Fox x2 shock that in previous incarnations seems to have been a disaster and 3 year frame warranty. Â Thanks
I own both a Gen5 and a Gen6 EX8 although i've not ridden the Gen6 in full anger. However my lad has ridden it a fair bit since buying a few weeks ago. It's a very nice bike, well put togehter, well build, easy to ride and a nice simple bike. Setting the suspension up was simple and generic, it's basicaly a Ford Focus of bikes, it just feels and does everything nicely.
It can hustle along on trails.
This was last weekend chasing a young FMD lad down at FoD, pace was high/fast but he wasn't pushing fully. He's running the standard tyres on it.
Cable routing was channelled in the frame if that matters, so made the routing of new brakes really simple. Head angle is excellent and there's no knock-block on these models. The Float X is a really easy shock to get right, using the old school of 1lb weight rider per PSI, so he's sitting at 140psi on the back, on the front the Fox36s are a well know nice set of forks and he's just on 70 for those.
I haven't ridden either, but I'd go for the Trek.
That's a good shock it's got, and I think Trek make an effort to get shocks tuned well for their frames. The fork is more than adequate and the transmission and brakes are good.
The frame is nicely adjustable and I believe it can easily switch from mullet to full 29 - which I've found is a brilliant feature to have on one of my bikes.
Also, I believe that platform was very well reviewed. Did it get PB's bike of the year a while back?
trek all day long over a cube,
We didn't try the DB8s in truth, we took them straight off before being ridden. But some come with Shimano M6100 which are arguably better. In a trail context the DB8s would probably work, but knowing how my lad rides and the reviews of them being not as powerful as Codes we removed and fitted Code RSCs.
Thanks. Thoughts above pretty much echo mine. whilst the cube is lighter and has better suspension I am pretty sure the trek suspension will work just fine for what i want. And being someone that keeps and rides bikes for ages having a lifetime warranty on a solid frame makes sense.
I've had two Cube bikes and both were decent bits of kit. I found they weirdly came up smaller than the figures suggested though. Mate has a carbon Trek ht which he likes very much and I would say it's slightly better finished than a Cube.
I'd probably go for the Trek but only because of the size issues I've had with Cube. I'm sure you'd be happy with either, both companies make very tidy bikes.
The carbon cube e-bike I was looking at didn’t have a brace on the swingarm. That was enough to put me off. Not sure if this is the same on the bike you are looking at but thought worth mentioning.
There is nothing wrong with cube bikes, Stereo has a great pedigree, just replaced my 2016 140 stereo with the latest carbon version, i ride everything with mine.