[Closed] What is All-Mountain called these days?

It's basically the same thing.

Enduro bikes go up.  Some Enduro bikes better than others.

I think now the labelling is Enduro -> Trail -> XC.  Am I right?

I think All Mountain was always quite aggressive - more than trail.

I think now the labelling is Enduro -> Trail -> XC. Am I right?

Looks about right to me! 🙂

I think Enduro - Trail - XC is about right. But there is a grey area in between reach of them - especially between Enduro and trail. Some trail bikes are bordering on Enduro levels of suspension travel and geometry.

YT Jeffsy is branded trail I think (?), but has 160mm of travel and fairly slack geometry. Bird Aeris has very much Enduro geometry but the 145 ‘only’ has that 145mm of rear travel so magazines are a bit confused by that etc etc

No idea if I have all these definition right...

But personally I'am not aware that AM is "obsolete".

Enduro: focused on EWS Enduro race trails. They normally include also some uphill. Low weight, fork normally in the range of 160 ... 180 mm. The bikes are designed to be very capable on the downhill stretch. Being "playful" is not really the design focus. These bikes are quite often "long and slack".

AM: less race focused. More balanced design for uphill and downhill. The bike should be fun and playful. Typical fork travel around 150 mm. Price tag for these bikes a bit lower than Enduro?

Trailbikes: really a different kind of breed. Playful, low weight bikes with 130/130 or 140/140 travel. These bikes are quickly on the limit when going into the Alps (or at least you have to upgrade the fork and risking the frame). If the trail is not very challenging the trailbike might be most fun of all the bikes mentioned? Low weight and playful is key...Price tag for trailbikes is lower as well.

Thanks, that kind of confirms what I was thinking. I still think that Enduro and All Mountain could be usefully different terms though. Enduro is all about getting down as fast as possible and spinning up, mostly on fireroads. Whereas All Mountain (in my opinion) is as much about getting up technical climbs as it is about getting down technical descents, with speed being less of an issue. With that definition is All Mountain Trail or Enduro ?

EDIT: @andreashoen- Sorry, your reply came in while I was typing, but it looks as though we are of a similar mind.

I've always associated Enduro & XC with racing ..

I think the lines also get a little blurred between trail & XC ..

I'm a trail rider who like to travel across country bridleways and tracks which sometimes includes going up and down mountains ..but I don't race .

Is there a bike out there that caters for this ? 😉😁

Trail is a more recent AM/XC crossover?  Enduro is a more recent AM/Freeride crossover?  It gets confusing.

An older diagram:

It’s basically the same thing.

Not so. What about hard Enduro, aggressive trail and mardybum xc?

mardybum XC

I don't know what it is but it should definitely be a category.

I’m a trail rider who like to travel across country bridleways and tracks which sometimes includes going up and down mountains ..but I don’t race .

It depends on your priorities.  You could do that with an XC bike or a trail bike.  If you want to get up the mountains fast, then XC - otherwise trail.

I have three bikes, a bike which is effectively enduro, an XC FS bike and a rigid 29er.  I ride them all on mostly the same trails, but for different reasons.

For example, I've taken my rigid bike on the super steep tech in the hills here, because I came upon it on a long adventure ride, which is what I use that bike for and where it's best. I had to walk some of it mind.  I will take the enduro-ish bike to the same trails and try and enjoy them properly - but I might have to drive out to the location so I can get some more runs in.  If I were doing a big mountain I might take the enduroish bike and winch it up so I can enjoy the downs, if the loop was suitable; or I might take the XC bike to make it more of an all round ride.  I'll take either the XC or the Enduroish bike to Cwmcarn, depending on mood.

So it's about personal preference really.  You can physically DO almost any UK riding on almost any bike.

What about Enduro Vs DH? Being as some DH races has been done on enduro bikes.

I would say that AM really is what a trail bike is these days, particularly at the bigger end of trail bikes.

I don't think there's anything in the playfulness thing, it's a bike that sits somewhere between the extremes of Enduro (a pedallable DH bike...ish... if we're trying to simplify things at least) and XC. XC bikes these days are getting long/low/slack, and I don't find these necessarily make things not feel playful (low certainly helps things feel playful, at a cost of course, as do other factors).

At the end of the day, for nearly everyone even within just one ride and not all the rides you might do in a year, whatever bike you get is a compromise and the labels are just that.

I’m a trail rider who like to travel across country bridleways and tracks which sometimes includes going up and down mountains ..but I don’t race .

Is there a bike out there that caters for this

Something like the Salsa Spearfish or Horsethief - designed for long days in the saddle on mildly technical ground, there were at least three Spearfish at last year's HT550. The Spearfish is race oriented 100m/80mm travel whereas the Horsethief is closer to a trail bike with 130mm/120mm travel.

I built up a Spearfish alloy frame recently, it came to 12.1kg including pedals and I was choosing components on reliability not weight. The carbon version linked above is a kilo lighter.

As @molgrips says, you can (within reason) use any bike on any trail. Some combinations might not be as pleasant as others.

I want a Spearfish!

I think current XC-Trail is what AM used to be.

XC used to be 80 to 100 mm travel, mostly hardtail, but some nerdy types fitted lockouts to full suspension so that they rode just like rigid bikes, just a bit heavier. Then there was XC-Trail, which had stems shorter than 100 mm, and tyres wider than two inches were permitted. Then there was Trail, which allowed up to 125 mm travel, suspension lockouts weren't compulsory, and it was ok to have brakes that worked when it drizzled. After that was All Mountain, which were like DH bikes with a front derailler and less slack geometry: wild stuff like 130 mm to 150 mm full-suspension, 68 degree head angles, tyres that were 2.3 inches wide, etc. Free-Ride and Black Diamond were where the crazys were at, but I won't go there to avoid triggering bad memories of the cool kids not inviting me along.

These days, marketing types have convinced people that a 125 mm full-suspension bike can be called XC, and the bloody things have disk brakes, dropper seatposts, and bars and stems that belong on a DH bike. That used to be Extreme-Trail, now it's just regular XC. XC-Trail now seems to mean 130 mm suspension bikes with fat tyres and slack geometry that serves as a skill-compensator. That's what All-Mountain used to be until marketing people started selling bikes that people liked riding.

I want a Spearfish!

Here's mine. And, no, you can't have it 🙂

As others mentioned... XC biking...:

And there, the niche "XC racing". These super low weight XC racing bikes still often have a geo which is not too far from "road race bikes". And the professional bikers in these race teams are so fast with these bikes ... and I admire these guys for being capable of being so fast with these (for me) strange bikes.

Fork travel in the range of 120 mm? Bikes in the range of less than 10 kg... Long and slack is very rare for this XC race bike type.

But there are - of course - limits for these bikes. Quickly identified if you check the types of bikes the professional bikers use for their races. Some are racing XC and more EWS. And even the EWS race tracks are very different.

Bit of an art to pick the right bike for the track.

But there is a grey area in between reach of them – especially between Enduro and trail.

"Over Mountain"

****ing nonsense 😀

I can't be arsed to read it all but this nicehing is shite isn't it.

I mean pure downhill yeah that's a label, eg the WCDH, uplift only, no climbing, maaahasssoive drops and rock gardens that look like the Lynmouth flood disaster. I think that some people only like "XC" eg fitness and are  afraid of any tech, but in reality the WCXC is very techy, its just they don't get a lift to the top.
Everything between those extremes is what I like to call "cycling". Most of us go for a ride, to get the bit that we find challenging, in the old days I rode for hours for about 100m of wicked descent, now we are really lucky because all the trails are so extensive. But int he end it is just riding.

http://www.mbr.co.uk/buyers_guide/canyon-mountain-bikes-371061

Above link & my comments about XC professional racing:

The Canyon Exceed CF - around 9 kg - is one of the strange & fast XC racing machines.

Head angle still in the range of nearly 70 deg ...

In my opinion: no fun. Strangely fast so... The other end of "long and slack".

The mbr link, when scrolling from the top to bottom: indicates how the geo changes for different mtb type.

Canyon actually differs between:

Enduro, AM-trail , Sport-trail , XC and XC-race... or something like this.

Things are complicated...

I can’t be arsed to read it all but this nicehing is shite isn’t it.

Not if you want to be certain that you have the correct tyres for the type of riding you are doing.

I don't ride to get to a descent. I just ride.

Few years back they were saying that enduro would be the closest genre to "just going for a ride". Maybe EWS hijacking of the term is/was the issue, but enduro is downhill-lite. The descents are what matter. The ascents are the bits between the bits that matter.

I'd use the term all-mountain-xc-trail to cover what at I do. Up+Down are equal, could be fire road, bridlepath, road, singletrack, loamy pine-forest hiking trail that you have to endo-turn switchbacks, rocky high mountain pass/summit, no uplift.

Or to put another term out there... Marathon-Tour. That's a term the Germans used several years back to cover a 50km ride that goes anywhere and everywhere on a Sunday morning (although the word Tour to a brit probably means panniers and 17 bottle cages and handlebar mounted waterproof map case).

Similar discussion on GCN recently about "Gravel" bikes. Naff name, I agree with that. I'd call it "1995 again, but now with drop bars and rigid forks instead of 50mm XC Judy's/Indy's" biking. They're only 1 tyre size away from my ye olde worlde Scott Vail.

Marketing terms are fluid, innit.

I remember fifteen years ago being shown a Specialized Enduro in a bike shop, the chap referred to the slacker flip link setting as "Freeride" (this on a 132mm travel bike with a 69.5 degree HA).

I've just treated myself to an S-Works Enduro 29er frame and took it out for it's inaugural ride a couple of weeks back, on a mixture of melting snow, wet green chalk and cloying Kentish mud.  I was quite surprised at how well the damn thing climbed up stuff, traction was never an issue and I never felt as though I was trying to corral a nodding donkey around the trails.  I was genuinely impressed at the bike's good manners, I returned from my ride feeling quite fresh and I haven't spent the weekend working that hard in the gym.

I can't be bothered to categorise it, like my Norco Sight it's a damn nice bike to ride and feels study enough to transport 88kg of idiot.

Neat thread. Good points.

What I always find a bit sad: when somebody bought the complete "wrong bike" for his riding and when he looses fun quick.

Lots, and lots of different mountain bikes. And there this different classes - XC, Trail, AM, Enduro, Freeride, Downhill ... and and Fatbikes ...might help a bit to pick the right bike.

Simple statements like "Enduro" is better than "xxx" might be totally wrong.

So yes - lots of marketing - but at the same time: helps picking the right bike.

I hope at least.

I can’t be arsed to read it all but this nicehing is shite isn’t it.

No, it really really isn't.  It's to differentiate the different styles of bike.  I have three bikes all within the extremes, and they are very very different.  It just helps you get the style of bike you want.  They genuinely are different.  You are free to do what the hell you like with the bikes.  You can ride up and down Snowdon on an XC bike if you like or push up a DH bike and ride it down.  No-one cares in the slightest.

But the labels are there to help you choose a bike.  You might as well complain that the car industry labels cars as hatchback, saloon, estate and so on.

I’d use the term all-mountain-xc-trail to cover what at I do. Up+Down are equal, could be fire road, bridlepath, road, singletrack, loamy pine-forest hiking trail that you have to endo-turn switchbacks, rocky high mountain pass/summit, no uplift.

That's trail bike territory, no question.

No, it really really isn’t. It’s to differentiate the different styles of bike.

You're right, I think. Yes it's all marketing, but marketing is there, at least in part, to help the customer make the right choice.

I started the thread as I'm in the market for a new full suss bike. I've been ignoring anything marked Enduro as I'm not that rad (or rad at all really). But I do like to ride up and down mountains. I rarely go looking for tech, but often it's there and I'd like to be able to cope with it when I find it. It struck me that Enduro might be the new term for All Mountain so maybe I should be looking at those bike too. But this threads has confirmed that trail (or even XC/Trail) is the right style of bike for me. Well that and my fatbike, but let's not go there 🙂 Thanks for all the helpful comments.

@roverpig:

great!

Know bikers which are really unhappy with their 170 mm Enduro bikes. I would be really unhappy with an 9 kg XC 100 mm race hardtail which has 69 deg HA.

So yes - helps to find the correct bike! Overbiked is bad, underbiked as well.

Cheers!

I think for most users you can take any bike in the middle of the range and the only difference between enduro, all mountain, trail and xc is the outfit you wear and equipment you take along with you.

That’s trail bike territory, no question.

When I was in Morzine (with the hardtail "trail" bike rather than the fullsuss "trail" bike where the newer model is marketed more as Enduro), I was trying to describe that genre of riding to a girl* there, that just happened to be staying in the same chalet as us. She replied "Oh! Enduro!"

(* the reigning ladies WC DH rainbow jersey holder at the time, so I guess she knows a bit about mountain biking 😉 )

I'd go with trail bike, even if it does hint towards trail centre a bit which I avoid.

"All Terrain Bike" / ATB might be more accurate, but that brings back memories of Shimano 7sp SIS shifters and 140mm stem.

cloying Kentish mud

Ah I do miss that London Clay. Going for a ride in the woods on my (24in?) Grifter, and coming back with wheels like a 29+

@roverpig

You need an ICT  😉

I think there is really only 3 sensible categories:

1) XC race: Comfort is irrelevant.  Bike is designed to go as fast as possible uphill and along the flat as the highest priority. Low weight and pedalling efficiency are what matters

3) Downhill: Comfort is irrelevant. Bike is designed to go as fast as possible downhill. Stability and suspension performance are what matters

and between those end points:

2) All other mountain bikes!    Sure, you might have a bit more travel, a slacker head angle, a longer wheelbase, but really, there is very little difference between a 120 mm modern FS bike and a 160mm one.  Modern suspension is now excellent, weight has come down for all types.  You could ride a 160mm endure bike in an XC race, and you could get down an Enduro stage on a XC race bike.  Sure, neither would win, as in all cases the rider would almost certainly make the bigger difference!

You need an ICT 😉

That's lucky, since no one seems to be interested in buying the frame off me 🙂

I'm with those that think Enduro basically replaced All Mountain as a type of bike/riding.

Ignoring ability or quality of bike think along the lines of DH to Enduro/AM to Trail to XC. My old Orange 5 was the AM model and came with longer forks and burlier kit over the standard 'Trail' 5 so that's probably where my impression comes from.

I think for most users you can take any bike in the middle of the range

Yeah but the experience you will have on different bikes will be different.

I agree with you Molgrips ..I had 10 years on a 26" wheeled Nomad with 6 " of travel front and back ..loved the bike but when I got my Whyte t130rs although I'm loathe to say it ..I realised that I had been riding the wrong bike all that time for the type of riding that I do ..just way too much travel !

I was always last up the hills ..still am now ..but not nearly so far behind as I used to be !

The reason enduro took off as a niche/scene/race class, is that rather than trying to create a niche then sell it, it actually reflected what people were already doing. So for a while, enduro was a really good catchall. Especially as it came at a time when technology was pretty much allied to what the bikes wanted to be- Pikes, good light wheels, sensible tough tyres, droppers, single rings all worked well to make madly capable bikes into better allrounders.

But, it's evolved a bit now, the bikes got bigger and longer and basically more capable and in a lot of cases they're now less good trail bikes. but better "enduro bikes"- now we've kind of gone full circle and the bikes are built for the discipline rather than the discipline evolving from the bikes and the riding.

But it's done wonders for the bikes, hasn't it.

@Northwind: nice.

Have to think about it.

Pfff, why dontd you ask jeeves, grandad? 😋