Trail Bikes - Alloy vs Carbon

[Tony]

Originally Posted by benb

Yah if you observed it on the Trek Full Stache (which particular model?) I guess it's still a real thing?

Maybe for a lot of these bikes the target crowd just isn't into pedaling hard anymore but at the prices a lot of these bikes go for it would be pretty unacceptable to me. I do know at least in my area the majority of people I run into in the woods ride really differently than I do. Mostly I see people wearing some armor, pretty leisurely uphill, lots of breaks to talk, lots of setup and riding really hard/fast downhill or through the downhill technical areas. I tend to ride continuously without breaks just like on the road and ride harder uphill and slower/more cautiously downhill than most.

I'm not sure I would haven ended up on my NRS if it wasn't for the fact I bought a frame.. never got to ride it. By upgrading the frame I avoided a giant (pun intended) expenditure at the time. I got it based on advice from a fitter just like I have bought road bikes as a frame.. so didn't get to ride it till it was too late. He got the rider/bike interface dead on though so I've put up with the flex for a long long time obviously. The longest I've owned any bike so it's a success. But it has enough flex I can make the chain rub in the top gears when pedaling hard. Never had a PM on it but my guess is it can't take more than 350w without rub. And the flexibility seemed to have shifting issues too, but I was able to address that with careful setup.

If I replace my MTB it's going to have to be something I can test ride to make sure it doesn't have these kind of issues. It's going to be really hard to drop the kind of cash all these MTBs cost now though as it's never been 50% of my riding even.

The group of folks you described (outside of lots of breaks and setup) can ride very hard, just different then xc riding. Going "hard/fast downhill" is like a sprint in many ways. Throw in jumps and technical sections and your have a full body workout. Then there are the climbs out that can be competitive. Here's a video I shared recently of a flowy down hill section in Nevada City. It's not technical, has many jumps.
Trails like this will give riders more of a work out than xc alone.
On this day the trail was frozen, a rider has already gone down so my group is taking it easy and not hitting the big jumps. I'm in the back, orange helmet. Rider filming is using a 360 camera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bK7xR8qIBo&t=97s

Op, you may want to look at direct purchase from the likes of YT and Canyon.

[NHAero]

Weighing in on the new vs. used question here:
with the caveat that I don't ride my bike hard, and I'm under 150 pounds - I bought my Pivot 429C off Pinkbike a bit over three years ago with top of the line equipment. It was a bike that cost $6K new, I paid $3K. It was on consignment at the shop that sold it. My experience with high end MTBs (maybe high end bikes in general, but it matters more in MTB world) is that these bikes are either thrashed because they have been really ridden by hard chargers, or, they have hardly been ridden - they were bought by someone who has the wallet but not the commitment. I called the consignment shop and asked what needed to be rebuilt or replaced on the 429, and they said, this bike has hardly been ridden. When it showed up, that was evident.
So the deals are out there. In many cases it's partially because of new tech (slacker HAs, accepts Plus tires, Boost fit) but maybe that doesn't matter to the used market buyer. For my riding, I don't want the slacker HA, and I don't need Plus tires.
Many years ago I bought a year old Klein Pulse II. It had been ridden hard and I had to rebuild and replace. But I paid appropriately for the bike. Still have it BTW, set up for winter with Nokian Freddy's Revenge studded tires.

[Tony]

Originally Posted by NHAero

Weighing in on the new vs. used question here:
with the caveat that I don't ride my bike hard, and I'm under 150 pounds - I bought my Pivot 429C off Pinkbike a bit over three years ago with top of the line equipment. It was a bike that cost $6K new, I paid $3K. It was on consignment at the shop that sold it. My experience with high end MTBs (maybe high end bikes in general, but it matters more in MTB world) is that these bikes are either thrashed because they have been really ridden by hard chargers, or, they have hardly been ridden - they were bought by someone who has the wallet but not the commitment. I called the consignment shop and asked what needed to be rebuilt or replaced on the 429, and they said, this bike has hardly been ridden. When it showed up, that was evident.
So the deals are out there. In many cases it's partially because of new tech (slacker HAs, accepts Plus tires, Boost fit) but maybe that doesn't matter to the used market buyer. For my riding, I don't want the slacker HA, and I don't need Plus tires.
Many years ago I bought a year old Klein Pulse II. It had been ridden hard and I had to rebuild and replace. But I paid appropriately for the bike. Still have it BTW, set up for winter with Nokian Freddy's Revenge studded tires.

Agree. Many folks buy a mtb and use it lightly, some six months (including myself) before moving on to the next greatest mtb.

[pakora]

Ok, so I've fretted and googled and read way too many waste of time/rewrite the press release type things about these bikes and carbon vs alloy. I think I've settled on this:

Because I've broken plenty of alloy wheels and I'm sold on carbon ones, I'll definitely want to upgrade the alloy wheels on the alloy bike immediately.

If I'm going to do that, I may as well go for the stock carbon wheels (which I believe are DT ratchet hubs plus their own rims) and then get the carbon frame "for free" in the sense that the upgrade is the same price as I'd end up paying for quality wheels.

[TMD]

Alloy isn't $1200 worse per pound than carbon,
Alloy all day

[dancinkozmo]

NSMB did an excellent test where they evaluated two virtually identical knolly wardens, one carbon one alloy back to back....

https://nsmb.com/articles/duelling-k...inal-verdicts/

[pakora]

Excellent article. I've changed my mind for the umpteenth time.

It's especially interesting to me that all three of them said one is a touch stiffer (in a bad way) and one gives more vibration/chatter (in a bad way) but perfectly distributed between the three people they said it about both bikes:

reviewer 1: vibration/chatter - same, stiffness - carbon stiffer (not better)
reviewer 2: vibration/chatter - carbon worse, stiffness - al stiffer (not better)
reviewer 3: vibration/chatter - carbon worse, stiffness - carbon stiffer (not better)

The second person uses "refined" to describe why carbon is better and the third uses "rocketship" to mean light in a positive sense and why given the two he'd definitely take the carbon bike on a longer ride (because he believes that .9lbs matters significantly, and stresses that he understands what "belief" means by saying he could just lose 400 grams of rider weight for the same effect).

That's enough trail science to me to conclude that at least for mountain bikes 100% of anyone measuring anything without a scale or a spreadsheet is measuring feelings.

And feelings are important. The latter two all but scream it!

But I'm tryna buy a bike here.

[trener1]

I read that article, I found it very interesting.
Not sure if you read the comments section, but here is one that jumped out

Support your local bike shop; don't just buy something off the internet based on reviews - they're inherently subjective and we're all human with different perceptions of the world around us.

Go test and demo bikes to find out what works for YOU. Use reviews to guide and augment your decisions.

I have to say that I agree, as roadies we love to look at the angles and spec sheets and for road bikes it mostly works, and you can pretty much buy a good road bike just by reading the specs.

However Mountain bikes are way different, I have gone to lots of Demo days and demoed a whole host of bikes (MTB) and I can tell you that the difference between them (to me) was very noticeable, some I loved and some just didn't feel good to me (for how I ride), so what I am trying to say is that buying a MTB is very different that a road bike.
Personally I ended up with a carbon bike, but only because a LBS had a floor model on clearance for the same price as an alloy one.

[fmradio516]

im going through a similar deal now. Leaning towards YT industries(jeffsy) at the moment but that could change 6 times today.

[Tony]

I have the JEFFSY 27 CF Pro Race, excellent bike! A lot of bike for the money.

[pakora]

I'm a bit afraid that for folks that haven't ridden many bikes on the same trails the "demo them all and find out what works for you" argument is the same as the roadie, "well a free basic fitting comes with bikes in a shop so you should get the one that fits."

I mean in the sense that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference in what I wanted/needed/valued in an advanced trail bike in 30 minutes on a demo day. Just like knowing what "fits" means is basically impossible unless you are already dialed on a bike for a similar purpose.

It would create lots of feelings though.

Like the ones I've created by saying the bike I threw a leg over (which comes in red, my favorite color, and the best color for bikes) is a better value because I want carbon wheels for strength and weight (despite owning and currently riding old Stan's Flows with Hope hubs, which are lighter and are proven to withstand 5 years of my abuse).

[fmradio516]

Originally Posted by Tony

I have the JEFFSY 27 CF Pro Race, excellent bike! A lot of bike for the money.

Id probably go for the CF 29er model but its out of stock until May. I am going to MOAB at the end of May so I need some time in the mtn saddle before then.

[Jaybee]

Demo days are fun, but you are correct that there is a minimum baseline of knowledge "this is what I want a MTB to feel like, and i think this is why this bike does/does not feel the way I want". That said, even a 30 minute ride on actual dirt that you might actually ride that bike on later is orders of magnitude better for getting a feel than doing a few curb drops in the parking lot. It's not the same a weekend demo where you get to take the bike to 3 or 4 trails that you'll commonly be using it on, but still way better than the parking lot.

Almost every bike is good these days. GLW your choice.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by pakora

That's enough trail science to me to conclude that at least for mountain bikes 100% of anyone measuring anything without a scale or a spreadsheet is measuring feelings.

Rather than saying that this test measured "feelings", I'd use the verbage from the article itself, which calls them "impressions". Well controlled studies in a variety of areas (including bicycles) has shown that peoples impressions are greatly influenced by often subconscious expectations.

[mtechnica]

Look at the tallboy it’s a shorter travel FS that’s still pretty capable.