Mountain Bike Rider: Best mbr August biketest?

Bit of a strange conclusion to the test. "120mm bikes are crossover bikes for hardtail lovers" "120mm bikes aren't up to technical sections" "the ultimate trail bike is a 28lb 140mm travel bike"

Just to get my cards on the table, I agree with the assessment of the Whyte E120 because I have one. It has taken me a long time to get it set up to lose that "got to keep on top of it" feeling. Mine was a custom build coming close to the price of the "Team" but with the freedom to spec my own kit. I went with Formula The One brakes (180s each end) and a Joplin seatpost. I started out with Mavic Crossmax STs because I've 100% converted to UST, but I found them a bit flexy. The current wheels are a much more mundane Hope hubs/Mavic 819 setup. I went with Rockshox Revelation with modified internals from Push fitted by TF Tuned. Tyres are 2.25 UST Nobby Nics, swapping over to a High Roller/Ignitor combination when I'm planning more descending than climbing. Pedals are XTR SPDs. Most of the drivetrain is XTR but with an FSA K-Force light crank that I managed to get for the same-ish price as XTR.

I had high hopes for a dream ride. The build was my "once in a lifetime" extravagance and I kept trying to kid myself it was OK. I'm pretty thorough in setting up my bikes but I couldn't achieve a convincing setup of the E120. My riding companions would look on in disbelief as I complained that the damn thing had tried to kill me by washing out towards the nearest tree yet again. There were glimpses of greatness, but the overall impression had me ready to dump it in a hedge and walk away.

It got to the point where I swapped a known good fork (an unmodified Revelation) onto the bike to eliminate the fork from confusing matters. This was lots better but the rear end of the bike still felt like it didn't want to join in until I was "hitting" the terrain rather than just riding over it. The quality the bike lacked was "flow".

My hunch was that the Fox RP23 with "high" compression damping was to blame, so I had this modded (TF Tuned again) to be much more compliant. It took me a lot of trial and error to get the fork working properly, including emails to Push Industries and the discovery that my shock pump misread by a significant margin (~15% under). I learned that the Push-modified Revelation has an exceedingly narrow setup sweet spot and just a nudge of rebound damping or air pressure either way can leave you with an unrideable mess. Once I found the sweet spot the previously bitty handling was completely transformed.

The result is that my all-carbon 120mm dream bike weighs 28lbs (yes really). It is now fantastic on all the terrain that I hurl it down but it took me three months of frustration to get there. There will be lots of Whyte owners who will have had a lot less frustration from their E120s by running the much less fussy standard Fox F-Series fork (or an unmodified Revelation on the "Trail"spec bikes), but I reckon many/most could benefit from having the shock set to a more compliant tune.

Not sure if there is a point to this lengthy post. I guess I'm endorsing the view that the best trail bike does indeed weigh ~28lbs. Is a 120mm travel bike with a 130mm fork still a 120mm bike or something else? I reckon my 120mm bike is plush and active enough to be a bit of a shock to most hardtail afficionados, but it still scampers up climbs with the very efficient linkage doing its stuff.

I'm off to Afan for the weekend, which will be a proper shakedown for the setup. I guess I'll know for sure whether I've sorted out my dream machine by whether it is

on Monday.