Field Test: 5 Enduro Bikes (and 1 eMTB) Face the Efficiency Test
PINKBIKE FIELD TEST
5 Enduro Bikes (and 1 eMTB) Face the Efficiency Test
Gravel roads, power meters, a dose of bro-science, and no lock-outs allowed.
5 Enduro Bikes (and 1 eMTB) Face the Efficiency Test
Gravel roads, power meters, a dose of bro-science, and no lock-outs allowed.
I know you're here for the Huck to Flat, but we're making you wait for yet another day or so before all the bottoming returns. And not only that, your penance for watching @jasonlucas sacrifice himself (again) at a painfully slow 1000 frames-per-second? It's the above video of me pedaling our five enduro bikes (and one eMTB) up a gravel road while breathing and groaning into the microphone. Life's about balance or something.
The summer Field Test includes five enduro bikes that span the category, from the relatively lightweight We Are One with 150mm of travel to the 170mm Norco Range that's a bit of a chonker at over 37lb. That's an acceptable number if you're looking for a heavy-hitting bike, because horses for courses and all that, but it's also fair to say that none of them were designed to excel on our Efficiency Test course. However, for our purposes, we don't care; all we want to do is apply a bit of bro science to figure out how they compare to each other when you've got to put the power down.
Drives sweet shuttle truck to the mountain. Pedals up and down the same gravel road all day.
Sure, pedaling efficiency counts for less with these than it does for a cross-country or trail bike, but let's not forget that 'enduro' used to refer to a type of racing, not just a category of bike that focuses on descending. And if we're talking racing, an efficient bike could be worth a few seconds here or there, which is especially valuable if the bike gives you those seconds without taking away from its descending abilities.
I guess I should also explain the eMTB. It won and was promptly disqualified for motor-doping, but you can extrapolate the gap to see how they compare to a traditional mountain bike over a longer climb. We were just e-curious.
The same rules apply as ever, which means a roughly half-kilometer gravel road climb with Freelap cones at the start and finish lines. I clipped into a set of Garmin Rally XC power meter pedals so I could hold 300-watts for each bike's uphill run, and stared at a 1030 head unit that displayed my normalized, 10-second, and 3-second power numbers. And no lock-outs allowed, of course.
Pedaling efficiency isn't as interesting as hucking to flat, but having more or less of it can drastically alter a bike's personality. We Are One's Arrival was the quickest bike up our gravel road climb, and it also feels the most energetic on the trail.
What'd we learn after way too many trips up the gravel road?
Much like previous episodes, our on-trail impressions largely match the Efficiency Test results. Both Matt and Henry came back from riding the 150mm-travel dual-link Arrival talking about how speedy it felt when on the gas, and it ended up besting the purple Spire by just three seconds over the short climb. It's also no coincidence to see the Transition come oh so close and have the Capra just a second behind, as both seem to put more emphasis on pedaling and all-around abilities than our two stragglers.
Efficiency Test Results
1st We Are One Arrival - 2:00
2nd Transition Spire - 2:03
3rd YT Capra - 2:04
4th GT Force - 2:10
5th Norco Range - 2:13
DSQ Norco Range VLT - 1:07
1st We Are One Arrival - 2:00
2nd Transition Spire - 2:03
3rd YT Capra - 2:04
4th GT Force - 2:10
5th Norco Range - 2:13
DSQ Norco Range VLT - 1:07
And if pedaling and "all-around abilities" take a back seat to huck-ability and speed on rough, steep descents, you probably don't care that the Force and Range came in at 2:10 and 2:13. You also probably don't care about Seb Stott's idler pulley experiment that proves the extra complication will cost you around 2-percent of your total watts. Or that the gap is more like 11-percent in our bro-science test in the real world.
Is this a lab test? Nein, but we are out here in the real world, which is a lot like the Impossible Climb, so maybe we can learn a thing or three about how these bikes get on while listening to me breathing loudly. Hey, no one said your penance would be interesting.
The 2021 Summer Field Test was made possible with support from Dainese apparel and protection, and Sun Peaks Resort. Shout out also to Maxxis, Garmin, Freelap, and Toyota Pacific.
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Seems like the Harry Hardóns of this world are now flexing because they can ride fast on a petit -ebikes.
I've climbed with them the highest and longest trail we have around here (on a regular 17kg MetaAM), it is a 5 km trail with 350 elevation climb, most of them own normal kenevos, i finish the climb a couple minutes before them when they pedal in ECO, when they go in Trail i have to pedal really hard to finish the climb with them (and thats the end of the day for me), if they go Turbo I dont see them at all, they just leave me behind.
The reason i am asking is because the regular Meta I ride weights just as much as the KenevoSL, it might be a good option for me to ride with them and them not having to ride in ECO to go as slow as me. Same weight with a motor it kinda makes sense
I was gutted that Mike didn't have the chance to how the Kenevo SL stacked up (but very glad your all safe!), I really want to know if that's going to save my unfit legs enough if I use it for self-shuttling!
Those climbs are steep and he could hang....
pretty sure this is the same spot that they are doing it for the enduro bikes field test, this is XC/DC but they also throw in a few other bikes for comparison like you guys all wanted to see?
I bet some enduro bikes would be closer with XC tires to any XC bike/tire combo.
which the biggest variable of the test, lots of people have different levels of fitness, if it is Claudio Caluori you are talking about, he might be a DH guy, but i am pretty sure he has very powerfull legs.
A couple thoughts here on how to make this more useful/interesting:
- As others have mentioned, you should show a benchmark for other categories of bike to give a greater sense of the broader variability in efficiency. I want to see the difference between these bikes and an XC race bike, or even a gravel bike
- One of the biggest limitations to this test is that it seems to be only in-the-saddle climbing. I'd expect the biggest differences between bikes to come when you have to stand and bob the suspension for a few seconds, which is common on many climbs. It's hard to run a test like this and get perfect realism, but you could create a short "out-of-the saddle zone" in the middle of the same segment, where you do the same power (or maybe briefly higher power) while standing.
Find a narrower road, there’s way too much variation in path length permitted here. Or put a sensor on the wheel and track linear distance traveled. Slack bikes tend to wander a bit
Weigh yourself at the start of each trial. Maybe you hydrated before one trial and relieved yourself after another.
Weigh the bike as well. There’s a 5lb difference between the WAO and the Norco. 5lb bike delta plus a ~180lb kitted rider is roughly a 2-3% difference in mass. “Efficiency” can’t actually be measured without normalizing mass
Then let PB’s in-house experimental physicist run some actual numbers on “efficiency”
Or just let bro science be bro science, crack a pbr, and call it good enough for marketing
The inner enginerd in me just wants to see this entirely focused on the suspension platform itself…
Also bikes should be ridden "blind". Not easy, but we know the bias Levy has on idler pulleys right? Blind and deaf as they seem more noisy
Last point, on the GT test showed last non ebike, was probably also done last. On the last meters (was it more?) we see Levy pushing hard on the pedals, with a much less "round" pedaling style. That causes bobbing and therefore energy loss. Could it be a part of the issue? Maybe next test is done at 250W so a nice 250w can be maintained for all bikes and more similar conditions ?
Scientist#2
Then I realized it kind of sums up the act of biking.
I agree, 13 seconds is pretty small, and for us non-racers, that's pretty negligible. But keep in mind that's over a pretty short climb.
That said, if you extrapolate that difference over a longer climb, it starts to make more of a difference.
If my math is correct, 13 seconds slower in a ~2min climb, would translate into ~6-7min slower on a 1hr climb, ~10min slower on a 1.5hr climb, and ~13-15 min on a 2 hr climb. Those are some fairly noticeable differences even for most plebs like me.
*signed: A guy who rides a ~37lb bike everywhere, because its low end spec and alloy, because its all he can afford... so he's clearly not "that" worried about climbing. But still thinks math can be interesting sometimes.
A good control test would be the same bike with attached 1kg, we would know what is more important, weight or not-active, overdamped suspension (which sucks on descends, but then it's called a lively feel).
You could also re-write your statement to say that the WR1 was 9.8% faster than the Norco and it would be equally true.
Still worth it to me, would just need to make sure my buds are at the same climb pace and we're good.
So we can't say with any certainty whether, for example, the Transition really is faster than the YT, but we can be pretty sure the Norco is slower than the WAO. Also, an 11% gap between the fastest to slowest is pretty mind-blowing to me. Theoretically, you could add about 10Kg to the WAO and it would still be faster uphill.
If Mike repeated the test on the same bike and got the same exact same time over and over again, then I would feel confident that the 2:00 vs 2:13 could be multiplied out to 60:00 vs 66:30 or whatever, and their ranking is a worthwhile comparison of these bikes.
But if he rode the We Are One repeatedly and the timing changed from 2:00 to 2:06 to 2:02, then that's a pretty big variation relative to the spread between the bikes, and there's no good way to know if one bike is actually faster than the others, or if it was just random variation.
@mikelevy do it again and again and again!
...wait. Oh no, it's just your legs.
(half the time = double power.. ?)
I too wanted that info.
Seems like a lot of variables with the standing start at the cone....
"And no lock-outs allowed, of course." = efficiency is not important.
I love what you do @mikelevy but it's time you started embracing lockouts. Almost all other off road things with suspension have a button to change how that suspension behaves as the terrain or conditions change, why not mountain bikes? It removes a compromise.
how much does Levy weigh?
certainly do not appreciate the nudging *thumbsdown*
Nipped that one in the bud...
Got it.
The problem is that trails will evolve to try and accommodate both, and be great at neither.
When the girl in the rent hut asked how was it my literal words were 'is horrible, handles like a cow'. Then proceeded to pick up a normal Trance 29, did a massive 1.5h. grind to the top and enjoyed a full on descent jumping like a flea over the rocks Never looked back.
I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve ridden but they should be dealt with separately from non ebikes.