Cross Country, Trail, Enduro, & Downhill Bikes | What's The Difference?

we often get asked what's the difference between different types of bike a downhill bike an enduro bike a trail bike or a cross country bike so today i've got all four bikes lined up going to take a look at them show you the differences in the details of bikes what they're good at and actually take them up onto the hill to try and show you that put a few times in and maybe suffer a little bit on the way up so here's the difference in all the bikes let's start with a cross-country bike there you can be hardtails awful suspension bikes this is a canyon lux uh normal cross-country bikes are between 80 and 120 mil of travel this is 100 mil with 110 fork up front just like things out a slight bit but cross-country bikes as the name suggests so we're all about going cross-country for us so being fast efficient climbers a lot of them are carbon fiber they're designed to be efficient and lightweight so lots of carbon fiber on these bikes and also the angles are designed to be able to go up quickly as well so fairly steep head angle and seat tube a longer stem to keep the weight balanced on the bike normally 29ers as you move along the line towards the downhill bike the differences you'll really start to notice are mainly in the suspension travel so it will go up along the line but also the geometry of things will change slightly uh between them so this is what i call a trail bike my new proof reactor trail bites again can be hard tails or full suspension probably more commonly for suspension bikes these days and the travel for a trail bike is anywhere really between 110 mil up to 150 mil of travel again 27.5 or 29er you do see the sort of trend like i guess going towards 29 wheels for these bikes this reactor does have 140 mil uh front and rear and you'll see the geometry thing starts to change a little bit slightly more slack than the cross country bike with the head angle so able to ride more aggressive stuff more easily but still a really efficient all-round bike trail bikes really tend to be either aluminium frames or carbon sort of a split i would say some cross-country bikes have thick seat posts but a lot of people are running a drop post on there these days same with the trail bikes and the enduro bikes up to the enduro bike now we're seeing travel increase again suspension on these bikes anywhere really between 140 to 180 on the rear this is my pole stamina 180. it's not your average in jury bites before it's definitely one of the more progressive brands so you'll see it looks super slack on the front head angle about 63 degrees steep seat angle now this bike is all about making some good time down the hill because that's how enduro races are timed but it's still got to be a decent climber you've got to get back top of the hill saving energy and quick so that's what this seat angle is designed around to be an efficient bike but it's a big hitter designed to go down the hill as fast as possible this bike's a 29er but again enduro bikes you're seeing still some 27.5 and mixed wheel sizes in in this type of bike as well where you've got 29 at the front 275 at the back you'll see bigger brakes bigger tires heavier bikes compared to trail bikes most downhill bikes are in or around 200 millimeters of travel and these are all about one thing really going downhill as fast as possible you'll see they have a fixed seat post you know you don't need to get the post up high for these you just need to be stand up cranking and down race you're seeing aluminium or carbon frames but i guess aluminium sort of coming back to the fall with these bikes even wheels and bars probably more common on dyno bites than you'd expect big difference at the front is these big triple clamp forks so triple clamps your one clamp man there two three big stiff strong 200 ml of travel on these forks uh just really built to take the abuse of racing downhill you've got a slack head tube on there so great for the high speed tracks bars are starting to come up all the way along the row as well downhill bike bars are nice and high because this really is you know designed to be ridden downhill so you want your weight to sort of be tipped back behind the bike you've got the strongest grippiest tyres which will roll pretty slowly but it's all about gripping the trail so these aren't really made for going up hills at all daniel bike's all about the big grippy tyres and the big brakes for super power to stop these things this is my new proof descent so 27.5 bike is available on 29 as well so we are seeing different riders using different wheel sizes plus mixed wheel size is pretty popular with the races nowadays i've got a coil shock on the back of this bike which is great for the small bump sensitivity really supple in that first part of stroke but daniel racers are still using a mix of the two really coil and air this is the heaviest bike of the four and not designed for going uphill well there's lots to talk about with the variety of bikes and they look quite different too but let's take the two extremes and let's take them to the trail the cross-country bike and the other end the downhill bike see actually what a difference is when you ride them race one well we're at the bottom hill so it is of course to the top first i'm on the cross-country bike i expect this to be the fastest of course it's the lightest it's the most efficient the hill's not massive so it's an all-out 100 effort drag race no technical stuff to the top of the hill [Music] well it's off the line quick already feels so light and efficient this bike ah i'm actually gonna lock out my suspension as well that's gonna help me a little bit [Music] right now to the hill climb on a downhill bike i'm not really sure i want to do this in fact i'm sure i don't want to do this it's going to be horrendous uh obviously i've got a fixed seat post no dropper it's very low and i've got a 10 24 7 speaker set so 24 is my easiest gear the 36 ring it's heavy it's going to be horrendous i think i'm going to be at least a minute slower but right here goes nothing [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] um [Music] so way slower up the hill 28 seconds on the dyno bike you'd expect the trail biking enduro bike to be much closer i would expect them to be still slower than a cross-country bike up the hill but much closer because they are designed to go uphill as well whereas down bike just isn't but where these bikes are amazing of course it's on a proper rough technical dyno track if you've never ridden a down bike on a prop down track then you're missing out because they're amazing machines um they are so confidence inspiring so this is where like even if you're not pushing the limit of the bike you'll just find yourself faster on a down bike and down track it just feels safer to go faster on down bike so i'm looking forward to it i haven't got full downhill kit got my open face lid on so i'm going to go steady because like i said you can go quick on these things but i'm going to be careful but it's time to really let this bite shine [Music] so [Music] really and it's really the difference in grip is the biggest thing with the tyres just some advertisers foreign ah there you go come on a faithful cross-country bike show me a bit of speed [Music] come on some big hits there for the hotel already this bike [Music] wow there you go riding across the country bike down the hill well down the daniel track he's asking a bit too much of it sometimes especially the tyres this bike is lightweight what i was just about to say was it feels like it's got hardly any trouble and it's soft because it's 110 mil 400 mil on the back and it's not set up for ragging down out down all tracks like this already bottomed the fork and now i've ripped the bat tire on a rock so that's a dnf for the cross-country bike down the hill well that was good fun to ride back down uh remind myself just how good these things are i'd never want to pedal one of these things back uphill ever again though that's horrendous but it does remind me sort of how much you know bikes from the enduro bike down to cross-country bike they can be tweaked to really suit the conditions yes my cross-country bike didn't quite make it to bottom of the hill but it's running the lightest cross-country race tires possible on super stiff lightweight carbon rims so i could have changed those and that bike really you know the characteristics of that bike really changed same with trail and durability you can change things on those bikes and really make them suit where you ride whereas something like this is such a specialist tool that a downhill bike really is just only good at one thing but the rest of the sort of spectrum of mountain bikes can really be tweaked to make them work for every ride and the type of uh stuff you like to do so anyway i think it's time for a sit down give us thumbs up if you like watching me ride different types of bike

Channel: Global Mountain Bike Network

Views: 601,221

Keywords: cross country bike, xc bike, trail bike, trail, enduro bike, downhill bike, difference, explaned, explainer, bike genre, genre, bike type, forest of dean, fod, what bike, which bike, GMBN, Global Mountain Bike Network, mountain biking, mountain bike, Bicycle (Product Category), MTB, Bicycle, Downhill, XC, Cross Country, Enduro, MTB skills, bike skills, mountain bike skills, bike, bike riding, cycling, gmvn, neil donoghue, sec-feature, scany15, ର, scbpgmbn15, 1k, 1o, 1a, ଐ, ኽ, 1d, 1w, Ꮖ, ዝ, ፕ15, パ, ή, β

Id: hYqJKDwvUY4

Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 07 2020