BIG WHEELS, SMALL TRAVEL

The latest short-travel 29ers are fast, ef icient and designed to tear up the trails, but which is best?

While 29in wheels are starting to gain a foothold in longer-travel applications, it’s the shorter end of the suspension spectrum where they’ve always been most at home. Big wheels allow these bikes to motor over choppy terrain, while the reduced travel means efficient pedalling and a responsive feel. This makes them a whole lot of fun for a whole lot of riding.

The bikes we have here aren’t super-light XC racers but they should be efficient enough to make the most of your pedalling efforts while remaining fast and rewarding on flowy terrain and technical climbs. They’re not enduro sleds either, but some are surprisingly capable on rougher tracks. It’s a canny category of bike for those looking to mix up trail centre riding with all-day epics and the odd bit of technical terrain.

But which is best? We’ve tested four bikes, with between 110mm and 130mm of travel, carbon fibre frames as well as alloy, and a vast array of componentry. Suspension design and geometry also differ in subtle and interesting ways, which has a huge effect on how each bike rides.

Our testing began by measuring the geometry figures for ourselves. We then set the bikes up as similarly as possible (suspension settings, cockpit layout, tyre pressure), before riding them back-to-back on the same test course. With steep technical climbs, rolling singletrack, rooty sections and downhill runs, this brought into sharp focus how each bike performed compared to the competition. We then took them out individually for longer days in the saddle, making small adjustments to bring the best out of them.

A price hike means the Norco Optic C9.2 is now significantly more expensive than the other bikes here, but we always consider cost as well as performance in our reviews.