RADON SLIDE FE 9.0
£2,210 (approx)* A bargain, if you prefer cruising to carving
Longer-travel bikes from German direct-sell brand Radon have made a big impact in our tests recently, with their top-value kit and impressive ride characteristics. The mid-travel Slide FE certainly offers the former, but does it feel like a killer deal on the trail?
The frame
The Slide frame follows the classic ‘seat tube rocker-link driving a vertically-mounted shock’ layout, with chunky pivots on the asymmetric chainstays creating a true four-bar suspension set-up. Wide-spaced seatstays give plenty of tyre clearance even with the stock 2.6in rubber. The gear cable is routed internally, while the dropper post and rear brake lines run along the side of the down tube, for easy servicing. There’s plenty of room within the tall frame for a conventional bottle cage.
In other areas, the chassis looks a little dated. All the Slide FE bikes come with single-ring SRAM Eagle drivetrains, but there’s still a front mech mount on the kinked seat tube. The press-fit bottom bracket (BB) is the older GXP standard, not one of SRAM’s latest DUB units, and the short-stroke RockShox Monarch rear shock is imperial, rather than metric. We also only measured 120mm of wheel travel at full compression, as opposed to the claimed 130mm.
The kit
The obvious kit headlines here are the GX Eagle 12-speed transmission and RockShox Pike RCT3 fork, which are outstanding for the money. Also worth shouting about are the SUNringlé Duroc wheels and Schwalbe Nobby Nic ADDIX Speedgrip 2.6in tyres, which combine easy speed with high-volume float and protection. The 35mm-diameter Race Face bar and stem add car park kudos, and their 760mm width and 60mm length suit the bike’s geometry. While the Magura brakes have plenty of power, their blunt feel reduces control.
The ride
With the lowest weight on test and relatively light wheels shod with large but fast-rolling tyres, the Slide FE feels the fastest of the 650b bikes here on smooth terrain. SRAM’s Eagle transmissions always feel clean and efficient too (though the gears weren’t correctly set up when our bike arrived). The short-stroke rear shock is tuned to give a firm feel at the start of the stroke, and while there’s visible movement when stomping out of the saddle there’s no sensation of power loss. Although the long rear end presses your power into the ground, the firm suspension means you need to run low tyre
pressures to get good small-bump absorption and traction.
Compared to the other bikes here, the Slide FE is on the back foot in geometry terms. While Radon quote 67.6 degrees for the head angle, we measured it at an XC-steep 68.5 degrees, and that’s combined with a relatively long (by modern trail bike standards) 60mm stem. The reach and wheelbase are short, which makes the front end feel twitchy and reduces confidence. In contrast, the long stays tend to scuff the back tyre against rocks. It’s not the easiest machine to manual or wheelie either.
Even with just 20psi in the tyres, the Radon rattles and chatters rather than flowing seamlessly. Once the shock starts moving, it blows through its travel easily, so there’s not much to push and pump against. The fork behaves similarly, so we added volume spacers to both for a more positive feel. The fact the rear wheel is moving 10mm less than advertised means the bike still doesn’t carry speed well over bigger blocks and drops even when tweaked, and the shock felt the most hassled and least consistent on test.
The rear end hanging up on bigger hits and flatter faces also throws your weight forward onto a front end that’s much more likely to tuck under than those on the other bikes here. Add the uncommunicative brakes, midwidth bar and long-ish stem, and this becomes even more of an issue. We found ourselves tiptoeing nervously down sections we were lobbing the other bikes into without a thought.
THE SLIDE F. E. FEELS THE FASTEST OF THE 650 B BIKES HERE ON SMOOTH TERRAIN BUT IT’ S ON THE BACK FOOT IN GEOMETRY TERMS