ROBIN WEAVER TECH EDITOR IN CHIEF
I get it. Pigeonholing things can make life simpler. Create categories and slot each bike into the most applicable one. It’s neat and tidy, and I can see the appeal. But placing these constraints on bikes can be confusing, even limiting. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a reason why we call a downhill bike a downhill bike – it’s designed for one job only. The same can be said for an all-out cross-country rig. Between these extremes, though, how we define a bike is a little more open to interpretation.
When I was growing up and racing downhill, things were simple. I had a DH bike for racing and a jump bike with a long enough seatpost and sufficient gears that I could use it for XC. By which, I meant pedalling along singletrack, ripping turns in the woods and even heading to the dirt jumps (which, confusingly, we referred to as ‘the trails’). However, the void between DH and XC has been filled since then. We’re now at a point where we have downcountry bikes (burly XC bikes, or maybe lightweight trail bikes?), trail bikes, enduro bikes (bigger trail bikes), all-mountain bikes (these are the same as trail bikes, I think) and super-enduro bikes (even bigger trail bikes). For a newbie, I can see how this is confusing, especially if you’re not bothered about racing.
What sort of bike do you need for just ‘mountain biking’? And will it do everything you want it to? For the most part, it’s a bike’s suspension travel and frame geometry that define which category it falls into. However, that doesn’t mean the bike can only be used for this sort of riding. There’s no reason why you can’t take your enduro bike on an all-day trail epic or slither down technical descents on your short-travel downcountry machine. They might not be suited perfectly to these types of rides, but will likely fare better than you may have been led to believe.
My point is that bikes are so good now that the categories they’ve been allocated to aren’t the be-all and end-all, and should only be used as a guideline. Don’t be afraid to slide along the bike-classification spectrum and ride whatever takes your fancy.