CUBE ATTENTION SL
£799.99 www.cube.eu
German brand Cube traditionally offers very competitive bikes at the budget end of the mountain bike market, despite selling through traditional bike shops. The Attention SL conforms to type, managing to pack in an impressive specification for the money.
THE BUILD
Even from the shop floor, the Attention does its best to grab you, with a clean-looking matte black finish to the aluminium frame. Internal gear cable routing and an integrated headset add an extra touch of quality, though the latter means you can’t upgrade to forks with a stiffer tapered steerer tube in the future.
Cube offers the bike with 27.5in wheels for the smaller frames or 29in ones for the bigger sizes, with the option of either in the middling models. Unless you’re on the very short side, we’d recommend that you opt for the bigger hoops as they help smooth out bumpy off-road bike-leg terrain, although admittedly that comes at the expense of some agility.
It’s good to see that Shimano provides the stop and go kit, with a set of M315 hydraulic disc brakes and a mostly-Deore 10-spd drivetrain. Despite a rather clunky lever, the brakes are by far the best you can expect at this price, with a larger diameter 180mm front rotor that usefully boosts stopping power. The triple chainset has ratios tweaked to work better with the big 29in wheels, and in conjunction with the wide 11-36t cassette there’s a gear for everything from road work to hauling up near-vertical inclines.
Cube’s own-brand rims are paired with user-serviceable Deore hubs rolling on 2.25in Schwalbe Smart Sam tyres, which aren’t light or fancy but they get the job done. The rest of the finishing kit is from Cube’s parts box, with a pretty comfy saddle and 680mm-wide alu low-rise bars.
Up front, an easy-to-adjust air-sprung RockShox Recon fork proffers 100mm of travel and there’s a bar-mounted Poploc remote to lock it out for extended road work. But we’d have liked to see a thru axle rather than open dropouts for added steering accuracy.
THE RIDE
The Cube’s handling is definitely on the sharper side. Its steeper head angle lends itself well to rapid changes of direction on weaving singletrack, but might leave you feeling a bit nervous on more challenging terrain.
While the handlebar gives you just enough leverage to wrestle the bike about, the long (by MTB standards) stem is more of a hindrance and forces your weight over the front end. That puts the onus on the fork and front tyre to deliver the goods under pressure. Despite a bit of twist and twang from the long legs the fork does an admirable job, with nicely measured damping and a supportive air spring.
The tyres are altogether more underwhelming. They’re made from a hard rubber compound that doesn’t do much for climbing traction and is borderline dangerous on wet rocks and roots, while the narrow profile struggles to cushion the bumps. So budget for a better set of tyres.
More encouragingly, the otherwise stiff and efficient frame’s narrow 27.2mm-diameter seatpost adds some welcome give, meaning you can stay seated without getting beaten up as much. It might not sound like much, but over the course of a big day it’ll help fend off the onset of fatigue, as will the fairly upright riding position.
Overall the Attention is a well crafted and solidly specced machine that’ll be more than happy to take on a very broad spectrum of riding. All the major components are good quality and will last well, while the combo of the 29in wheels, decent fork and skinny seatpost do their best to insulate you from the bumps. Yet, thanks to sketchy tyres and a highly conservative geometry and cockpit set-up, it doesn’t inspire huge amounts of confidence on more challenging terrain.