VOODOO BIZANGO PRO
Can the premium version of Halfords’ own-brand hardtail raise the game again?
£925 / 29in / halfords.com
Why mess with a winning formula? The Voodoo Bizango has smashed pretty much every test it’s ever entered, winning our Hardtail of the Year award multiple times and impressing everyone who rode it. It must have been very tempting for Halfords to stick with the old frame, add a modern colour, fettle the spec and keep serving up that winning mix.
We’re extremely glad they didn’t, then. For Halfords’ sake, standing still in the ultra-competitive hardtail market is suicide. And for our sake, the new Bizango Pro is far superior to anything Voodoo has made before, and ultimately more fun to ride as a result.
Let’s start with the new frame. The three main tubes are now triple-butted aluminium, which means the backbone of the bike is now lighter. Voodoo has also gone to some efforts to make the bike torsionally stiffer at the front, using a chunkier top tube and now a tapered head tube. That’s all tied together with the Pro model’s ultimate upgrade over the regular model, a Rockshox 35 Gold fork with stout 35mm upper legs and a 15mm bolt-thru axle at the dropouts.
Tightening up the front of the bike is just half the story, though, as it’s designed to be more comfortable to ride, with a more compliant rear end. Voodoo has removed the seatstay bridge entirely and redesigned the chainstays and seatstays themselves so they give more under load. The bike comes with a 2.25in rear tyre, but it’ll now take up to a 2.5in thanks to the extra clearance this redesign has created. The Bizango Pro frame also gets upgraded rear dropouts, running a Boost 12x148mm thru-axle for added stiffness – lesser models get 141mm quick-release dropouts.
The cabling is neat and tidy – it now runs along the down tube and under the BB, and there’s a hole at the base of the seat tube so you can upgrade at a later date to a stealth dropper post if you want. (Trust us, you really do.) In fact, tick a box on the Halfords site and a Satori Sorata Pro with 125mm drop will be built into your bike, for £110 more. While we’re on that point, you can also add £30 to the price and get it shipped to your door, if that’s more convenient than popping into your local Halfords. It’s a smart-looking bike all round, the only smear coming from the rear brake cable routing that went the wrong side of the head tube, eating into the fork. An easy fix, but something to be on the watch for if you buy the bike.
For the most part, the Bizango Pro has nailed it with its components, fixing the flaws we found last summer in the regular Bizango. Take the Shimano brakes: the MT200S from the base model have a great lever feel and
A Rockshox 35 Gold fork is the ultimate upgrade