Conclusion
We all love categories. It’s how we make the complex world around us easier to comprehend. But just because a bike brand chooses to shoehorn a bike into a specific category, like bike park model or enduro racer, how it rides is always going to be a combination of fixed factors. Complex interactions between size, shape and suspension action will end up determining what riders sense through their hands and feet while riding down trails, whatever any sticker on the frame might suggest they ought to feel.
That’s why strict categories are always a bit of a misnomer; and just like life, things are rarely clear-cut. That’s not to say categorisation isn’t useful.
This test is based on many. All three bikes here have nearly identical travel, all are of a similar price and all use a similar business model. They even share roughly the same angles and geometry. They also have MX wheels. It’s why they are all in the same group test. So when one brand claims optimisation for X and the other Y, it’s hard to see why one can’t be used to race enduro just as much as it can hit the biggest jumps.
The reality here is only one bike, the Canyon Torque, really lives up to its billing. It rides exactly like you’d expect a freeride or bike park-specific rig to. It’s super-stiff to the point of being overly solid, flicks and skims about the place with a manic energy and is basically so responsive you need the reactions of a teenager to keep pace with the Torque’s lairy attitude.
It’s also the only bike that delivers the MX sensation we’d expect of really initiating the tilt into the entrance of turns and also being so easy to manual, as you spend half your time dangling off the back. If you’re only going to ride uplifted trails and are skilful enough to get the most out of how this ultra-low BB bike slices and dices corners, it’s the rig for you.
A bigger size may well prove more versatile, but going off Canyon’s numbers the Medium looked like the size for us and ended up feeling more like a roller skate compared to the other two MX trucks on test.
Talking about more versatility, both the latest versions of Vitus’s Sommet and YT’S Capra have it in spades. The new Sommet is definitely our pick of the pair and is also the fastest, easiest to ride and ultimately the best on test. While it can’t match the Capra’s get-upand-go pedalling and climbing, point it in the other direction and it simply feels right from the off, with a smoothness and a wicked lick of pace that’s so easy to adjust to and anticipate, you always feel very safe and confident.
The suspension on the Vitus also runs rings around the Capra and Torque, or any bumps in its path, for that matter. The parts package is also superb, with no sneaky corners cut in places product managers hope you won’t notice, like chains, cassettes or the wrong tyre casing and compounds. You could easily race the Vitus Sommet 297 AMP at an enduro one weekend, shred the bike park the following weekend and knock out laps on your local trails mid-week. It’s a great mountain bike, and that’s the only categorisation it needs.