Trail Vs Cross Country | Battle Of The Mountain Bike

Cross Country and Trail focused bikes tend to be the less aggressive bikes in mountain biking! However, Rich Payne asked the question of which is the best MTB for your everyday off-road riding? We compared how they climb and descend to unravel the pros and cons of each bike to see which came out on top!

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Xc trail xc trail ah it’s just so flippin tough to choose so which one is right for you With the lines between genres blurring ever further then i feel that’s no truer than between these two types of like xc and trail both great capable types of bike nowadays that you can really rip around on but which one is actually best for you well there’s only one way to

Find out a good old-fashioned razzing around the woods a proper thorough experiment if you like so without further ado let’s take a closer look at the bikes in the trail corner then weighing in at approximately 13 kilograms is this my orbea occam a 140 150 mil travel bike

Built to smash trails this thing is an absolute shredder a 36 up front nice and sturdy we’ve got a lot of aluminium parts aluminium wheels cranks things like that nice and strong so they can really take a pounding but it is still a carbon frame at heart and as you’ll

Notice a coil spring just showing that this trail bike is designed to get nice and rowdy on top of that we’ve got four pot brakes a dropper seat post of course and some big old clipless platform style pedals larger chunkier thicker casing tyres and a wide range cassette proved that the

Trail bike is designed to shred on up the hill and really rip it back down but what about my cross country bike in the xc corner is this then the canyon lux trail of mine coming in a very swelt 11.2 kilograms it’s an absolute modern-day race beast built to be

Lightweight and fast on the trail carbon frame of course air shock on the back and at the front still 110 120mm travel a fairly slack head angle for an xc bike as well but look carbon wheels carbon cranks carbon bars tiny skinny pedals we’ve got a bigger chainring up front on

This than the trail bike and a real wide range cassette outback just proving that it is built for speed once you get up there it is going to be hauling and also i can lock out the suspension with the click of a remote on this one as well

There they are then two fully tricked out very up-to-date bikes from two very different genres supposedly so how do they fare out on the trail well there’s only one way to find out like i said normally i do some kind of test sprinting up fire roads and timing

Descents but we kind of always know how that’s going to fare with an xc bike being faster upper fire road and the trail bike obviously being a good capable descender so i think we need to dial this up a notch we need to find really hard climbs and really hard to

Sense so we’re here at bentonville’s zone four of the oz trails network and supposedly the climb up here is horrendous so i think we hop on a bike we see how we go and then let’s compare and contrast first up then the cross country bike on the climb the bourne

Climber the dedicated climber some might say how’s it going to handle it though when it gets super technical like it is especially of all these varying different terrains with the type of tyres i’ve got on here well let’s kick things off so here we go first attempt zone one denial

Stick my seat up we’ll put that back down okay it’s not too narrow luckily but here is where it already gets a bit steep look over the chunky rocks oh the wheel spin Okay oh and we wave we will spin all right xc efficiency engaged Absolute rocket ship around the corner just accelerates easy peasy Go near the top of this section of the climb and we’re done crazy feature look at this okay home stretch turn of the trail bike then and with the bigger tires and slightly softer pressures i run on this hopefully well hopefully i’m going to get a little bit further but the lightweight

Zippiness of that cross country bike it’s tricky here we go then let’s drop in i’m going to stand up i’m going to bother putting a seat up on this one there we go smoothly across the shore okay tyres are hooking up this is where it started to go a bit wrong Yes look no wheel spin on the gravel this time tight through the See trees there is a slight difference in the weight obviously and it is noticeable especially on these punchier bits oh for the bobbin as well oh here we go oh nice oh off camber yes [Applause] good job i got similar gear the tires have made a huge difference i think that could be

A factor here we’re nearly there final section of climbing this crazy north shore neck blur my neck okay that is both bikes done on the climb you’re probably gagging to know how each one got on because that was pretty tech i think you’ll agree you’re gonna have to wait because we need to

Head over to the download sheesh finally at the hub look at that For the downhill track that i’m going to use then i’ve chosen the school house of rock a mixture of rocks loose terrain jumps drops and tight turns to push both of these bikes to the very limit let’s see how the xe bike goes Okay xc bike downhill track big sign for a drop let’s get you oh here we go oh first test the lesser travel making itself known already and this really loose surface is a bit sketchy on these obviously slightly harder compound slightly skinnier tires really rocky along here

Having to slow up a little bit Good fun so the xd bike is lively that’s for sure but do you want a lively ride or do you want to survive the ride that is the question i like to do both And the back on this track’s awesome loving that oh big rock garden definitely got to back it off and touch here Like modern day executive rad they can handle it you just can’t push them as hard you’ll do some damage and i think that is where the big difference [Applause] Wow okay bit of a puncture in uh in that run okay we have annoyingly just got a puncture riding down here so that goes to show just how hard we are pushing it i do actually run a slightly firmer pressures in my xc bike this bike’s

Probably got about two to three psi more pressure than the trail bike but obviously the tyres are a slightly thinner more lightweight um make up to them the sidewalls and things like that to keep the weight down these are actually the down country tires but you know when you

Smash it down through rock gardens these things happen the xc was wild down there i can’t wait to see oh here’s how the trail bike gets on the trail bike [Applause] Tires bigger air volume much more grip and the longer travel i mean it’s self-explanatory isn’t it it’s a longer travel just eating up the lumps and the bumps as you’d expect it’s just it’s essentially confidence inspiring Staring those turns straight into them you can hammer through these dips and not worry [Applause] ah wow that was wild let’s head back get a bit fueled and go over the results so that is the riding all done and dusted then i finally finished and ended for the day and you might be wondering why there is a single bike here no it

Doesn’t signify that there was a clear winner however there were some distinct positives and negatives between the two types of bike which we’re going to delve into now firstly then let’s distinguish that these are very different bikes yes you can change about the parts to make

One seem much more like the other and vice versa so for example my cross country bike i could put some tougher wheels on it some big chunky tires maybe a slightly bigger fork on the front bigger pedal things out but then you are actually taking it away from the from

The purpose it’s designed for essentially likewise if i was to put an air shock and maybe a fox 34 and some carbon wheels on my trail bike then when i take it on real tough trails it’s probably not going to be capable enough and break more often than not so you’re

Really starting to blur the lines like i said at the beginning of the video which we don’t really want to do because it’s not a fair comparison then so the pros and cons of each thing because there were and don’t forget we were riding some pretty chunky uphill and downhill

Trails today so there were some definite moments that each bike would have been put well and truly through its paces the xc bike on the climb well you could see all right sometimes traction was a bit compromised because you’re running a slightly narrower lower profile tire so

On the loose gravelly stuff grip was oh overall though i do think the xc bike was the better climber of the two although there was more traction more grip and a solid planted feel with the trail bike here the problem was that actually maneuvering it and hopping about so when

It got a bit trials almost and you had to zip around and move it about the added suspension made it bob and bounce uh whereas the lightweight flickability of the the full sus xc bike well i think it certainly came into its own especially when it did get a little bit

Steeper like climbing up some of that steep little bit of north shore towards the end the weight uh you were just able to spin up there and no problem at all having said that though going down on the cross-country bike was a lively ride don’t get me wrong it kind of brought a

Smile to my face because you’re pushing those boundaries of what the tire and what the bike can do so you just have to remember that this bike isn’t a downhill bike it’s not going to smash trails as well as a trail bike or even an enduro bike you’ve got to bear in

Mind and just remember what it’s designed for the trail by then well where did i begin on the climbs it was solid it was a great dependable climate the big ratio cassette the geometry the bike actually did climb no problem at all and the chunkier tyres with more grip on

Certainly were a lot better when it got looser when it was solid ground the north shore the rocks it’s the itself well then i do think the xc bite was better however this thing came into its own completely on the way back down the extra grip the solid feel of the fork no

Flex or anything like that and the more travel in the front and the rear just really felt planted and it didn’t feel like it was going to wash out from underneath me all the time the reason why this is the only bike here well if i had to choose between the

Two and only have one bike to rule them all i probably would go for this one the xc bike is amazing and for an xc race i’m always going to choose it that lightweight efficiency the riding position and the geometry is always going to be

King but when it comes to big days on the bikes with a massive variety of trails well then i think you need something that can do a massive variety of riding so the trail bike for me probably comes out just on top but anyway that’s enough from me then so let

Me know in the comments down below are you an xc bike kind of guy or are you a trail bike kind of girl which one are you picking if you had to out of the pair of them i’m always interested here so yeah drop us a comment below but for

Me for now i’m out of it do you know what though as a little bonus if you want to see myself and the rest of the gmbn crew at a big old bike festival held in selbach this year the global bike festival is on in june the link for

Tickets is in the description down below come on out join us bikes beers and a whole lot of fun but for me for now i’ll see you later