Our Favorite Value Trail Bikes: Round Table Discussion | 2022 Pinkbike Value Field Test

Our five value full suspension bikes have been ridden, tested, timed, and scrutinized for the individual reviews, but now it’s time to cast the votes for our favorite bike of the bunch.

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Ah i almost made it through pretty deep okay wow hey everyone we’re back to talk about these bikes one more time with the value bike full suspension round table so now that we’ve ridden all the bikes we’ve talked about them we’ve done some reviews we’re going to talk about how

They stack up against each other what we think of the parts the value and what we would take home if we were going to take one for our bike both you guys have written a bunch of full suspensions this week palmer if you’re going to take one

Of these bikes home as your bike which one would it be and why that’s a tough one to answer like my favorite bike here was the yt izzo but i don’t know if it’d be the best bike on my trails back home for that i think it would be the canyon

Spectral 125. why is that well just because like where i live it’s a little bit steeper um it’s kind of rowdy uh everything’s really dry and bony and stuff and i just feel like that bike has the more aggressive geometry that you know you’d be looking for for a little

Bit steeper terrain now guys you live in bellingham where it’s also a little steeper there’s a little more traction if you were going to have a bellingham bike to take home with you what would that be i think i go izzo the spectral will also be on that shortlist but i

Think the izzo just feels like kind of how i want a trail bike to feel feels light quick pedaling so that’d be kind of your just do it all bike without going crazy but the spectral feels close enough to almost an enduro bike that i’d

Rather be on an enduro bike so yeah for me and for my kind of riding style like this would be my uphill bike and then i would have another bike as my downhill bike how about you which bike would you take home i think i’d have to go with the azo as

Well just because it’s so versatile it climbs really well and i think it’d be easy to get along with on pretty much any trails i do have to say though that the specialized is also really easy to get along with and does everything pretty well if you want

Just a little bit of a different feel so also speaking of the specialized and some of these others we’ve talked about how they come with really good frames but some of the parts were hit or miss what do you guys think if someone’s going to get a bike and upgrade it over

Time which frame is the most upgradable i think that my three favorite frames and it’s kind of basically that specialized that stumpjumper super upgradable you know like we said that’s kind of a base model but it’s a frame that’s worth hanging better nicer parts as time goes on as you break something

Or just want some little lighter or high performance um that spectral frame is super nice too and then that izos like those are the three of those frames those frames are also found on higher end bikes and four reasons they’ve got all the all the features are taken care

Of i think that the ferzari um and the process just aren’t quite they don’t quite do it for me where i wouldn’t be inclined to just hang nicer parts off there i feel like that kind of separates the frames that have geometry dialed versus the frames that have the

Components more dialed so the ones that have the geometry figured out have a little more longevity and you can upgrade them no i think i kind of ditto all that stuff like for me if i were to choose one to bring home like just frame wise not just sort of like all bike

Performance it would probably be the stumpy because it’s like really dialed geometry and then i think you could have that bike for years and yeah just like hang nicer parts on it yeah that bike just makes a lot of sense my name is mike levy and i’m here of my own free will

Smile i would like to tell you about our beta mtb membership for just twenty four dollars a year or seven cents a day you get access to all of our field test videos in a reassuring tone the field test videos will still drop daily on youtube for free

But if you do want to support us please consider subscribing please as for the components we know some of the components were great some were less great what do you guys think what were your favorites for me standout components are the ones that work well

For the price i think so like you know looking at the spectral the spectra has the nicest build kit out of all so it’s got those shimano slx drivetrain slx brakes and it’s got the it’s got 36 the performance level so i think all that stuff worked

Great i think on the topic of suspension that fox stuff definitely outshone the rockshox stuff in this case and it’s worth noting there is a price difference so the the lower end bikes tended to have rock shocks it’s the rockshox 35 or the reba or the judy where when you go

Up that next little level we’re talking about kind of that 3300 and above then you start getting some of that fox stuff comes in there so that that’s the performance level fox um fork and that just it’s kind of a night and day difference i’d say another thing that

Was cool to see was that dvo fork on that ferzari like that’s a thousand dollar fork on a 3 000 bike um so yeah i mean if you’re looking for a suspension performance um that it was cool to see that’s a good stand out for for me for

Sure yeah and i think that fazari would stand out as the bike but probably the best spec for the price that bike is three thousand dollars and has a gx drivetrain that dbo4 like you mentioned you know g2 brakes it’s everything that’s like you wouldn’t have to upgrade

Anything right away and that price it’s pretty crazy they’re able to even create a complete bike for that price i mean it’s pretty tricky as we’ve seen with the lower end bikes there have to be some sacrifices so a lot of times those do come down to the

Brakes or the drive train and so it’s kind of a matter of as a consumer you have to look at it and see you know which drive train is going to work the best at that price point so at the moment i’d say that shimano they’re

Killing it with their lower end or entry level drive trains like that dior drivetrain is definitely better than a sram sx or nx drivetrain so if you have two bikes with those two at the same price point i’m gonna go shimano um and those are kind of different comparisons

And then sometimes the brakes you do end up with more no-name brakes or brakes called alhongo that we don’t even know anything about the company so there’s different things just to know you know to be aware of when you’re looking at these bikes now i know there were some trade-offs

You guys didn’t like all the parts what did you not like uh the i think the biggest standout for me was the sx drive train on the stump jumper it was just really like the responsiveness of the shifts or it was terrible i mean it was it was like you’d

Shift and it would just hesitate going up the gazette or down like that it didn’t matter which direction you’re trying to shift it would hesitate it would be clunky it would miss shifts it was just it was not dialed it’s kind of hard to see a bike like that that has 90 percent

Of the bike pretty dialed and then see it held back by pretty basic parts like you know the shifting and also in the stumpjumper’s case the suspension or with kona the yahoo brakes so then getting into suspension was there anything you didn’t like that you noticed yeah so one thing that you lose

As you go down in price with any suspension component really is the adjustments you just don’t have as many of them so that’s kind of why we were impressed to see that dbo fork on the fersari because it does offer all the adjustments you’d find on a handful it

Is a high-end fork but the other ones you know those fox forks you just have a basic low-speed compression adjust and rebound which that gets the job done yeah so then when you go even lower in price some of those more basic forks just have open or closed or just low

Speed compression that doesn’t make that big of a difference it’s kind of trade off as you go into this you just have to decide you know which fork you might want and if you can upgrade in the future that is going to be a substantial cost so ideally you’re getting the most

Bang for your buck and that’s kind of why we hope hope some of this is helpful to kind of help sort out those details yeah i mean like suspension is a huge huge factor in the way that the bike handles and the way that you know like

Your confidence on it and you know the lower end stuff it’s expensive to upgrade suspension and like the rockshox 35 forks you know they get the job done for like slower speeds and stuff like that but like when you start going faster it’s they start they there’s you can tell that

Pushing play it feels like your headsets lose um they and the the damping just can’t keep up with those bigger faster successive hits um so you really do like get a diminishing quality pretty pretty quickly as you start becoming a little bit more skilled rider and stuff like

That so earlier we talked a little bit about our favorites what we take home now we’re gonna get more specific if someone’s only gonna do rowdy riding they live in a place where it’s steep it’s rough it’s rocky what bike should they pick i think that’s got to be the spectral i

Mean that has the geometry of an enduro bike we’ve talked about it a bunch the 64 degree head angle it’s pretty long so it’s your long slack bike with a short amount of travel but it’s pretty fun and the steep stuff unless you you know it feels different than your just super

Plush enduro bike but it has the same geometry as that so it’s a different ride experience but i think riders that are aggressive and live near that kind of terrain they’d have a good time other end of the spectrum if your home trails are really smooth you don’t have a lot

Of rocks you mostly just have flow trails palmer what bike do you think someone who lives in that kind of place should choose it’s the izzo for sure like that’s the most exe leaning uh of all the full suspension bikes that we had here and um yeah it’s just quick and nimble

And really fun like the acceleration is great and at the price point it’s really hard to find a bike that feels that quick and fast and it really is one of those bikes that it like begs you to you know pedal harder and really try and really like

You know i was i was like trying harder on this bike on the climbs and the other ones because it like sort of gave me more of a reward for like pedaling into it more you know so now coming back to bikes that do have some shortcomings

There are a couple that didn’t impress us entirely but could have been home runs what bikes were those and what could have been changed guess yeah i mean i think that kona process 134 has got a lot of potential i mean it’s a you know we’ve had some gripes about the

Seat tube angle but overall its geometry is still pretty modern but the brakes on it they really did hold it back or they didn’t hold it back actually because it was tough to slow down so i mean that’s a you know it’s one of those things we keep going back but they’re they’re

Important brakes are probably one of the most important things on your bike and when they don’t allow you to grab them and stop quickly they really affect the ride experience so i think that kona with a brake upgrade could be a good option yeah so most your guys favorites

Seem to be consumer direct bikes which does say something about just how much bike they pack in for the money it seems to be clear that you do get more value out of you know from a mail-order bike just based on the fact that you know you’re cutting out the middleman right

Yeah i think like the one potential downside that comes up with going consumer direct is if you do need service on the bike it’s not as easy you know most of those companies at this point have pretty good customer service we give warranty parts and that type of

Thing but it’s a lot more inconvenient to be able to roll down to your local bike shop like you know specialized they’re not consumer direct but now you can get the bike shipped directly to your door but then if something breaks you could hopefully find a dealer and

Have them help you out with it so if you’re new to the sport going to consumer direct can be a great way to save money but it’s nice to know that you have a bike shop to help back you up i mean any decent bike shop should still

Be able to offer you service on these bikes it’s just it’s not going to be the same level like warranty service and customer support all right that wraps up our round table discussion for the full suspension bikes remember to stay tuned for more videos coming out from our 2022

Valubike field test here in tucson arizona You