I’m at the Sedona Mountain Bike Festival this weekend simply because it’s always been on my bucket list. I got a chance to test-ride a bunch of bikes today so I thought I’d share my thoughts in case anybody is in the market for a mountain bike.
About the trails I rode: I rode a loop that consisted of “Adobe Jack” and “Javelina” and some of the interconnecting trails. You can click on that link to get an idea of what those trails look like or you can take a look at this video (sorry, best one I can find). I’d say that video understates the steepness of everything by about 100% and, also, I’d only watch the first couple of minutes as that’s representative of what I was riding. A lot of people were walking the section you see in the first minute of the video. Conditions today were mixed as there’s still some snow on the ground that’s melting from their from earlier this week.
I’d wager this trail combo is probably a touch more technical than what you’d ride in an Xterra granted my experience riding those courses is pretty limited having only ridden “The Hulk” in Myrtle Beach SC and the National White Water Center just outside of Charlotte NC. Adobe Jack and Javelina are considered pretty tame out here in Sedona according to the locals (but are technical to me) and I would describe those trails and the shorter trails that connect them as rocky and ledgy with punchy climbs, some tight switchbacks, some slick rock, and some smooth flow. One of the reasons I picked this trail was that I could ride there and ride back in about ten minutes each way rather than have to wait for a shuttle. This let me test a lot of bikes in one day and the time on the road gave me a good feel for how the bikes pedaled.
Noe: I’m recalling spec from memory as best as I can. May differ from what I link.
Edit to add: I often call out how a bike performs in a tight, uphill switchback. The reason I do this is that the trend in mountain bike geometry seems to be longer and slacker. This makes bikes stable on fast downhills but there’s no free lunch. The slacker the bike gets the steering becomes “floppy” and a long wheelbase is counterproductive in a tight turn. IMO people racing Xterras are probably better served by shorter and more upright… more “XC”… geometry. However a little extra travel helps over rough stuff. Some companies are turning their full suspension cross country bikes into “down-country” or “XXC” or whatever you want to call it by adding a 120mm fork to a frame designed around a 100mm fork. This does indeed make the bike more capable when pointed down but there’s a tradeoff when climbing in that the seat tube angle is too slack. I’ll add a post later with some more thoughts on this.
Fezzari Signal Peak
Fezzari is an online consumer-direct brand. I think they previously sold a lot of re-branded open mould frames but now they’re starting to develop some of their own. The Signal Peak is one of those. 120mm front and rear, Fox 34 Step Cast, forget the rear shock but it was Fox, SRAM GX Eagle I think, X-fusion dropper. 29x2.3 front and rear… pretty aggressive Maxis tires but I forget which ones specifically. This bike was REALLY NICE. I left the rear shock completely open and it pedaled shockingly well. Geometry worked well for tight switchbacks but always felt in control on some of the steep, rocky descents. Most of the climbs I could ride seated and I only had to shift forward on the steepest of climbs.
Fezzari Cascade Peak
140mm front, 140mm rear. I wanted to try out a longer travel bike to see if the extra cush was worth the weight penalty. I hated this bike. It was very long and very “slack.” Probably good for descending but absolutely miserable in anything tight and twisty. The steering was miserable. I would describe it as “floppy”. You could hold a straight line pretty easily on a descent but any turn left or right would cause the wheel to “flop”. It was very tough to get the front wheel to go where you wanted. I really did not like this bike.
Specialized Epic
100mm front, 100mm rear, no dropper, XO1 Eagle, 2.3" tire front, 2.2" tire rear. Not enough “bike” for some parts of this trail IMO. The big thing was the lack of a dropper. I’m not a fan of the rear suspension. It has a very on/off feel. It would probably be great for smooth single track with the occasional rooty section as it really does ride like a hardtail when the rear shock is closed.
Specialized Epic Evo
120mm front, 100mm rear, dropper, other same as above. The extra fork travel definitely made this bike more capable as did the dropper. However the longer fork slackens the whole bike which gets in your way when you need to move your weight forward on a climb. Many climbs I couldn’t be seated and I had to shift my weight forward of the saddle.
Canyon Neuron AL 7.0
130mm front, 130mm rear, dropper, I didn’t note the tires but they looked almost like skinny XC tires… my gut is to say they were Maxxis Aspens. Strange choice. I had very mixed feelings about this bike. It pedaled very well when seated, handled high speed rocky stuff surprisingly well, and the geometry was great for tight and twisty stuff. However, the SRAM NX shifter was unforgivable. The upshift lever was tiny and very recessed almost like they were trying to hide it. Also, this bike was a pedal strike machine. It was crazy and, frankly, unnerving. In a thirty minute ride I probably had six pedal strikes. The rest of the day on all of the other bikes I rode I had one.
Scott Spark 920
120mm front, 120mm rear, dropper. Beefy tires… somewhere in the 29x2.4" range. I’ve got mixed feelings on the TwinLock remote. When you lock the bike out it’s LOCKED. Might as well be a fully rigid bike. Traction mode is pretty versatile and the bike pedals well. If I were riding smooth single track with only the occasional rooty section or rock garden I’d just leave the bike in “traction” mode. In “open” the bike was very plush but still pedaled reasonably well when seated. I was able to descend fast rocky stuff with more confidence on this bike than any other bike I rode today. However, in my opinion, the whole TwinLock thing just requires too much thought. Also, I don’t like how the TwinLock lever takes up the area normally reserved for your dropper and that the dropper lever sits “on top” of the bar. Great bike but I’m not totally sold on TwinLock.
Giant Trance Advanced 29
I can’t really give this bike a fair shake as they put me on a medium instead of a large but I rode it anyways. All I’ll say is that it pedaled well when seated.
The New Salsa Spearfish
120mm front, 100mm rear. Not sure about the geometry but it worked well for me as it handled tight uphill switchbacks just fine. Interestingly this bike runs a “Super Boost” rear which lets you run either a 27.5x3.0 or 29x2.6 tire. That’s pretty versatile IMO. Ran the suspension open and it pedaled well. Notable was how little feedback there was through the pedals when going through rough rocky sections and/or braking. One very interesting note was bosses for a top tube bag (think along the lines of what’s standard on a TT bike. I could see that being handy in an endurance XC race if you like to use gels.
Yetti SB100
120mm front, 100mm rear. The bike I rode was spec’d pretty darn nice. I will say this bike felt a touch long and accordingly I had trouble in tight uphill switchbacks but on a steep straight climb I could stay seated as the seat tube angle felt pretty steep. The suspension felt very controlled over fast rocky sections and, like the Salsa, there was very little pedal feedback.
Other stuff: SRAM had their new AXS mountain and road groups available for people to tinker with. The mtb shifter was SLICK as was the dropper remote. You get a little bit of audible feedback from both which I’m pretty sure they built in intentionally. The road group they had was a 1x setup on what looked like a gravel bike. I want to say it shifts faster than the old eTap and comparable to Di2.
Hopefully I’ll be able to get my hands on some more bikes tomorrow 
even though the forecast is calling for rain 
Edit: got two more rides in this morning before the rain started. See above.