Commencal Meta HT AM Review (2019 model)
Pros and Cons
Pros:
Cons:
Cons:
Who it's for:
Who it's NOT for
More thoughts on the 2019 Commencal Meta HT AM Hardtail
what's up party people it's an exciting day today is the day I review my buddy's common saw meta HTM
this is the most requested bike review I've got and for good reason because this is a cheap bike with aggressive geometry let's see how it rides we're gonna start out in the pumptrack cuz hard tails rock in pump tracks see what this baby's made up if you haven't already checked it out go watch the video where I take the first look at this and walk through the components and everything
rearend longer than a dirt jumper but it's still manual as well when you get used to it you got to pop it up a bit
almost like a hardtail that's a good thing
yeah backends a little long on the playful stuff all right let's hit this slalom track this is my buddy's bike so I got to take it careful I don't want to wad it up for my sake or his bikes sake
this feels right at home on this type erm yeah danuel step up yeah like chumps good
like staff
real fast out aluminum frame it's snappy oh yeah that is a joy to jump super fun all right let's head over to teacup one of my favorite testing trails we'll go over there and put this thing through its paces as a trail bike headed over to the trail let's see how this thing wheelies oh yeah that's nice it takes a little bit to get it up to the wheelie point but man that's balanced oh yeah that's super relaxed on about manuals oh it's good it takes a bit to get it to that point oh yeah oh that's fun that's one of my biggest concerns with this was it the chainstay would feel a little bit longer a little less fun plenty fun the front end feels a little bit low I'd probably run riser bars a little bit but once it's in the manual spot it's a nice sweet zone and it can stay there for a while spike has a nice comfortable neutral peddling feel the dimensions feel a lot like the size medium timber jack I like that it's just comfortable I could pedal all day in this we'll see if it feels sketchy on the really steep stuff alright we made it to the trailhead one thing I want to talk about on the screen this has a 150 ml dropper with this all the way slammed I can't run it fully up for my leg extension and this is a medium I'm five six with super short legs but usually on 450 ml reach bikes I can still fit a 160 post in there so I wish this was an inch lower and that means I really can't size up to a size large which has a 4:45 reaches which is what I'm used to so this is the size I would have to ride unless I want to run like a hundred ml dropper and that just doesn't work for me okay here we go I can already tell this is a stiff frame even with soft aluminum wheels with big wide tread tires accelerates nicely though there's very little flex when you put the power down I wouldn't mind the seat angle a degree steeper that Banshees ruined to me this works okay let's go take a look at this this is really hard to get up let's see how the comments all does
give it two more tries so I'm not able to lift my front wheel on and pivot on it and lift on that like on my Banshee I don't think the wheelbase is quite long enough for that technique but because it's nice and compact I could just kind of bunnyhop the whole thing just come at it faster and lunge up it it snappy step on and it just accelerates
but it feel it's a little bit shorter than I'm used to when we dive down to foot but just like that it definitely feels more composed than the timber jack on rowdy stuff techy climb this bike because of the shorter wheelbase the bottom bracket doesn't whack stuff on ledges as much and this bike prefers brute power more than finesse to get up stuff I'm starting to see if you charge it everything you'll get up and just fine but if you try to dice your way up it slowly feels a little bit off I'm flat mellow twisty stuff like this it's pretty fun feels good binds me the timber jack a lot in fact this reminds me more of the timber jack and they have any other bike just the riding position although this has a higher stack which I like timber jack the bars felt a little lower alright let's play around a bit oh yeah that wants to play awesome
got a good manual spun it's very playful with those small wheels and by playful I mean wants a manual jump corner goof-off i've probably be fast around 29 errs we don't fly a bike like this to be fast by it to have fun yeah that rear end is still one of my newer describe it as about as supple as an anvil and I'd agree it is stiff even with cush core transferring a lot of vibrations to my feet you have rocks like this it's gonna buck you I'm getting a lot of vibration on my feet part of that could be these Crankbrothers stamp pedals I mean composite pedals kind of deaden vibration a little bit that's my theory I'm gonna test that out some more but there's no doubt this rear triangle is pretty good the head angle is feeling a little bit steeper than I would think it should be on paper feels like a 66 and a half not at 65 don't know why
this has the personality of a kitten who ate too much cotton candy at the fair just bouncing off the walls okay it's rowdy when you get on the bumpy stuff it bucks you around a lot stiffer then the timber jack or chameleon stiffer than the middle child steel this is one of the stiffer bikes stiffest bites already
so yeah you can't expect with a frame this cheap to get compliance to this is a tough climb a switchback full of stairs see how the trauma Saul does
it doesn't feel short which is nice it feels like the reach is longer than the numbers suggest all right we got it that's I get that about eighty percent of the time I think the shorter wheelbase made that easier I still climb better on my Banshee for some reason despite it being longer significantly longer I think the shortish wheelbase of this lends itself to that fun poppy exciting feel this would probably be my favorite bike to bunny hop dimensions are just right for that for me this is just about right for goofing off I need to find a camera that does not make all this stuff look flat because it is not flat I'm noticing a little bit less traction due to the stiff aluminum frame even with cush core in about 18 19 psi the back tire wants to bounce and kind of skip and not track the terrain so frame material is not just playing into the stiffness but the grip as well see if we can get up this this is a hard move probably the hardest on the trail
darn my stemmed moved on me having a hard time hitting that back wheel lifted over lifts on this for some reason it just doesn't want to lift stems back on straight here we go for the most technical part yeah I don't know why it's so hard to lift the rear usually I can set my front on something and then kind of hop into a nose manual and lift up the rear but it is hard on this the rear ends just not coming up and wants to stay down for some reason
okay that's where I felt the short reach Matt was scary dropping down off of the two-foot ledge there made me want to go over the bars a little bit if you have a lot of especially slow drops you're going down it the reach felt short for me on that I
was wondering about that but most people don't have that and remember my 95% rule if you're trail only has one or two of those don't modify your whole bike just for that 5% of the obstacles
wheelbase feels a little short compared to what I'm used to makes it easy to toss around and play it slow speeds but is your pick up speed a little bit less a little more twitchy a bit less stable and planted kind of like the kid with the cotton candy not so stable not so planted but fun so if you're looking for a hard tail to just smash things at the fastest speeds you can a hard tails aren't particularly great at that but be I would size up as long as your legs are long enough for the longer seat tube I can't size up the seat tubes already too long for me but at moderate speed and on twisty stuff this is really fun the head angle feels more like a 67 for some reason not feels very slack it doesn't feel twitchy it's not quite as planted keep in mind the front center is shorter than the rear center on my sides which is an odd feeling
so it's kind of like a timber jacket with the rear end pulled all the way back and that will force you to put weight on the bars like you should and a little weight forward but I don't quite have the confidence to charge stuff like on the longer bikes it's not awful it just I can't I don't feel comfortable pushing it as fast as possible but bunny hopping and popping off the stuff just wants to do that all day yeah it's the steering's a little slow it wants to get to the outside on both corners really have to lean that aggressively pretend you're always on the slalom track engage the scoring often really lean it part of that could be these rims I think I prefer 40 mil wint rims on a 2.8 front tire on this the cornering knobs are really out there to really around profile so I really have to dump it engage those
it's fun at this speed but much faster I get a little bit overwhelmed even I know this trail that's really interesting
I've written a lot of slack hard tails but this is the first one that the steering kind of feels dead on and it's it feels like how most people assume slack head angle bikes ride it's pretty vague in the front it feels kind of dead it's not I wouldn't want it any steeper but something's off I just can't put my finger on what it is it's like this bike wants to charge but the reach doesn't quite let it do that it feels better than a steep head angle but it doesn't feel like a lot of other 65 degree head angle bikes out there it's these are my new things I'm talking about so if you have one of these and you feel like I'm ragging on your bike and you love it that's great it's important for you to love the bike your ride and that's all that matters I don't have to love it for you to love it I'll tell you what though I could pedal all day long on this short reach very comfortable for long days in the saddle and I keep saying short reach it's not a short reach it's just not a long reach like most of the bikes I've been riding and I don't want you to think I only like long bikes with super aggressive Gio I love the timber jack and that's not a very long bike and this wants to be pushed harder but I wouldn't mistake it for a super aggressive bike just doesn't quite ride like one almost so on this traversée section I'm just noticing how much this bikes beating me up I'm tired just sitting down pedaling at 10 miles an hour it really does transfer a lot of the bumps see you small bumps that normally you could tune out with tire pressure but even that is in
so that's the cost of flying a really cheap aluminum frame usually if you want to feel what a stiff bike feels like ride one of these it's so stiff I'm worried that people are gonna ride one of these is their only hardtail I think this is how all hard tails ride and then ride them off because they beat you up so much hard tails are not normally this stiff and they don't need to be very efficient when you mash on the pedals it just accelerates and goes it's funny you think all hard tails are efficient but they're not the timber jack is much less stiff than this bike oh man so here's the real question but I'd rather have a timber jack sized up with a negative two angle set or this probably the timber jack I like that little bike but I'd put some riser bars on it cuz the stacks a little low on that the timber jack can be ridden at one to nine levels of intensity at ten it starts to get overwhelmed that's where maybe an adjustable headset or sizing up would help but I don't think that bike was really meant to be ridden it too intense this bike wants to be ridden at nine tenths to ten tents all the time if you pretend you're on a slalom track and you're carving corners as hard as humanly possible that's when this bike comes alive literally on that slalom track this was the best bike I felt for that it's very BMX II it loves to rail corners hard it doesn't like to meander around stuff like I'm doing right now if you got to do a slalom track a BMX track dirt jumps near you I don't think this thing can be beat it's awesome at that stuff but for general trail riding especially on greens and blues does okay but it really wants to just be railed a hundred percent all the time that's when this bike stands out as being different yeah hard time with big lifts but let's give it a try yeah if I can force myself up it and just brutally attack it I can get up stuff but there's no finessing
does not like steps in climbs unless you bunnyhop up it sorry if I'm repeating myself it's just reinforcing that every time I try one now it'll be in the perfect gear and go I'll bet because it's an obstacle you charge it did just fine it's really good accelerates quick sprinted right up that this reminds me of a BMX bike an aluminum race BMX bike it's pretty stiff it's Sprint's fast it accelerates quickly it's very racy in the way that it wants to just go quick but it's not forgiving it loves surreal corners especially with that tire really dumped
a lot of the bikes I'm comparing this to have frames that cost two or three times more money but I think that's an area that's worth spending more especially on a hardtail I'd rather have a lower end derailleur and a great riding frame this is not an awful frame it's an awful frame for Sedona if you ride slalom tracks if you ride fast flowy stuff I think of the float rail in Santa Cruz this would probably be the perfect bike for that trail there's not a lot of bumps it would want to catch air off everything you would rail those corners but as a trail bike I find it too stiff keep in mind I'm running some really soft Ibis wheels that I really like on my wife's dv9 carbon bike which is way softer riding than this even with those soft rims nice wide profile and wide tires it's still too harsh so it's not the wheels it's not the tires I even have cush core in there I just can't quite get the ride quality I want it's skipping it's bouncing it's jarring I'm fatigued and I've only gone six miles today I'd recommend spending a little more to get a great bike a couple other things cable routing is tidy this is the only exposed cable it's got internal brake cables and you know how I feel about that I don't like it it looks clean one interesting thing they've been able to do is get it to go pass from the front triangle most companies cannot do that right so they just route it here and then it pops out here in its external so if you're gonna do it internal at least do it like that I like that it looks really nice so normally at this point I would continue on and ride the Grand Central Trail down it's a steep fast-flowing but loose Shaylee rocky trail and that just doesn't sound fun to me right now on this bike I'm having a hard time clicking with it even though I'm at the top of a great descent I'm gonna bail out and take the road because it's not gonna be fun on that descent it's actually gonna beat me up more than I want I really wanted to like this bike I really did because on paper it looks fantastic not all aluminum frames are this harsh though for example that banshee that I rode felt more supple than most steel frames but this is an aluminum anvil and it is brutal so let me wrap this up climbing I would give this a seven and a half out of ten it's it does okay on mellow stuff but on punchy climbs where you want to lift the rear it really struggles for corners on the trail I'm gonna give it an eight it if you lean it super aggressively like you're trying to drag the bars on the ground it comes alive and hooks up but if you're not doing that it doesn't feel right it feels a little dead it wants to kind of push in the corners it just doesn't quite feel right if you're on bermed float rails it loves that and it will come alive it's a ten on those when I was on that slalom track and the pumptrack it carved those corners and just went so well on that playfulness I'm gonna give it a 10 it's fun it's fun to pop up into manuals it wheelies extremely well it's playful in the bike park on the pump tracks that sort of thing it's very playful bike it doesn't quite feel like a dirt jumper on the trail but when you take it to the dirt jumps in the pumptrack it does feel quite like a dirt jumper if it had a little shorter rear end it'd be even more playful in that stuff but it's just fine how it is I definitely recommend it as a 20 75 by 2.8 you need that cushion because it's so rigid a 29 would just beat me up even more party factor I would probably give this a 10 this is like the frat guy who's just always partying everywhere he goes and getting into mischief and getting arrested every couple years just kind of ragged living on the edge that's the attitude this bike has it's just not quite in control enough for an adult but he doesn't know any better so that's what he does I'm so glad I got to test this it's a cheap bike and it looks great on paper but the sum of its parts was not as high as I had hoped if you own one of these and you hate this review that's okay I'm not here to convince you I'm just sharing my opinions riding this bike and how it compares to other hardtails I've ridden you can still have a ton of fun on this bike I've just written a lot of other bikes that I would recommend if this taught you something new and you learned something give this video a thumbs up and subscribe and check out my other videos for more insight into hardtails thanks for watching there's a party in the mountains and you're invited
this is the most requested bike review I've got and for good reason because this is a cheap bike with aggressive geometry let's see how it rides we're gonna start out in the pumptrack cuz hard tails rock in pump tracks see what this baby's made up if you haven't already checked it out go watch the video where I take the first look at this and walk through the components and everything
rearend longer than a dirt jumper but it's still manual as well when you get used to it you got to pop it up a bit
almost like a hardtail that's a good thing
yeah backends a little long on the playful stuff all right let's hit this slalom track this is my buddy's bike so I got to take it careful I don't want to wad it up for my sake or his bikes sake
this feels right at home on this type erm yeah danuel step up yeah like chumps good
like staff
real fast out aluminum frame it's snappy oh yeah that is a joy to jump super fun all right let's head over to teacup one of my favorite testing trails we'll go over there and put this thing through its paces as a trail bike headed over to the trail let's see how this thing wheelies oh yeah that's nice it takes a little bit to get it up to the wheelie point but man that's balanced oh yeah that's super relaxed on about manuals oh it's good it takes a bit to get it to that point oh yeah oh that's fun that's one of my biggest concerns with this was it the chainstay would feel a little bit longer a little less fun plenty fun the front end feels a little bit low I'd probably run riser bars a little bit but once it's in the manual spot it's a nice sweet zone and it can stay there for a while spike has a nice comfortable neutral peddling feel the dimensions feel a lot like the size medium timber jack I like that it's just comfortable I could pedal all day in this we'll see if it feels sketchy on the really steep stuff alright we made it to the trailhead one thing I want to talk about on the screen this has a 150 ml dropper with this all the way slammed I can't run it fully up for my leg extension and this is a medium I'm five six with super short legs but usually on 450 ml reach bikes I can still fit a 160 post in there so I wish this was an inch lower and that means I really can't size up to a size large which has a 4:45 reaches which is what I'm used to so this is the size I would have to ride unless I want to run like a hundred ml dropper and that just doesn't work for me okay here we go I can already tell this is a stiff frame even with soft aluminum wheels with big wide tread tires accelerates nicely though there's very little flex when you put the power down I wouldn't mind the seat angle a degree steeper that Banshees ruined to me this works okay let's go take a look at this this is really hard to get up let's see how the comments all does
give it two more tries so I'm not able to lift my front wheel on and pivot on it and lift on that like on my Banshee I don't think the wheelbase is quite long enough for that technique but because it's nice and compact I could just kind of bunnyhop the whole thing just come at it faster and lunge up it it snappy step on and it just accelerates
but it feel it's a little bit shorter than I'm used to when we dive down to foot but just like that it definitely feels more composed than the timber jack on rowdy stuff techy climb this bike because of the shorter wheelbase the bottom bracket doesn't whack stuff on ledges as much and this bike prefers brute power more than finesse to get up stuff I'm starting to see if you charge it everything you'll get up and just fine but if you try to dice your way up it slowly feels a little bit off I'm flat mellow twisty stuff like this it's pretty fun feels good binds me the timber jack a lot in fact this reminds me more of the timber jack and they have any other bike just the riding position although this has a higher stack which I like timber jack the bars felt a little lower alright let's play around a bit oh yeah that wants to play awesome
got a good manual spun it's very playful with those small wheels and by playful I mean wants a manual jump corner goof-off i've probably be fast around 29 errs we don't fly a bike like this to be fast by it to have fun yeah that rear end is still one of my newer describe it as about as supple as an anvil and I'd agree it is stiff even with cush core transferring a lot of vibrations to my feet you have rocks like this it's gonna buck you I'm getting a lot of vibration on my feet part of that could be these Crankbrothers stamp pedals I mean composite pedals kind of deaden vibration a little bit that's my theory I'm gonna test that out some more but there's no doubt this rear triangle is pretty good the head angle is feeling a little bit steeper than I would think it should be on paper feels like a 66 and a half not at 65 don't know why
this has the personality of a kitten who ate too much cotton candy at the fair just bouncing off the walls okay it's rowdy when you get on the bumpy stuff it bucks you around a lot stiffer then the timber jack or chameleon stiffer than the middle child steel this is one of the stiffer bikes stiffest bites already
so yeah you can't expect with a frame this cheap to get compliance to this is a tough climb a switchback full of stairs see how the trauma Saul does
it doesn't feel short which is nice it feels like the reach is longer than the numbers suggest all right we got it that's I get that about eighty percent of the time I think the shorter wheelbase made that easier I still climb better on my Banshee for some reason despite it being longer significantly longer I think the shortish wheelbase of this lends itself to that fun poppy exciting feel this would probably be my favorite bike to bunny hop dimensions are just right for that for me this is just about right for goofing off I need to find a camera that does not make all this stuff look flat because it is not flat I'm noticing a little bit less traction due to the stiff aluminum frame even with cush core in about 18 19 psi the back tire wants to bounce and kind of skip and not track the terrain so frame material is not just playing into the stiffness but the grip as well see if we can get up this this is a hard move probably the hardest on the trail
darn my stemmed moved on me having a hard time hitting that back wheel lifted over lifts on this for some reason it just doesn't want to lift stems back on straight here we go for the most technical part yeah I don't know why it's so hard to lift the rear usually I can set my front on something and then kind of hop into a nose manual and lift up the rear but it is hard on this the rear ends just not coming up and wants to stay down for some reason
okay that's where I felt the short reach Matt was scary dropping down off of the two-foot ledge there made me want to go over the bars a little bit if you have a lot of especially slow drops you're going down it the reach felt short for me on that I
was wondering about that but most people don't have that and remember my 95% rule if you're trail only has one or two of those don't modify your whole bike just for that 5% of the obstacles
wheelbase feels a little short compared to what I'm used to makes it easy to toss around and play it slow speeds but is your pick up speed a little bit less a little more twitchy a bit less stable and planted kind of like the kid with the cotton candy not so stable not so planted but fun so if you're looking for a hard tail to just smash things at the fastest speeds you can a hard tails aren't particularly great at that but be I would size up as long as your legs are long enough for the longer seat tube I can't size up the seat tubes already too long for me but at moderate speed and on twisty stuff this is really fun the head angle feels more like a 67 for some reason not feels very slack it doesn't feel twitchy it's not quite as planted keep in mind the front center is shorter than the rear center on my sides which is an odd feeling
so it's kind of like a timber jacket with the rear end pulled all the way back and that will force you to put weight on the bars like you should and a little weight forward but I don't quite have the confidence to charge stuff like on the longer bikes it's not awful it just I can't I don't feel comfortable pushing it as fast as possible but bunny hopping and popping off the stuff just wants to do that all day yeah it's the steering's a little slow it wants to get to the outside on both corners really have to lean that aggressively pretend you're always on the slalom track engage the scoring often really lean it part of that could be these rims I think I prefer 40 mil wint rims on a 2.8 front tire on this the cornering knobs are really out there to really around profile so I really have to dump it engage those
it's fun at this speed but much faster I get a little bit overwhelmed even I know this trail that's really interesting
I've written a lot of slack hard tails but this is the first one that the steering kind of feels dead on and it's it feels like how most people assume slack head angle bikes ride it's pretty vague in the front it feels kind of dead it's not I wouldn't want it any steeper but something's off I just can't put my finger on what it is it's like this bike wants to charge but the reach doesn't quite let it do that it feels better than a steep head angle but it doesn't feel like a lot of other 65 degree head angle bikes out there it's these are my new things I'm talking about so if you have one of these and you feel like I'm ragging on your bike and you love it that's great it's important for you to love the bike your ride and that's all that matters I don't have to love it for you to love it I'll tell you what though I could pedal all day long on this short reach very comfortable for long days in the saddle and I keep saying short reach it's not a short reach it's just not a long reach like most of the bikes I've been riding and I don't want you to think I only like long bikes with super aggressive Gio I love the timber jack and that's not a very long bike and this wants to be pushed harder but I wouldn't mistake it for a super aggressive bike just doesn't quite ride like one almost so on this traversée section I'm just noticing how much this bikes beating me up I'm tired just sitting down pedaling at 10 miles an hour it really does transfer a lot of the bumps see you small bumps that normally you could tune out with tire pressure but even that is in
so that's the cost of flying a really cheap aluminum frame usually if you want to feel what a stiff bike feels like ride one of these it's so stiff I'm worried that people are gonna ride one of these is their only hardtail I think this is how all hard tails ride and then ride them off because they beat you up so much hard tails are not normally this stiff and they don't need to be very efficient when you mash on the pedals it just accelerates and goes it's funny you think all hard tails are efficient but they're not the timber jack is much less stiff than this bike oh man so here's the real question but I'd rather have a timber jack sized up with a negative two angle set or this probably the timber jack I like that little bike but I'd put some riser bars on it cuz the stacks a little low on that the timber jack can be ridden at one to nine levels of intensity at ten it starts to get overwhelmed that's where maybe an adjustable headset or sizing up would help but I don't think that bike was really meant to be ridden it too intense this bike wants to be ridden at nine tenths to ten tents all the time if you pretend you're on a slalom track and you're carving corners as hard as humanly possible that's when this bike comes alive literally on that slalom track this was the best bike I felt for that it's very BMX II it loves to rail corners hard it doesn't like to meander around stuff like I'm doing right now if you got to do a slalom track a BMX track dirt jumps near you I don't think this thing can be beat it's awesome at that stuff but for general trail riding especially on greens and blues does okay but it really wants to just be railed a hundred percent all the time that's when this bike stands out as being different yeah hard time with big lifts but let's give it a try yeah if I can force myself up it and just brutally attack it I can get up stuff but there's no finessing
does not like steps in climbs unless you bunnyhop up it sorry if I'm repeating myself it's just reinforcing that every time I try one now it'll be in the perfect gear and go I'll bet because it's an obstacle you charge it did just fine it's really good accelerates quick sprinted right up that this reminds me of a BMX bike an aluminum race BMX bike it's pretty stiff it's Sprint's fast it accelerates quickly it's very racy in the way that it wants to just go quick but it's not forgiving it loves surreal corners especially with that tire really dumped
a lot of the bikes I'm comparing this to have frames that cost two or three times more money but I think that's an area that's worth spending more especially on a hardtail I'd rather have a lower end derailleur and a great riding frame this is not an awful frame it's an awful frame for Sedona if you ride slalom tracks if you ride fast flowy stuff I think of the float rail in Santa Cruz this would probably be the perfect bike for that trail there's not a lot of bumps it would want to catch air off everything you would rail those corners but as a trail bike I find it too stiff keep in mind I'm running some really soft Ibis wheels that I really like on my wife's dv9 carbon bike which is way softer riding than this even with those soft rims nice wide profile and wide tires it's still too harsh so it's not the wheels it's not the tires I even have cush core in there I just can't quite get the ride quality I want it's skipping it's bouncing it's jarring I'm fatigued and I've only gone six miles today I'd recommend spending a little more to get a great bike a couple other things cable routing is tidy this is the only exposed cable it's got internal brake cables and you know how I feel about that I don't like it it looks clean one interesting thing they've been able to do is get it to go pass from the front triangle most companies cannot do that right so they just route it here and then it pops out here in its external so if you're gonna do it internal at least do it like that I like that it looks really nice so normally at this point I would continue on and ride the Grand Central Trail down it's a steep fast-flowing but loose Shaylee rocky trail and that just doesn't sound fun to me right now on this bike I'm having a hard time clicking with it even though I'm at the top of a great descent I'm gonna bail out and take the road because it's not gonna be fun on that descent it's actually gonna beat me up more than I want I really wanted to like this bike I really did because on paper it looks fantastic not all aluminum frames are this harsh though for example that banshee that I rode felt more supple than most steel frames but this is an aluminum anvil and it is brutal so let me wrap this up climbing I would give this a seven and a half out of ten it's it does okay on mellow stuff but on punchy climbs where you want to lift the rear it really struggles for corners on the trail I'm gonna give it an eight it if you lean it super aggressively like you're trying to drag the bars on the ground it comes alive and hooks up but if you're not doing that it doesn't feel right it feels a little dead it wants to kind of push in the corners it just doesn't quite feel right if you're on bermed float rails it loves that and it will come alive it's a ten on those when I was on that slalom track and the pumptrack it carved those corners and just went so well on that playfulness I'm gonna give it a 10 it's fun it's fun to pop up into manuals it wheelies extremely well it's playful in the bike park on the pump tracks that sort of thing it's very playful bike it doesn't quite feel like a dirt jumper on the trail but when you take it to the dirt jumps in the pumptrack it does feel quite like a dirt jumper if it had a little shorter rear end it'd be even more playful in that stuff but it's just fine how it is I definitely recommend it as a 20 75 by 2.8 you need that cushion because it's so rigid a 29 would just beat me up even more party factor I would probably give this a 10 this is like the frat guy who's just always partying everywhere he goes and getting into mischief and getting arrested every couple years just kind of ragged living on the edge that's the attitude this bike has it's just not quite in control enough for an adult but he doesn't know any better so that's what he does I'm so glad I got to test this it's a cheap bike and it looks great on paper but the sum of its parts was not as high as I had hoped if you own one of these and you hate this review that's okay I'm not here to convince you I'm just sharing my opinions riding this bike and how it compares to other hardtails I've ridden you can still have a ton of fun on this bike I've just written a lot of other bikes that I would recommend if this taught you something new and you learned something give this video a thumbs up and subscribe and check out my other videos for more insight into hardtails thanks for watching there's a party in the mountains and you're invited
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