Pinkbike Awards: Best Value Product Nominees

The advent of 11 speed cassettes has made it possible for more riders than ever to ditch their front derailleurs, which saves weight, and frees up space on the left side of the handlebar for more important levers, namely the one that activates a dropper post. The trouble is, 11 speed drivetrains come with a hefty price of admission, and even the lowest priced 11 speed mountain cassette from SRAM retails for over $300. Luckily, there are more affordable ways to create a wide range drivetrain, and OneUp Components have been at the forefront of this movement by offering conversion kits to expand the gear range of your current 10 speed cassette. It's as easy as removing the 15 and 17t rings from the cassette, and replacing them with a 16 and a 40 or 42 tooth ring. Once that's completed, install a narrow-wide chain ring up front (OneUP makes those too), and possibly the company's RAD cage if you're running a Shimano rear derailleur, and bingo, a complete wide range drivetrain for less than $200. Making the switch to a 1x drivetrain is a highly recommended upgrade for nearly every rider, and OneUp helps make it easy and relatively affordable.

Top of the line tires usually have a price to match, often selling for $80 or $90. Sure, those tires may have a laundry list of features intended to make it easier to justify their price – magical sticky compounds, reinforced sidewalls, high thread count casings, but at the end of the day they're still a disposable item, one that needs to be replaced regularly for the best performance. That's where Specialized's Butcher Control tire stands out, with a $50 price tag that's well worth it. Predictable cornering, excellent braking traction, and a competitive fighting weigh all make the Butcher a highly recommended option, and that price is just icing on the cake. We're still waiting for a 27.5 x 2.5” option, but for now, the 2.3” version is still a worthy choice for all-mountain usage.

Durable, wide, light, and attractively priced, Spank's Oozy295 wheelset meets all of the parameters that define a good wheelset. No, there's no carbon fiber to be found here, but at $599 USD these wheels cost a fraction of what a set of carbon hoops goes for. The rims themselves boast a 24.5mm inner diameter, and use Spank's Bead Bite rim walls, a corrugated design that meant to keep tires from getting pulled off the rim when riders run low pressures. 28 straight pull spokes join the hubs to the rim, and thanks to the designers at Spank only one size of spoke is needed for the entire wheelset. When it comes down to it, this line from our review of the wheels says it best: “The Oozy Trail295 wheelset packs a load of performance and reliability into a very reasonably priced package.”

Shimano's Deore hydraulic brakes are a prime example of technology trickling down to a more wallet-friendly pricepoint. For less than $120 per wheel, you get Shimano's proven mineral oil powered hydraulic brake technology, including the compact lever shape that's one of the best designs around. There's no tool-free reach adjust, and the cooling fins found on the pads of Shimano's higher end models may not be present, but those are small things compared to how well the brakes work, and feel. There's enough power on tap for all but the burliest of downhills, and if you do ever need to bleed them, it's a quick, hassle-free procedure. You'd be hard pressed to find another hydraulic brake out there that offers this level of performance and reliability at such a reasonable price.

Giro's Feature helmet was already popular with riders who wanted niceties like extended rear coverage, an adjustable visor, and enough venting to stave off heat stroke, all at a fair price. The addition of MIPS adds even more value to this helmet, and even with the $20 upcharge the new technology brings with it the Feature is still a bargain at $95 USD. For those not familiar with MIPS, the premise is that the addition of a low friction liner that lets the outer shell of the helmet slide along it during an impact will reduce the amount of rotational energy that reaches the brain during a crash. Lab testing seems to support this theory, although data about what actually happens in the real world is much more difficult to come by. The thing is, since there's only a slight price and a minimal helmet weight increase, a MIPS equipped helmet certainly seems like the way to go, and Giro deserves kudos for working to make this technology more affordable.