Wish Enduro vs Wish Bikepark, Adventure in Dolomites - Video

The story
The basic idea behind mountain biking is about riding a bike in the mountains. Few years back when Dartmoor Bikes became one of the European market leaders in dirt jumping bikes, the people responsible for the brand development started thinking outside the dirty box and looking for some opportunities in the roots of whole mountain biking movement. The new target was aggressive biking through wild, rough trails, where it is more about your technical skills than just crazy tricks in the air. The evolution of the Dartmoor Bikes product line was connected with the brand team preferences which evolved from jumping simple hardtails into trippin’ around Europe’s best bikeparks.

Thin line between Enduro and Freeride
Dartmoor is a company that grew up from the core freestyle and gravity scene. Our products are made by people who ride for all the riders looking for stiffness and durability on the most demanding and dangerous trails. That was also the story behind the Dartmoor Wish frame which definitely is not just a kind of touring bike with bigger travel. It is a non-compromise weapon for roughest terrains, bikeparks, jumps and drops. The Dartmoor Wish ability for uphills is a side dish for all of you who want to get where no other bike can bring you to deserve for wildest downhills. It used to be called Freeride, nowadays we call it Enduro. It doesn’t matter how you actually name it while you stop on the top of the hill, enjoy the nature and know you’re going to drop in just in a few seconds.

Simple genius
Wish is a pretty nice frame, with a simple, progressive suspension system without any overrated design solutions. Basic but very clever designed construction which gives you as much fun riding your bike as possible. The suspension system is a typical swingarm 4-bar with 170mm travel. It is connected with a front triangle above bottom bracket and in the higher part of seat tube. This kind of construction is responsible for making frame stiff in all axis. Each single connection is based on 15mm axle with sealed bearings. Moreover, the most important connections are all based on 4 bearings instead of 2 and these are special bearings without retainers but with extended number of balls inside for longer life under heavy duty conditions and filled with a special high density grease for better waterproof performance. These are not the details which you can see but you can feel it how good is the grip between your rear wheel and course while blasting a berm at full throttle.

Mountain biking is a great adventure from its very beginning and none of the Dartmoor bikes so far offered so many possibilities in exploring the wild nature as a Wish frame. Head of our Development Office - Jan Kiliński and our good friend and test rider - Mikołaj Lepucki went on a trip to Dolomites in Italy to prove it with two different bikes. One of them was Wish Enduro built on the 27.5" wheels with air shock and a dropper post and the second one was a Wish Bikepark with 26" wheels and a coil shock.

The crew spent some awesome time at Vecchia Venezia - bikers friendly bed&breakfast accommodation, which is a perfect base to start your Dolomites adventure. Guilio - our host is also an experienced mountain guide and a perfect choice if you’d like to spend some time around Cortina d’Ampezzo. We spent 4 days waking up at 4:00 AM and having a delicious breakfast just before exploring all the possibilities this awesome place has to offer and testing our two bikes in different conditions. You can see this watching the video and on the shots below!

Cortina is called as a Queen of the Italian Dolomites, because it is situated in the very heart of these mountains. It offers several hundreds of kilometers of bike trails and ski lifts. Highest peak of this mountain range is Marmolada which reaches 3343 meters above the sea level.

The most exciting and most exhausting day at once. We were able to enjoy the true beauty and roughness of Dolomites mountains. We started the trail on Passo Giau above Cortina city and continued with the demanding uphill. The big valley on the top was named Mondeval. The downhill trail started from fork Ambrizzola and brought us first to the Palmieri lake and later back to Cortina. Walking up the steep slopes, riding up the hills, massive rocks on our way -  all those versatility of the trails we hit was 100% all natural for Wish Enduro bike.






Every evening in our B&B Vecchia Venezia was a time for a real Italian dinner and chilling before the next day full of emotions.

San Martino Bike Arena on mountain Tognola is not a very popular place to all the northern Europeans but our local hero Guilio says it is the best bike park in the Dolomites. We reached it at sunrise and despite it was off season our guide managed to run the lift especially for us. Landscape with Pale di San Martino peak views in the background was really outstanding.

It's meant to be a perfect playground for Wish Bikepark which gave us a lot of fun on jumps and had a perfect grip at high speeds and in the berms while Enduro version took advantage on rocky trails and roots.



Another day was spent in the magic Cansiglio forest just between the peak of Pizzoc mountain and above Vittorio Veneto city. Rocks covered with moss between sparse woods made a unique scenery for our shooting. Lots of trails prepared in past years as well as nowadays give limitless possibilities of enjoying the area in all aspects of mountain biking. It was definitely a place for Wish Enduro. Bigger wheels went smoothly over the rocks. At the end of the day we visited Grotte del Caglieron which is a complex of caves were ancient people lived thousands of years before. Water flowing through it by all those ages made the shapes around curved and available for some freestyle riding.





Last two days we were riding at Bikepark Pohorje in Maribor, Slovenia and at Bikepark Kluszkowce in Poland. These were perfect places to focus on Wish Bikepark flying abilities. Tight berms, lots of jumps and drops - that’s the place where 26 inchers are still on top. It was still lots of fun to ride Wish Enduro there, but Bikepark version is what it was made for.
The trip was finished and we could say again that riding a mountain bike makes our lives better and more colorful.


Video by: Oskar Macuk
Photos by: Konrad Rucinski
dartmoor-bikes.com

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MENTIONS: @dart-bikes

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