Best 29er all around trail bike that can hang with both XC and Enduro riding?

PB Forum :: All Mountain, Enduro & Cross-Country
Best 29er all around trail bike that can hang with both XC and Enduro riding?
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flag jbarlowbc2az
O+
Posted: Sep 10, 2018 at 20:38 Quote
Looking for a do it all bike. Currently have an Intense Spider 275 that I use for XC and Enduro racing. It's a great all around machine but looking to move to a 29er in the near future. What does everyone like?
flag 2zmtnz
O+
Posted: Sep 11, 2018 at 7:47 Quote
jonnyb1515 wrote:
Looking for a do it all bike. Currently have an Intense Spider 275 that I use for XC and Enduro racing. It's a great all around machine but looking to move to a 29er in the near future. What does everyone like?

From everyone I have talked to a guerrilla gravity Smash might be in the wheel house of what you are looking for. same with the devinci troy 29er. Both are 140mm 29ers
flag swedishfishmx
O+
Posted: Sep 11, 2018 at 14:58 Quote
jonnyb1515 wrote:
Looking for a do it all bike. Currently have an Intense Spider 275 that I use for XC and Enduro racing. It's a great all around machine but looking to move to a 29er in the near future. What does everyone like?


Anything that is a shorter travel (130-140mm) trail bike will fit that bill. The Fuel EX and Specialized SJ ST are the first bikes that come to mind. Check out Yeti's new offerings with the SB100 and SB130.
flag Rusty-Russ
O+
Posted: Sep 11, 2018 at 22:45 Quote
I just got a Whyte S-150C. It pedals well and can take a hit. It plays well with coil shocks. You can run an air shock for XC and a coil for Enduro. It has all the modern geometry numbers and direct to consumer value. The reviews are great and this bike appears to have started the 29er short offset fork revolution.
flag StampenCykelWilliam
Posted: Sep 11, 2018 at 23:55 Quote
Treks "fuel ex 8" is an REALLY good bike for it's pice!! Super for both enduro and xc and trail. 130mm travel. Sram gx egle group set. LOVE THIS bike you should cheek it out!!!
flag gbeaks33
Posted: Sep 12, 2018 at 10:32 Quote
There are a ton of bikes that fit this category these days, which is awesome. The new Yeti SB130 looks like the perfect mix between the two, but will be crazy expensive given it just came out.

Guerrilla Gravity Trail Pistol or Smash, Transition Smuggler, Evil Following, YT Jeffsy, SC Hightower, etc will all suit you well.

Just from personal experience, I own a '19 Transition Smuggler and it pedals better than my previous YT Jeffsy 29 and rips downhill harder even though it is lesser travel. After demoing a ton of bikes and experimenting with many things I finally settled on buying trail bikes and building them up for burlier enduro riding. I think that is the perfect setup. Efficient bike for climbing and fun, but suitable tires and slack geo for rallying downhill. I put Stan's Flow wheels with Maxxis Minion tires on both my Jeffsy and Smuggler, and they both took a lot of abuse without complaining.
flag undescended
Posted: Sep 12, 2018 at 10:57 Quote
gbeaks33 wrote:
There are a ton of bikes that fit this category these days, which is awesome. The new Yeti SB130 looks like the perfect mix between the two, but will be crazy expensive given it just came out.

Guerrilla Gravity Trail Pistol or Smash, Transition Smuggler, Evil Following, YT Jeffsy, SC Hightower, etc will all suit you well.

Just from personal experience, I own a '19 Transition Smuggler and it pedals better than my previous YT Jeffsy 29 and rips downhill harder even though it is lesser travel. After demoing a ton of bikes and experimenting with many things I finally settled on buying trail bikes and building them up for burlier enduro riding. I think that is the perfect setup. Efficient bike for climbing and fun, but suitable tires and slack geo for rallying downhill. I put Stan's Flow wheels with Maxxis Minion tires on both my Jeffsy and Smuggler, and they both took a lot of abuse without complaining.

Ha, PREVIOUS YT, eh? So THAT explains why the Jeffsy 29 FAQ compilation is no longer being updated....
flag gbeaks33
Posted: Sep 12, 2018 at 11:01 Quote
Heist30 wrote:
gbeaks33 wrote:
There are a ton of bikes that fit this category these days, which is awesome. The new Yeti SB130 looks like the perfect mix between the two, but will be crazy expensive given it just came out.

Guerrilla Gravity Trail Pistol or Smash, Transition Smuggler, Evil Following, YT Jeffsy, SC Hightower, etc will all suit you well.

Just from personal experience, I own a '19 Transition Smuggler and it pedals better than my previous YT Jeffsy 29 and rips downhill harder even though it is lesser travel. After demoing a ton of bikes and experimenting with many things I finally settled on buying trail bikes and building them up for burlier enduro riding. I think that is the perfect setup. Efficient bike for climbing and fun, but suitable tires and slack geo for rallying downhill. I put Stan's Flow wheels with Maxxis Minion tires on both my Jeffsy and Smuggler, and they both took a lot of abuse without complaining.

Ha, PREVIOUS YT, eh? So THAT explains why the Jeffsy 29 FAQ compilation is no longer being updated....

Haha i'm still working on it! The posts in the main Jeffsy thread are the same thing over and over, not really much to add anymore. And I still have the Jeffsy (it's for sale), so I'm still technically a Jeffsy owner.
flag ShawMac
O+ FL
Posted: Sep 12, 2018 at 13:32 Quote
I am very much enjoying my 2015 Banshee Prime as a good all rounder. The adjustable geometry is a plus, although I can't say I have changed it from its slackest setting and it still climbs really well.
flag BarneyStinson
Posted: Sep 12, 2018 at 13:47 Quote
Orange Stage 4?

I own a Jeffsy that I’ve built up burly, and that does the trick too.
flag gbeaks33
Posted: Sep 12, 2018 at 13:54 Quote
ShawMac wrote:
I am very much enjoying my 2015 Banshee Prime as a good all rounder. The adjustable geometry is a plus, although I can't say I have changed it from its slackest setting and it still climbs really well.

Agree with this. I rode one a few years ago in Moab and it was a blast. And can pick one up online through Jenson for good deals.
flag jbarlowbc2az
O+
Posted: Sep 12, 2018 at 16:04 Quote
I appreciate all the suggestions. My initial thoughts were Hightower, Primer, Norco Sight, etc. but you are all giving me some great ideas, and definitely some bikes I will have to try out over the next few months. My current bike (16 Intense Spdier 275C) weighs in at 27.5lbs so weight is something I will be factoring for sure, but also needs to be durable.

Appreciate all you guys!
flag mickeyrat
Posted: Sep 12, 2018 at 19:11 Quote
I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Staches. There's a great future in Staches.
flag The-Foiling-Optimist
Posted: Sep 13, 2018 at 17:25 Quote
I haven't had a full suspension mountain bike since about 2003, surviving on eccentric hard tails due to the arrival of children and such. Therefore, you must take what I have to say on the basis that I have very little modern bike experience to compare to, and have in fact literally never ridden a 27.5" bike that's my size, which is 6' 2". So about a month ago I got a 2018 Norco Sight C2 in XL which is only available as a 29". It's just absolutely amazing. What really shocks is the climbing ability, it just keeps going on the technical stuff, rolls over everything, doesn't lose grip and is fine at very low speeds picking your way around stuff. It's incredibly large, about 6" longer than the 26" hard tail my son is now riding, but other than being a bit hard to manual in woops (eg on Bob Sled on Fromme), it does everything amazingly well. Dead stable a high speeds but super confidence inspiring on north shore drops and skinnies. Industry people I have spoken to are particularly keen on the amount of subtle geometry tuning that has gone on recently. Unlike the past apparently, different sizes of bikes like the Sight, for example, now have different dimensions in all the main frame members. This development has gone on right up until now so I was keen (and lucky) to get on a 2018 bike. Overall it seems they have managed to engineer around the alleged downsides of the 29" wheel while retaining the advantages. But I really imagine this is quite dependent on rider size, and it may well be that much below 6' you are better off on 27.5". It's interesting also that Norco dropped the 27.5" option for the XL bike for 2018 as it suggests they were sufficiently confident that for riders around my size, 29" is really the better option.

Unrelatedly but amusingly, my son's bike may shortly be an interesting story. It's currently a 21" Devinci Cameleon hard tail, frame and fork from separate Craigslist adventures, with XTR wheels and really good XT brakes and shifting from maybe 2008 (long story there too). The arrival of the Sight, which, at almost 6', he can ride, revealed the hard tail to be sorely inadequate, especially since his best riding friend is on an older enduro. So he really wanted to keep the good 26" parts but get suspension. I spent a bit of time looking around Craigslist and PinkBike; the former didn't turn up much in budget and the latter has frames listed long ago and then no one returns your messages. So wandering Ebay what do I find but no-name carbon fiber frames of all sorts. In an uncharacteristic fit of impulse purchasing I ordered one, a 26" 135mm (quick release mount) all-mountain frame in Large for like US$418 plus shipping. I never would have done it but they have dimensional information and knowing he could ride the Sight, it was possible to figure out this size was just the right amount smaller. Anyway, it just shipped from China and will arrive in late October or so. It looks good, might be sketchy but the child is unbelievably light, as in just over 100lbs, so he's not going to stress it much. This will either be the biggest steal ever or a fiasco. I'll let you know.

One final note, the comparison of both of us trading back and forth on these two bikes revealed two things. One, holy crap dropper posts rule. But you probably knew that. More importantly the Maxxis Minion DHR/F tires on the Sight are amazing and the kid's bike will be getting a tire upgrade from the 1.9" 2008 Specialized XC tires ASAP. The Devinici feels like a unicycle after the Sight, but after you get used to that you really notice the deficiencies in the Devinci's tires all the time.
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