Review: Spot's Ryve 115 29 is a Part-Time Racer Doing Trail Bike Duty

Complete Ryves start at $4,399, though, which gets you the same frame, Fox's Performance suspension front and back, and a GX drivetrain from SRAM. You can get the 5.5lb frame in the red shown here that Spot calls 'Matte Hot Tomato,' or a more subdued black color, with a Fox Factory Float DPS EVOL shock for $2,999 USD.

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The Details

The Ryve frame is carbon fiber from front to back, including the upper trunion-mount suspension link, half of the lower link (more on that later), and the swingarm. The rear brake line is run externally but fits into a channel (Spot calls it 'Groovy Guides') that's molded into the left side of the down tube, while the shift and dropper post lines are hidden inside the front triangle. Spot's done a nice job of this, with the frame looking very clean in person and plenty of room for the largest of water bottles inside the front triangle.

There's a second bottle mount on the underside of the down tube, too, as well as a stick-on pad to ward off any pointy rocks thrown up by the front wheel.




Rather than the usual arrangement, the bottom of the Fox shock sits in a pass-through tunnel (they call it the 'DoppelBox') at the bottom of the down tube that, according to Spot, helps to "boost torsional stiffness between the headtube and bottom bracket, transferring shock forces along the inside walls.''

They mention that it lets dirt and water flow through rather than build-up, while also positioning the shock a bit lower in the frame.




The rear brake caliper attaches to a bolt-on aluminum adapter that's held in alignment via the thru-axle, and the brake line travels under the chainstay rather than inside the swingarm, just like the shift line on the opposite side. Pivots are all dual-row, full-complement sealed bearings, and the main pivot axles use locking conical hardware with O-ring seals for extra protection. One thing that you won't see are ISCG tabs; this is a no-guide bike.

Remember the 100mm-travel Ryve I mentioned earlier? They're both assembled around the exact same frame, with the 115mm-travel bike tested here using a 165mm x 45mm Fox shock and the 100mm bike getting a 165mm x 40mm unit. Claimed frame weight is a believable 5.5lb (with shock), and my test bike came in at a rather sporty 24.7 lb (11.2 kg). No excuses, then.

Living Link Suspension

The Ryve's rear-suspension looks like yet another straightforward and very common dual-link system, except it isn't. See the bike's lower link? It's actually a nearly hidden carbon fiber leaf spring that supplements the Fox shock, and Spot says that it plays an important role in the Ryve's performance.

Just like many other dual-link bikes out there, when the Ryve’s rear suspension compresses both links rotate clockwise; the top link compresses the shock while the bottom link rotates upwards. The carbon leaf spring (AKA the bottom link) is completely flat and unloaded at top-out and bottom-out, Spot's Andrew Lumpkin explained to me, meaning that it isn't putting any force into the suspension at those times, and the Fox shock is doing all of the work. But the leaf spring is flexed, or loaded, when the bike is sitting between 25-percent of its travel, otherwise known as the approximate sag point, and 75-percent of full travel. In other words, Spot is using the carbon leaf spring to alter the spring rate in the middle portion of the travel.




According to Lumpkin, this approach lets them create the spring curve they wanted by figuring out their ideal leverage ratios for the beginning and ending parts of the travel. Then they used the carbon leaf spring to help tune how the suspension performs in the middle part of its travel where it's loaded and where you spend most of your time.

It's claimed to make the bike very efficient but, more interestingly, they’re also saying that the flexing leaf spring is storing energy that’s returned when the suspension extends. So much so that Spot claims that it can even supply extra “pop” to help you leave the ground.




But wouldn't the damper just absorb it anyway? Now let's picture the Ryve's rear-suspension bottomed-out after an impact and starting to rebound.

Because the leaf spring's forces aren't being applied to the suspension from bottom-out to 25-percent extension, the rebound speed will be relatively slow until the leaf spring begins to enter the equation. From that point to 75-percent extension, the leaf spring is flexing and working in conjunction with the shock's air spring. Then, when the suspension extends past that point, the leaf spring goes straight and no longer applies any force, which means a slower relative rebound speed near top-out than if the carbon was replaced with a normal, non-flexy link.




What all that means is slower, presumably more controlled rebound after big impacts that use most of the bike's travel, faster rebound after small and medium impacts in the middle portion of the bike's travel, and then slower rebound (relative to if the link didn't flex) at the top of the travel.

The benefits to all that, Lumpkin told me, is that they can ''preserve the big hit recovery near bottom out, but also preserve the traction benefits of slower rebound near top out.''

Geometry

My large-sized Ryve gets a 470mm reach that feels bang-on to me, while the extra-large stretches out to 495mm. Shorter folks can look at the medium (445mm) and the small (420mm), and all four sizes get the same 435mm chainstay length. Steering isn't full-on cross-country race, but it's also not designed to be a lazy-handling trail bike, either, hence the 67.4-degree head angle with a 120mm-travel fork. Adding another 10mm of travel would bring it closer to 67-degrees, which I suspect some Ryve owners have done, but I kept the stock Fox Float 34 Step-Cast on the front of the bike.

Spot lists the effective seat angle as 75-degrees, and it's worth noting that the extra-large size does get a seat angle that's 1-degree steeper in order to compensate for the additional height without putting you beanstalks too far behind the bottom bracket. I should also mention the 483mm seat tube length of my large, which isn't exactly short by today's standards. Those with stubby inseams should take note - that length could limit the amount of possible dropper post travel.

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While many modern short-travel trail bikes can climb well enough to meet most people's needs and then some, there's a big difference between something like the Santa Cruz Tallboy or Norco Optic and the race-bred Ryve. On the Spot, it's as if the bike transfers even the slightest quiver of a quad muscle into forward movement, all while pulling away from those other bikes as their riders consider reaching for the pedal-assist switch.

It's not that the Santa Cruz or Norco are inefficient, it's just that they sacrifice a bit of speed on the ups for more speed on the downs. A bit of an unfair comparison then, but good for some perspective as to where these things sit against each other.




Kona's new Hei Hei is probably a better competitor given that it's said to be a race bike, but it can't match the Ryve's efficiency, either. Spot will sell you a bike with a lockout if you're (presumably) European and really, really want one, but it's not a standard option and about as useful as having one on your downhill bike.

Its low weight certainly helps the bike's cause as well, especially its tires and wheels, and I ended up putting down some of my quickest climbing times while out on heaters aboard the Ryve. That said, it isn't quite the same hero when you are getting into more technical, tricky uphills that depend more on skill than how many intervals and squats you've been doing during self-isolation.

The bike's rear suspension is as forgiving as you'd think 115mm of race-bred travel would be - meaning that it's not at all - and the 2.25" wide Schwalbe Racing Ralph rear tire rolls fast but might as well be completely slick if it's even the slightest bit damp or dusty. Neither helps in the traction department, so I'd put something grabbier on the back of the bike if damp or dusty was the norm in my 'hood. The steering is quick, though, which helps the Ryve wiggle through things with much less effort than would be required on other short-travel, burlier bikes. Yes, I know you can probably clean all the techy ups on your burly trail bike @mikekazimer, and that's super-duper, but I'll be too far ahead on the Ryve to see you dabbing anyway.




On a typical trail ride most of us just want to get to the top, feel okay doing it, and maybe think about some fitness if we lean that way. And most of us are happy to sacrifice something on the ups for something extra on the downs. I mean, we all know which of those two directions offers the most smiles, so it's not exactly a stupid way to do it. But Spot's Ryve 115 is what happens when you approach climbing from the opposite angle, focusing on speed and efficiency before descending prowess.

Kipchoge isn't trying to be good at parkour, and the Ryve isn't trying to be a relaxed, deep-feeling trail bike. Both of them are mind-blowingly fast, so I guess it works.

Descending

Squamish, BC, is where I call home, with Whistler only 30-minutes up the road and North Vancouver's rooty, twisty trails 30-minutes in the opposite direction. As you can imagine, short-travel bikes with race-y intentions are outnumbered a-thousand-to-one in these parts by well-used enduro rigs closer to 40 than 20 pounds. And for good reason; much of the local terrain aims straight down, is full of pointy rocks waiting to punch holes in your ultra-light wheels, toilet paper-sidewall tires, and Lycra-covered skin, and it's often covered with anaconda-like roots. It's definitely wet, too.

The Spot wasn't made for those try-and-maybe-die chutes and slabs, but a skilled pair of hands and good line choices will see the red bike through most of it without issue. Remember, the Ryve is about as cross-country as a trail bike can be without you needing to wear bib shorts and a visor-less helmet to ride it. In other words, me telling you that things get a bit wild on the scary stuff is about the same as a breaking story on the homepage about how an enduro bike is a real pig at cross-country races. Don't put it past us.

Sure, bigger rubber, a 130mm fork, and some other changes could help the Ryve on the scary stuff, but I'd argue that you'd be better off on a different, burlier machine than diluting the Spot's sportiness in search of confidence. There are all sorts of bikes to pick from if that's your jam, but the Ryve isn't one of them.



Dialing back the terrain from f*ck-no to more-flow allows the 115mm-travel Ryve to come into its own, with the peppiness that makes it such a great climber also making it a blast on the descents. My closest riding area is a local hill known as Valleycliffe, a small mountain crisscrossed by a confusing maze of endless rolling trails, many of which require work to get the most out of. It's here where the Ryve makes brawnier trail bikes like the Tallboy and Optic feel slow and muted in their responses.

One of my favorite bits sees a long section of singletrack angled downward slightly, but not nearly enough to be called fast, and I'm usually taking careful stabs at the pedals for more speed while hoping I don't catch a rock or root and get scorpioned so hard that my shoes come off. Again. I've ridden this trail on pretty much every long-term test bike I've had over the last couple of years, but it was an entirely different experience on the Spot - it was way faster. The Ryve responds to pumping the terrain and using backsides in a way that softer, slacker, more forgiving bikes can only dream of, and the effect is a lot of speed. The Tallboy, Optic, and Hei Hei all require less effort in those settings than longer-travel rigs, but on the Ryve, it's as if the trail is covered in speed-boosting arrows from Mario Kart and those other three are stuck in axle-deep mud.




The faster you're going, the faster you need to think, and that's especially true on the Ryve. The steering is more cross-country than trail bike, but it's far from being nervous. While some quick-handling machines can feel as if they're just waiting to toss you out the front door, the Spot manages to offer a needle-precise front-end without you constantly being in fear of it knifing to one side unexpectedly. It also gives it the maneuverability that other trail bikes can only dream of. If you love nothing more than a well-timed manual, nose bonk here or there, or silly-but-fun line, you'll get more than your fair share of laughs from the Ryve.

The bike's rear-suspension isn't nearly as active and forgiving as the back of the Hei Hei, and rocky ground will knock the Spot around a bit. Tire choice can make a big difference here, though, and the stock, low-volume Schwalbe rubber leans more towards less rolling speed than more traction. Because of this, a light touch on the brake levers is needed when it's wet or dusty to keep the bike from sliding too much. Or maybe sliding just the right amount, amirite?

I settled on a standard 25-percent sag number and never once felt a clang at bottom-out, despite some questionable line choices, so there's certainly no need to run it any firmer. And what about Spot's claims that the carbon fiber Living Link suspension can supply additional pop to help get off the ground? I'm not so sure, but I can't argue that the Ryve does have that energetic personality that can make a short-travel bike so much fun.

So, what does all that mean, and where does the Ryve sit in the world of short-travel bikes? If you're looking for a new-school ripper to send off the jumps while keeping up with your buddies on longer-travel bikes, the Spot isn't for you. This is a bike made to cover ground quickly and efficiently, and it's far more interested in snagging those uphill KOMs than going fast down rowdy descents. But that also means that it's a demon of a bike on rolling terrain and downhills that don't look like EWS stages, which is a hell of a lot of the world.

Technical Report

Shimano M9100 XTR Brakes: The two-piston calipers and non-Servo Wave levers say cross-country AF, but Spot did spec a 180mm rotor up front to help slow you down. While they're not as powerful feeling as the Servo Wave-equipped version, they're far less grabby and easier to modulate, especially when traction isn't ideal. Sure, heavier riders might want to see four-piston brakes, but given that the Ryve is a short-travel trail bike with race-y intentions, they aren't out of line and worked well for me.

ENVE M525 rims and Industry Nine's Hydra Rear Hub: This crazy hub offers just 0.52-degrees between engagement points thanks to a drive ring with 115-teeth and six pawls that each engage that drive ring individually. It's an intricate-looking thing, but it sounds like there are a few hundred giant robot hornets following you when you coast. I love it, but other riders did comment that I seemed even more annoying than usual.

As for the Gucci ENVE M25 rims, I would have called them 'M341' because they weigh a hardly believable 341-grams each. They're also still perfectly true, despite me definitely riding them beyond their cross-country intentions.

Schwalbe Tires: The Ryve 115 really is a slightly longer-travel cross-country bike, so it's light and speedy Schwalbe rubber are fit for purpose. That said, you'll probably end up considering something a bit more substantial than the 2.25" Racing Ralph that comes stock on the back of the bike. There's a 2.35" Nobby Nic that comes on the front, though, so a matching Nic on the back would make sense if your trails are steeper and wetter.

How does it compare?

Speaking of sporty bikes, remember the Hei Hei that Kona just released in April? I spent a ton of time on that 120mm-travel 29er in the middle of testing the Ryve, and the two make an ideal comparison. However, for both using 120mm forks and having within 5mm of the same amount of rear travel, they couldn't be more different. Relatively speaking, the green Kona feels much more forgiving, and I found myself seated more often when riding it than on the Ryve for that reason. The Kona is far from being slow, but it comes across as being a nip closer to a trail bike compared to the speedy Spot that transmits more up to the rider. The best way to put it: While the Hei Hei can sometimes feel like it has an extra 20mm of squish, the Ryve always feels like it has 115mm. Depending on what you're looking for, that might be good or bad.

Speaking of trail bikes, I'm gonna bring up the Tallboy yet again. It has 120mm of travel, just 5mm more than the Ryve, but it's a very different bike made for a very different rider. While the Spot is light and fast, the Santa Cruz is a burly rig in comparison. You could do a cross-country race on either, sure, but I know which one I'd rather be on.

Pinkbike's Take

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Reviews and Tech Reviews Trail Bikes Spot Spot Ryve 115