Best Dual Suspension for Adventure Racing

[Klipspringer]

Giant Anthem - I have 2013 X and is a lovely bike for someone your height. 

[Stellies_gaz]

If you liked the Trance X why not have a look at the 2015 Spez Stumpjumper.

[Etienne Van Niekerk]

I just went from Silverback Sport 2 to a Giant Anthem. You will never look back with the Anthem. I did take my Arch wheels over. My set up is not too race orientated and I love it. Super comfortable, very stabke on the single track and very light for a full alu bike.

[Shebeen]

I echo Shebeen 100%.

 

plus he knows his stuff!

 

just out of interest, i wrote this for a magazine in 2012 after the Expedition Africa in port alfred. Was looking to do the same at this years event in port edward, but didn't really have all the bikes in the same place at one time. (was also a bit more f@##$%^& at the finish)

 

Adventure Racing – where are the 29ers?A lot of adventure racers forget how much equipment is required to take part in the sport; taking part in an expedition race will refresh your memory. The one mandatory item that you can’t go without is a mmountain bike. Some racers have a bare minimum approach here, using a trusty steed from the dark ages. On the other end of the scale, you do see some of the latest bikes as things get a bit more serious. In short, the bikes vary as much as the personalities of the competitors.I conducted a very unscientific study of the various bikes at the recent 500km Expedition Africa, by walking through the finish tent filming the bikes of about three quarters of the teams. The results were that 25% were riding 29er bikes, the rest on tried and tested 26in. Just over half in both sizes were on full suspension. The most represented brands were Giant, Scott and Merida – in that order and making up about 70% of the total. There were only a handful of carbon framed bikes.  The local trend in the past 18 months has definitely been a massive shift towards 29inch wheels. The merits of this can be debated, but the strongest argument is the lower rolling resistance on less technical surfaces. This would point a definite bonus to AR races, where the routes are normally predominantly on gravel road. The numbers would suggest that despite this, the trend has not been taken up amongst the AR community as quickly as the general public. It would appear that adventure racers are late adopters of mtb technology. In various discussions two main factors came up for this. Firstly, AR folk do many sports, so there just isn’t the budget to keep up with the Jones’ with all your equipment compared to someone who focuses solely on one sport – people just keep their bikes for longer. Over time as technology gets adopted and accepted mainstream it becomes more prevalent and consequently cheaper. This can be seen in many major advances over the years, such as disk brakes, full suspension and tubeless tyre systems.The second factor is related to the first, and is to do with reliability and spares. We can’t afford to have kit that isn’t proven to be durable. Tools and spare parts will often be shared within the team, and preferably be interchangeable.   A clear example of this is in wheel sizes, if all members are on 26in bikes, you can get away with a single set of wheel spares, and even swop wheels, tyres etc.  Have one racer on big wheels and you either have to take a chance or double up the spares to cover all emergencies. Ultimately this is only going to be a consideration of the many factors involving bike choice. I myself still happily race a 26inch full suspension bike, which finally got an upgrade to disk brakes for this race. The next bike might just be a 29er, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be carbon.