MBUK comparison nonsense

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February 09, 2012, 05:40:10 AM

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[Dirt Diggler]

Theres a moaning session on another forum about MBUK and i thought id post my thoughts on here.

I bought it last month to see the review of the Commencal Meta 55 as i was looking to buy this bike. They had it up against 3 others with only the Kona Cadabra priced around the same price as the Commie at £1850. The Meta 55 Pro was £1899, the Marin attack trail 6.8 was £2299 and Cube Stereo One priced at £2499. The main gripe with the Meta 55 Pro was the lower grade of Fork which wasnt a bolt through style and rear tyre was a Maxxis Crossmark and was slippy in winter trails !!!!!.

If they are going to compare bikes they have to compare like for like and NOT a bike thats £600 cheaper and then complain about poorer standard of components. If it was a fair test they should have had the Meta 55 Team which did have a 15mm QR Fork in the Fox Float 32 RL. It would also have come in around the same price as the other two at £2399. Surely a fairer comparison.

The only reason i would have bought this rag was for the testing and reviews, whats the point when they cant be bothered to get the basics right.

As it is i eventually saw a silly priced Meta 55 Team going for sale on here so went for it  (Cheers Steve), although i havent got it yet im bloomin eager to get out on it and test it for myself.

[steveb]

UK mags are like this, they're obsessed with comparing stuff, and as they can only test what they get sent, often comparisons make no sense. I don;t read any MTB mags nowadays as I find them all so poorly written and all have an angle, but i used to read a US mag, the name of which totally escapes me now. It was excellent. Often it did group tests, but rarely did it compare, unless it was exactly like for like. They would do a "5 inch trail bike" group test, but they would comment and rate each bike on it's merits, not against the others in the test. I felt it always made much sense to do it like that, it did mean the reader needed to clearly defined needs if they were to use the reviews to aid a purchase, but the mag never patronised the reader, unlike almost all of the present Uk mags.

I think a lot of the problems with the UK mag scene now is it's made up of a handful of "writers", in VERY big inverted commas, who have enormous egos. They confuse being good riders (most are) with knowing what makes a bike work, or not. The mags are as much about them as the products. We in the trade are constantly told by the mags how important they are, the sad thing is many distributors buy into this hype, so don't stand up to them when they write nonsense.

There are only a handful of names in the mags who really have any respect and clout, but the kids make more noise, have trendy haircuts and speak the lingo, so they get more pages.

[McMeta666]

I've noticed this on quite a few mbuk and mbr tests where the commencal would generaly end up coming 2nd or 3rd in the test when it was £250-500 cheaper than the other bikes and was critised as a result on its poorer parts or weight

[damo]

I agree on this. They always talk bol**x. Thay always write up what they didn't like about it and miss the fact that everybody is different. Example, the SDG Bel Air is really comfortable, no it's not, not to me anyway.  The brake test was a classic example, they rated them on how they performed on a test rig, well pretty much anyway.

Damo

[iain1775]

completely agree and Steve's post is a very good one

Pretty much what Steve says is why I respect Singletrack magazine alot more than MBUK or MBR (a complete load of tosh when it comes to reviews)
And I have alot more respect for the journos there than Doddy etc at MBUK (Sure a good rider but it seems to be all about the image with him - clothes and matching colour co-ordinated componants)
They don't often compare, or even score bikes or bits, just give an opinion
There are good writers out there that have been around for ages and know there stuff but I think sometimes they are stifled by the editorial style of the mags

[steveb]

I met Doddy recently. He's dead on. Was surprised. Expected a walking ego, but he was nice enough. He might have been having an off day though. Some of the Singletrack guys are another matter though. They defo beleive their own hpye. But hey, who the hell am I to talk. My favourite line ever is... if there is anything in this room bigger than my ego, I want it found and shoot, now!

Go figure!

[chrissturch]

I think MBUK have out done themselves with the fork test in this months mag. They compare a £650 Fox Van, a £900 Totem Solo Air and a £1200 Bos N'Dee. So thats a trail fork and two single crown downhill forks then.   The Fox wins it as usual (like lapierres), but they mark the Totem down as it has lots of stiction due to the 40mm stanchions. If they think that fork has noticable stiction then it was either knackered, not bedded in yet, or more likely they haven't even ridden it and are talking out of their a***. They then mark the Bos down as it is too expensive, if its too expensive don't pick it in a comparison with a fork at half the price. Even the Fox is knocked for not having enough travel and having lots of stiction until its bedded in. They say the Fox has masses of adjustment, so that'll be High/Low Compression and rebound (like the Totem), and you can change springs and add preload spacers, which is obviously so much easier and cheaper than pumping up a fork. I know air forks have problems but surely the fact you can adjust them for free to whatever pressure you want is one of the main advantages? They then say that the Fox has a progressive feeling spring. By nature springs are linear so unless Fox have developed a new "wonder spring" that I'm unaware of then thats more c***.

I'm starting to think I'll just cancel my subscription and read "OK" instead. At least thats more believable.  

[iain1775]

my mbuk subscription must have ran out then cause I havent had that issue yet
Oh well guess I will have to see what freebies they have for re-subscribing!
Thats all I do it for - get a free cycling wardrobe!!

[chrissturch]

Mine only arrived on Friday, followed by MBR on Saturday.

[damo]

my mbuk subscription must have ran out then cause I havent had that issue yet
Oh well guess I will have to see what freebies they have for re-subscribing!
Thats all I do it for - get a free cycling wardrobe!!

I wondered why your wardrobe is just SO yesterday!!

Damo

[popey]

I sent MBUK an email asking them if they got backhanders from the likes of Specialized etc. As all there tests are biased to the main stream bikes.

Dirt is the best mag, the others are full of sh*t

[McMeta666]

I think MBUK have out done themselves with the fork test in this months mag. They compare a £650 Fox Van, a £900 Totem Solo Air and a £1200 Bos N'Dee. So thats a trail fork and two single crown downhill forks then.  Roll Eyes The Fox wins it as usual (like lapierres), but they mark the Totem down as it has lots of stiction due to the 40mm stanchions. If they think that fork has noticable stiction then it was either knackered, not bedded in yet, or more likely they haven't even ridden it and are talking out of their a***. They then mark the Bos down as it is too expensive, if its too expensive don't pick it in a comparison with a fork at half the price. Even the Fox is knocked for not having enough travel and having lots of stiction until its bedded in. They say the Fox has masses of adjustment, so that'll be High/Low Compression and rebound (like the Totem), and you can change springs and add preload spacers, which is obviously so much easier and cheaper than pumping up a fork. I know air forks have problems but surely the fact you can adjust them for free to whatever pressure you want is one of the main advantages? They then say that the Fox has a progressive feeling spring. By nature springs are linear so unless Fox have developed a new "wonder spring" that I'm unaware of then thats more c***.

i havent seen that yet but today i was actully trying to figure out what forks it would be as i could only think of 5 160mm + travel forks  Bos,(N'dee) manitou(travis), marzochi(66), rock shox(totem) and at SR suntour(durolux) i was really scarping the barrel and since they mentioned 8 i was wondering what the other 3 would be

[r3trodisco]

I for one have stoped buying mbuk and have also stoped using bike radar.
it seems to me they fell out of love with commencal,seems like this happened after peaty won, most tests are unfair and im not happy with any of the reviews now as they seem unjust.

HERE COMES THE RANT!

all the tests seem unfair,
they run a "my first proper mtb" testing entry level hardtails with near £200 diffence between the bikes,guess what they picked as there hot, the most expencive one!, not only that but moaned about the fork on all the bikes and when i was looking for a bike for my mate as his first bike (asked me what would be best) i found better starter bikes with better partsincluding forks and geom than what bikes they had published.

how the piss can you moan about the xcm fork on a bike costing £350 then have a bike at £600 with a dart 2 win in the same test!!!! ITS MORE EXPENCIVE AND THATS WHY ITS GOT A DART

its all to common in the world of there guys, i was not happy when they got hold of a new on one inbread, said that the build was crap and did not like it WHEN IT SAID IN THE REVIEW YOU BUY THE FRAME AND BUILD IT WITH THE PARTS YOU WANT!
this means they built it shit, then moaned about it

[Mark W]

My favourite line ever is... if there is anything in this room bigger than my ego, I want it found and shoot, now!

Good ol' Hitchhikers...

Have to admit I don't pay much attention to actual scores in mags these days- only read them to get a rough idea of the specs and take everything else with a bucket of salt.

Best thing I ever did was do my own group-test of bikes, hence why I ended up with the Meta. What was amazing was how much you end up hating one perfectly good bike because it was not quite so good when compared with the others- the bunch of us riding ended up collectively winding ourselves up so a farm gate would have been better! Ridden in isolation I'm sure it would have been ok. The most important thing however was that I knew I'd ended up with the right bike for me.

[Ant]

This is why i like Dirt Mag. (It's more of a FR/DH style mag though).

whenever they do comparison tests, they do it proper style, with, as SteveB says, the merits and downfalls of each product, not 'this one is better coz it's got more stuff so yeh, it's well better the other one is rubbizh' like MBUK used to be.

And when they do a bike test, the test is proper and thorough, and it covers normally 4-6 pages.