Best Women’s Mountain Bike

we’ve just finished testing bikes for
women’s trail bike of the year there
were six bikes in our short list ranging
in price from 2,500 pounds up to 3,200
pounds and we’re about to reveal the top
three we also want to gauge the opinions
and views of the women these bikes are
aimed at so we want to see how they feel
about them how the fit is for them how
they perform and for a variety of
different riders in riding styles so to
that end we recruited a panel of five
bike radar women readers who rode those
bikes over to test weekends in the
Forest of Dean and gave us their
feedback those comments and those
opinions have been incorporated into our
overall reviews and the overlay of
judging in third place we have the live
peak and it might be a bit of an unusual
choice for a lot of people because it
sticks more towards the cross-country
end of the trail bike spectrum and has
the geometry to match the head angle and
peak is 70 degrees which is a couple
degrees steeper than on the other trail
bikes that we’ve tested and the seat
ember is 73 degrees which is a little
bit slacker
now this sits within the cross country
end of the trail bike spectrum but it’s
a bit more unusual to see in it in the
bikes that we’ve tested today what it
means in practice is that it feels like
you’re quite a long way over the front
when you’re riding the bike but it does
climb fantastically well now it does
require you to shift your body position
a little bit more over the front and it
takes a bit of getting used to but once
you are used to it the bike is really
capable
so don’t be put off by that cross
country geometries the pink can handle a
lot more than you think
the other interesting element on the
piece is that it’s the only bike with a
women’s specific frame miss cycling’s
design philosophy is that there are
significant enough differences between
men and women to warrant women getting a
specific geometry of like whether that’s
road or mountain so all live bikes have
a geometry designed for female riders
based on the data that live have
collected in terms of specs you’re
looking at 120 ml travel front and we’re
provided by a RockShox revelation RL
fork and the rock shops deluxe RT shock
one weak point was the flex in those
Forks so you have maro stanchion so
there was quite a bit of deflection and
movement when going through corners fast
or over rough terrain
however they are fairly standard for a
cross-country bike at this price point
and we also saw those on the specialized
can become carbon that we also tested
the rest of the spec consists of a SRAM
GX 1 by 11 group set tram guide our
brakes and giant XC one wheel set with a
good source of Schwalbe knobby Nick tire
at the front and racing mouth at the
back unsurprisingly for a bike with a
carbon frame and a 1 by group set this
was the lightest bike in our tests
coming in at 12 point for one kilogram
this was one of the most surprising
bikes in the test I have to admit on
paper it wasn’t one that I was looking
forward to riding I thought it was going
to feel really nervous on the descents
but actually in practice once you got
used to that body position it absolutely
flies along and is a little more capable
than you think it’s going to be it makes
quite sedate fairly flat trails a whole
lot of fun and the speed you can get
this beast up to is unbelievable so if
you’re looking for something to really
fly along your local trails to make flat
terrain a lot more fun to handle some
point technical descents fairly well
although obviously not as well as some
of the bikes we’ve tested with longer
travel then it’s really worth having a
second look at because I had a lot of
fun on this the specialized can become
carving is a new addition to specialized
trail bike lineup for 2017 and it’s a
twenty seven point five inch wheel 130
ml travel trail bike as the name
suggests the bike is based around a
carbon frame and up front that 130 ml
travel fork is a RockShox revelation RL
solo air at the back to the Fox floats
performance shop gives us further 130 ml
of travel and both are set up with a
women’s specific tune designed to suit a
lighter Rider it comes with a 1 by 11
group set which is a mix of SRAM NX and
GX with a Race Face effect crank set
finishing things off you have Shimano m5
o6 brakes and rolling stock comes in the
form of rovol Traverse wheels with a
specialized purgatory tire up front and
ground control tire at the back they
provide a nice fast rolling ride with
good traction for the majority of single
track but if you take them on anything
that’s particularly wet or sleepy they
do feel a little bit sketchy
the command post dropper is worth
mentioning it gives 100 mil of
incremental travel or 120 mil on the
higher sizes and while it is effective
the return is quite violent on it so be
aware of that when you’re putting it
back into position and ready to climb
specialized have a mixed approach when
it comes to their women’s specific bikes
in their mountain bike lineup some have
women’s specific geometry some dates the
camber is based around a unisex frame
that goes across the male and female
range and features women’s specific
finishing kit such as the sport saddle
narrow bars and that women specific tune
that we mentioned earlier
at 720 millimeters wide those handlebars
were some of the narrowest in our bike
of the year testing and personally I
wasn’t a fan I like something a little
bit wider to give more stability on
those descents one interesting feature
that’s worth mentioning particularly for
those who don’t like to ride there’s too
much luggage on their back is the SWAT
compartment hidden in the down tube so
what stands for storage water air and
tools and it’s plenty big enough to fit
in a compact waterproof maybe some
snacks and certainly some tools you can
access it by opening a little flap that
sits behind the bottle cage one issue
that we had was the auto sag feature on
this shock now this is designed to make
setting the sag easy and simple to do
you simply pump up to a particular
pressure sit on it weight it down press
the button and it should set that flag
automatically for you now unfortunately
in practice it didn’t seem to work like
that we tried it across a number of
different testers over the test weekend
and the results are pretty inconsistent
we all ended up having to tweak it
ourselves manually anyway on flowing
trails and technical climbs despite
really comes into its own it’s
lightweight and more cross country style
set up in terms of geometry means that
it does really fly up those inclines
the camber camp also has the shortest
change days of any of the bikes in this
test which gives it a really fun playful
and agile feel on single track while
this bike wouldn’t be my first choice
for anything technical and steep in
terms of descents if you are looking for
something that’s fun and playful on your
local trails and this is one to look at
now when we first called this bike in
for the test it was priced similar to
the other bikes in tests at 2,900 pounds
over the course of the testing however
the price jumped up to 3,200 which makes
it one of the most expensive bikes in
this test now it is a carbon frame bike
so you are paying for that but you also
might find that there are aluminium
frame bikes that have slightly better
value in terms of spec however that’s
probably more of a consideration for UK
customers so other riders around the
world check out what your local dealer
is selling them at and see if it’s a
good option for you that means that the
canyon spectral WM nal is our women’s 12
x of the year in our standard price
category
Kenyon’s approach to women’s specific
design is the same as cube and many of
the other bikes on tests so they’ve gone
for a unisex frame which is the same
frame across the whole range for both
genders and women’s specific finishing
kit so in this case it’s an SD ga0
saddle it also features a gan GE 10 slim
grips to see it smaller hands as you’d
expect from Canyon you’re looking at
incredible value for money for the price
you pay and one of the headline elements
of this bike is the SRAM Eagle group set
for anyone who’s not familiar with Eagle
it’s a 1 by 12 system so the simplicity
of a 1 by but with an even bigger range
of gears and at the Bakula seen sm11 250
tooth cassette RockShox apply the
suspension in the form of
top-of-the-line pike our CP 3 forks with
150 ml of travel the suspension works
really well straight out of the box
after the usual treats that you’d expect
it’s also worth noticing that as with
other full suspension bikes in this test
that canyon have given it a women’s
specific tune so is essentially just
tuned for a lighter rider the join entry
on the aluminium frame is pleasingly
progressive with a sixty six point four
degree head angle we’re also pleased to
see SRAM RS brakes on this so they’re
really powerful has great modulation and
a good degree of adjustability so that
you can tweak them to suit your riding
style the reverbs stealth seat post is
one of the least unreliable so you place
we’ve encountered it gives 125 ml of
travel and we have to say that we didn’t
encounter any problems with it in the
course of our testing on the wheel front
you’re looking at Mavic XA elite with a
nice wide 25 millimeter in a rim width
we’re also a fan of the choice of rubber
so you’re looking at a Maxis High Roller
2 at the front and an ardent at the rear
which gave plenty of traction in a wide
range of conditions
whatever terrain we rode this bike on we
were able to have a lot of fun on it
when the terrain was flatter you could
pump through pop over little roots and
rocks and just have a really playful
agile time on steeper terrain and we
took this on some of the downhill tracks
at the Forest of Dean it handled steep
chutes rocky sections drops and jumps
with no bother at all
the suspension was plush but progressive
so it had great small bump sensitivity
but when you started to hit the bigger
stuff those big rock gardens it ate them
up with no problem at all the bike also
climbs really well maybe not quite as
well as some of the more cross country
bikes we tested but certainly it was
above the field when it comes to the
trail focus bikes that we looked at one
of the things that did confuse us
slightly was the remote lockout on the
shock so the remote for the shock looks
exactly the same as the remote for the
drop of seat post except obviously ones
on the other side of the handlebars
which caused a bit of confusion for the
first ten minutes of the test when we
couldn’t work out why the seat post
wasn’t going up and down that the shop
was looking out
the other issue with it is we don’t
really think that it needs to be there
in the first place we didn’t really end
up looking out our rear suspension on
most of the trails that we rode on and
it is useful for those long boring
tedious fire road climbs for the rest of
the time the suspension worked perfectly
well with it on fully anyway of all the
bikes in the test this is the one that I
got the most excited about it’s the one
that I wanted to ride the most it’s the
one that whenever I had a spare a minute
I wanted to jump on and take it for a
quick spin or take it for a test leap in
my local wood firstly it’s just so much
fun to ride you know that you can throw
anything at it and it will eat it up if
you want to take on something a bit more
technical or push yourself and I really
tried to push the limits on this bike it
handled it perfectly well so it’s really
encouraging as a rider it’s really
confidence-inspiring it really makes you
feel like you can push a little bit
harder and try something a little bit
more so that’s why for 2017 our choice
of women’s trail bike of the year is the
canyon spectrum of wmn it’s a great bike
our testers love riding it I love riding
it to be honest don’t really want to
send it back