Enduro 29ers

TESTED THIS MONTH

GIANT REIGN ADVANCED PRO 29 0 £7,499

PIVOT FIREBIRD 29 PRO £8,600

SPECIALIZED S-WORKS ENDURO £8,999

The beauty of hindsight is that it’s always 20-20. But who would have predicted that 2020 would be the year that the 29er enduro race bike finally became ubiquitous? Certainly not Specialized.

Who would have predicted that 2020 would be the year that the 29er enduro race bike finally became ubiquitous?

Introducing its first race-ready 29er Enduro as early as 2013, Specialized set the 29er stage, but few followed. Too much, too soon? Probably. Fast-forward seven years, however, and everyone is getting in on the act.

Even Giant has made an abrupt about turn on its preferred wheel size for racing. After pinning its colours firmly to the 27.5in mast, it has quietly been tearing them down again, and its latest move sees all of the high-end Reigns switch to 29in wheels.

And it’s not just the big brands that are making the shift to 29in wheels. Last year Pivot released the Firebird 29, and it’s the only bike here that retains the ability to run 27.5in Plus. You can rarely have your cake and eat it though, so it will be interesting to see if the option to fit two different wheel sizes means that the Firebird 29 is optimised for one, or compromised in both guises.

And just as other bands are finally catching up, Specialized has moved things forward once again — the latest Enduro 29 receiving a ground-up redesign that makes it bigger and bolder than ever.

So we’ve got three top-end 29er enduro race bikes all promising the world and costing the earth. And as group tests go, this one couldn’t be more evenly matched. Not only do all of the bikes have carbon frames with Fox Float X2 Factory shocks, all three bikes get the top-flight Fox Factory 36 fork with its four-way adjustable Grip2 damper.

And while we’re not convinced that the outright performance of the 36 is superior to the RockShox Lyrik Ultimate, there’s no denying that Fox has done a much better job of maintaining its aftermarket pricing, so for brands like Specialized, Pivot and Giant, the 36 carries more cachet, making it the first choice when it comes to decking out their top-tier bikes.

There’s consensus amongst the three brands when it comes to fork offset too — all of the bikes using the shorter 44mm option. In terms of outright travel though, Pivot and Specialized have opted for 170mm forks, while the Giant gets 10mm less up front.

No top-end bike would be complete without carbon wheels, and with most brands now offering comprehensive crash replacement policies, it should come as no surprise that tyre casings have