Cervelo are known in the bike world as a no-compromise road, triathlon, cyclocross and gravel brand. As a premium bike manufacturer Cervelo don’t do entry level bikes, they excel at high performance bikes driven by refined design. If they came out with a slogan that ‘Life is a race’ it wouldn’t be a huge surprise – they chase outright performance with their designs, and they deliver. In the World Tour, they won all three grand tours in 2023 – which is pretty impressive. But as far as we are concerned, 2023 was exciting as they released their first full-suspension mountain bike the ZHS-5. The full-carbon, cross-country mountain bike arrived in the wake of the release of their hardtail mountain bike, the ZHT-5.
There have been examples of road-biased brands venturing off road in the past. But more recently we have seen deep levels of investment in these dirty forays. Wilier have a World Cup XCO team that has racked up a number of victories, and the new Pinarello Dogma XC hardtails and full-suspension bikes are doing quite well indeed under the likes of Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and Tom Pidcock. Their designs are far better than seen from Pinarello in previous attempts. Ridley have another iteration of their XC bike out now, and Factor also have their Lando XC and FS, both of which I tested in 2022. I now call a Factor Lando XC my own, with a bit of a custom build.
Making a full-suspension cross-country
