2024 Transition Spur Review: Still Great?

we're going to die, so

transition

stim is a familiar face on the channel, but it's been about 4 years since we last talked about it, so today a

transition

made a couple of updates to stim, including your compatibility with DH so you can execute a t. transmission type and we have some cool new colors, well this is not a full

review

, the

spur

may not have really needed one even after 4 years, the

spur

is

still

on the sharp end of the category, so stick around to see if we

still

love it. After all these years, first of all, I'm a very different rider than I was four years ago, my neck is significantly less broken than when I first

review

ed this bike, I ride a little faster and a little more aggressively, so I'm really curious to see if I like the spur as much as I did back then.

God bless the transition for keeping that rear brake line routed externally. I will die on this hill. All of your arguments in favor of an internally routed rear brake line are invalid, hence the big question. Last time for me it was the encouragement for an XC bike or a trail bike. This time I don't think that's a question. I don't think the new version will dabble with XC at all. I think it's a trail bike and since then the build kit has changed a bit. It now comes with a 34 inch Fox from the Sid which was much more XC and this bike has a short stubby and very wide stem.

Riser bars, has solid tires and a nice long dropper post. All of that to me says Trail, not XC, which says it's still a pretty light bike for the category and for bikes these days that seem to get heavier and heavier. This bike weighs 27.1 lbs in size extra large, it's not a lightweight and quite agile, as does the handling and it pedals quite well, it still has that agile feel when you start pedaling. I think this bike is happy to do long runs over the course of a whole day and is very happy to do those quick little Sprints.

Sure there are more efficient bikes in the category thinking about the Rocky Mountain Element and the giant train 29 uh, but there are also slower ones. bikes, I'm thinking about the tall booy and I think this one ends up being pretty similar to the orb aam SL and IIs Ripley. Efficiency isn't everything on the climbs, although sometimes you'll want a little traction and a little give for when the climbs loosen up. Steep and bumpy, the spur offers a bit of that comfort, it's not as comfortable as the tall booy, that's probably why it goes up a little faster, but it's more comfortable than the element and the trans.

X and I think it is because it finds a quite solid middle ground between that very high active traction feeling and a faster, agile and efficient pedaling platform. So in terms of traction specifically, again it's a similar story, not as much as the tallboy. element and trance fall in the middle, so overall spur is still at the top of the climbing class. For me, when you combine all the factors, it may not be the best in any given factor when you're thinking about climbing, but combine them all and the average is probably a little better than most bikes in the category.

Now, speaking of the descent, let's give the boost a big pat on the back, even after 4 years it still holds up with all the other trails. Bikes, even those that have been updated or released much more recently, are still a lot of fun and extremely capable for a 120k bike. It's actually one of the few 120k bikes that I wouldn't be too nervous about. knocking it down and Mesa, I'm sure it can do that, but I'd say that's not really what it's designed for. It won't be perfect in that situation. It is designed to be a trail bike.

It is designed to ride on a wide variety of terrain. designed to ride blue and black diamonds and to be jiby and fun and lively and easy to move around and on that type of terrain that's where you get the most out of it, so the spur likes to jump and jump over obstacles on the trail, which makes riding like that kind of terrain really fun because you can just goof around and play on the trail the whole time, it's really easy to take weight off, get it off the ground, but jump over a rock or a ledge or whatever you're on your path, you can just ride over it instead of going through it by nature, it won't be very good at traversing rough and chatty terrain, it's a small travel bike and I mean, the tires alone should tell you that it's not meant to go through everything which I have been informed that Here in Utah we have some pretty fast open terrain so I'm used to that, it's the lens I judge a bike with and that's how I look at the spur so I ended up preferring the spur on speed terrain slower like our desert Mesa fills the twisty windy Wiggly Trails that's where I liked it best where there's more opportunities to jump and do silly things and jib uh that's where I liked the bike better than the high speed Flatout trails and I liked the bike on that slows down the terrain because the bike really makes that type of riding easier, makes it more fun and easier to do where you don't like high speed stuff as much, I'm sure if the trail is smooth and

great

, the game on stimulus is going to work. a big job is when you're doing 25 million hours and you come to a really tough section of thick rock and ledges, that's where you're going to rethink your life choices, so in some high speed drops and while pumping through the corners , I noticed a bit of Flex framework for reference.

I weigh about 200 pounds, bigger type, uh, and it might cause the frame to flex a little. It's kind of a double edged sword, that Flex frame is a little bit of what allows you to stay off the trails on that talk and through some of the rocky stuff, a little bit of that give comes in handy on the other side of that currency, when you pump really hard into a corner or hit really hard compression you can cause the frame to flex a little bit and it appears like the bike rolls up and then rolls back and sometimes that's a little hit and miss, it's not something which I found often and in fact I only found it when I was doing things on a 120k bike that you probably shouldn't or weren't really made to do, overall the spur is a very fun, lively and exciting bike to drive and it's as capable as I remember it, in fact, as I've changed as a writer, I think it's more fun.

Now back then I care a little less about being the first to get to the bottom of the hill. I like to go fast in sections, but I also like to fool around and enjoy my time on the trail. I'm not worried about racing and I think it really makes that kind of driving easier. Let's talk about a couple of comparisons here. The first one I want to compare this to is the Ora aam SL and it's a bit strange, the aom SL is 20mm. More travel than the spur, but they end up riding pretty similarly, the aaml is one of those bikes that climbs better than you'd expect and then the spur is one of those bikes that descends better than you'd expect, so in a way they end up meeting in the middle they weigh about the same go up about the same and descend about the same the biggest difference for me comes in the downhill handling characteristics the aaml feels a little sportier and a little faster to ride a little firmer from the top while the spur, on the other hand, feels a little plusher from the top but not as deep for those bigger hits and, although their geometry and stack heights are quite similar, the The cockpit setup on the spur sits higher up and is a little wider and a little more trail-oriented, while the AAM SL's is a little more XC with a flat bar that's a little narrower.

I know they're easy things to change, but these bikes are worth talking about in their stock configurations, especially when you think back to some point. You're going to run out of head tube to make the bars higher and higher and higher and higher. The feel of the cabin on the trail on the spur maybe gives you a little more confidence on the descent, especially when things get steep because your weight is a little further away. back or less forward on the front of the bike, so let's also talk about the spur in front of the Santa Cruz tallboy.

I actually made a video comparing these two directly, it was a whole video, it was really long, maybe I'll go watch it after this. because most of that evaluation is still the same, the tall boy was updated since then it hasn't been a big update, a small refinement, the stimulus is the same stimulus from that video, the big takeaway is that the tall boy prefers to descend and the spur prefers a little more balance between uphill and downhill the spur is the clear winner on the climbs in almost all aspects, except perhaps in rear wheel traction, where the tallboy is going to beat the tallboy It's clearly the more aggressive it descends, it's slacker, it's a little bit longer.

However, the suspension is much plusher and bottomless, and then the frame is a little bit stiffer, so that bit of frame flex that I found I didn't find it in the tallboy and all those things lead to a bike that can be pushed harder on the descents, so when you get to terrain where you are above your category or to more rugged and gnarly areas, the high booy will be a little more comfortable than the spur, but on more balanced terrain where you'll really get the most out of both of these bikes, I think the spur might be a little more well-rounded option, so now let's talk about the Rocky Mountain Element and that bike is really unique as it almost has all the mountain geometry but the suspension platform is much more but it does it in a completely different way, the spur feels much softer and more active and at the same time I think it's a little more playful and fun because that suspension is a little easier to incorporate into the element, on the other hand, it's more efficient, it's faster uphill and a little less forgiving on descents, the geometry sure provides plenty of stability. at speed, uh, it's useful on steep, hard, chunky terrain, but the suspension just doesn't support it or give you as much comfort and confidence as spur suspension, so which spur is best suited?

Maybe we'll start by removing a category. It's not for the the trail category. Look at two groups of bikes, you have the 120k bikes like the spur, the Ripley, the tall girl and then you have what we used to call all the mountain bikes, like the tall tower, the ripmo, the sb40. I think all of those now are just trail type bikes where the larger ones tend to lean a little more towards downhill performance while still being capable climbers and being able to put in long days and go anywhere, then you have the smaller bikes which are a little more balanced.

I'll probably still tackle the same terrain on the downhills as those larger 14o bikes. I will be slower, but then they will shine a little more on the climbs and on those long days and on the traverse, pedaling on undulating terrain and on the spurs. falls into that second category, so if you want a trail bike that covers the full spectrum of trails you'll ever ride, but you're more into backcountry, uphill, and downhill terrain than big jumps, twisties, and double black diamonds, This is probably your thing, thanks for sticking around, see you next time.