It’s time to put our top three head-to head and reveal our MBUK bike of the year
TRAIL

Different brands have wildly differing takes on what a modern trail bike should look like. If you want a physical representation of that, you just need to look at the front suspension on our top three bikes RockShox’s SID, Pike and Lyrik all feature – forks with their roots spreading from XC to enduro.

We’ll start our top-three with the Pike-equipped bike. With its 35mm stanchions (upper legs), mid-weight chassis and 140mm of travel, this fork is a classic ‘trail’ product. However, the Canyon Spectral 125 it’s bolted to is anything but a standard trail bike. While its 125mm of rear-wheel travel is just below the average, what it lacks in suspension, it more than makes up for in attitude.

THE CANYON IS A HOOLIGAN, ENCOURAGING YOU TO HIT GAPS, SQUARE-OFF CORNERS AND STOVE THE FRONT END INTO CATCH-BERMS

The Spectral 125 has buckets of mid-stroke support, giving you plenty of oomph when pushing into the takeoff of jumps, and preventing the bike from collapsing under your weight through berms. As such, the Canyon is a hooligan, encouraging you to hit gaps at full throttle, square-off corners and stove the front end into catchberms before spitting you out at warp speed. Show it some chicanes, and the snappy back end and stout front triangle just beg to be muscled from side to side.

The bike’s shape is equally up-to-date, too, with a long reach (486mm on the large), slack head angle (64 degrees) and short but steep (76.5 degrees) seat tube. This means the Spectral 125 excels on sharp gradients. Drop the front wheel into a steep and loose chute and the bike holds its line, its four-bar linkage rear end dealing deftly with any roots or rocks despite its limited travel, thanks to its ample progression. This ensures you aren’t dragging your heels as you point towards the exit.

It’s not infallible, though. Flat, twisty tracks need attacking to get the most out of the bike – it’s not one for cruisers looking for an easy ride, who’ll find that it feels a little lazy. There’s some pedal bob, which means you need to put the effort in to pump through rollers if you want to generate speed on flatter trails. The Canyon doesn’t deliver the smoothest ride around, either. Its attacking attitude leads you to hammer it into rock gardens, but its relatively short travel can leave you feeling a little battered as you exit them. The damping of the fork and shock on our test bike didn’t feel as refined as on others here, too. Also, the EXO-casing Maxxis tyres at both ends are a false economy when it comes to ride quality. The Minion DHR II and Dissector treads grip well, but the thin carcasses are puncture-prone and pingy for such a capable bike.

When it comes to climbing, the Spectral may not set any records, but it’ll get you up the hill without any complaints. The steep effective seat tube angle puts you in a comfortable position, the suspension is stable and efficient as long as you pedal smoothly (plus the shock’s lockout lever is in easy reach if not), and the wide-range, 10-52t SRAM cassette gives an easy bottom gear. We also like Canyon’s G5 dropper post, with its light action and adjustable stroke (which can be tweaked on the trail, by simply loosening the collar and rotating an inner stepped shim).

Going nuclear

Even though it’s only endowed with 5mm more travel than the Spectral 125 and, on paper, displays many similar traits, the Nukeproof Reactor 290 Alloy Pro is an entirely different beast. While the Canyon has a sleek carbon fibre frame, this version of Nukeproof’s 130mm-travel trail bike is made from hydroformed, triple-butted 6061 aluminum, although it does have carbon seatstays. In contrast to the Spectral’s taut-feeling back end, the Reactor disguises its modest travel with a plush and – cliché alert – almost bottomless feel to its rear suspension, until you really slam it into a harsh landing, of course.

This means the bike is absolutely planted over choppy terrain, which helps the Dissector rear tyre to extract every ounce of grip available, and keeps your feet comfortably connected to your pedals. Helping this is the 150mm-travel RockShox Lyrik up front. The hard-hitting fork’s bulked-up chassis and smooth-feeling internals give it an authoritative feel, encouraging you to aim the 2.5in-wide Maxxis Assegai tyre at the furthest point you can see and let go of the brakes. With the front and rear suspension smoothing the way, it’s up to the anchors to keep you in ultimate control. SRAM’s Guide REs may be long in the tooth, but the combination of a trail-spec Guide lever and previous-generation Code DH/enduro calliper just seems to keep on giving, providing buckets of power regardless of the situation. They may be a ‘cheap’ option, but if this is Nukeproof’s way of saving cash, we’re all for it.

THE REACTOR DISGUISES ITS MODEST TRAVEL WITH A PLUSH FEEL, WHICH MEANS IT’S ABSOLUTELY PLANTED OVER CHOPPY TERRAIN

All this smoothness comes at a cost, though. Despite Nukeproof claiming that the suspension kinematics have been improved to aid pedalling stability in lower gears, the Reactor 290 Alloy’s high overall weight and supple travel do contribute to it being the least reactive to pedal inputs of all the bikes here. This makes big days in the saddle feel that little bit longer, and unless you push and pull the bike aggressively through rolling terrain, it feels sluggish. There’s enough of a pedalling platform there to generate speed off the back of rises, but you have to push deep into the travel to find it (assuming you’ve set the sag with a view to making the bike fast through the rough).

Despite this, we often picked the Nukeproof for our weekend ‘downtime’ rides, simply because it suits the winch-and-plummet type of riding that we love. That said, we were left wondering why you’d pick the 130mm-travel Reactor over the 160mm Nukeproof Mega for this type of duty, given the latter’s extra margin for error downhill, at a relatively inconsequential cost on the climbs. This is one of the main reasons why it just misses the top step.

FUEL FOR THOUGHT

We knew the Trek Top Fuel 8 was going to be a good ride the minute we slung a leg over its low-slung top tube. Its geometry felt right from the off and the spec list seemed up to the task. Looking at the bike from afar, with its RockShox SID fork and 120mm of rear-wheel travel, it’s easy to assume this is just another ‘downcountry’ rig – a beefed-up XC bike rather than a true all-rounder. It wasn’t until we’d fired it over some jumps, nosed it down steep chutes and slung it through berms that we realised that the Top Fuel is, simply put, a bloody brilliant trail bike.

Trek’s ‘ABP’ suspension design uses a concentric rearaxle pivot to combine – in theory, at least – single-pivotstyle pedalling efficiency with the improved braking of a four-bar linkage. It’s a proven system, here controlled by a RockShox Deluxe Ultimate – one of the best singlecan air shocks around. Bontrager’s XR4 tyres roll fast but still grip doggedly, and Shimano’s SLX and XT drivetrain components take some beating. The Top Fuel’s geometry numbers stand out, too. Figures such as a 66-degree head angle, 480mm reach (large) and 36mm bottom-bracket drop are all in the ballpark of what we’d spec were we to design our own trail bike.

So far, so good – so you may be surprised to see a RockShox SID up front, historically a pared-down XC race fork. While the SID SL still holds that baton, its suffix-free sibling is now one of the new generation of burly-XC/downcountry/light-trail forks, with a lighterweight chassis that packs extra stiffness thanks to 35mm (or 34mm in the case of the Fox 34) stanchions. On this model of Top Fuel, you get the base-level SID with OEMonly Rush RL damper. Set up with its maximum 120mm of travel, it feels stiffer than a Fox 34 but not quite as stout as a Pike. The damper may be bottom-end, but it’s still smooth and remarkably well-controlled, with plenty of progression and little in the way of spiking.

The result is that the front and rear ends of the bike match each other very well, helping it to perform far better than one might expect on a wide range of trails, and ultimately making the Trek the most popular bike among our diverse group of testers. Grip levels are high, even though the XR4 rubber rolls with supreme efficiency on tarmac or fireroad drags. The four-piston Shimano brakes offer predictable yet punchy power, too, so whether you’re grabbing a fistful of stopping power when hauling down the trail, or trying to shimmy down a tight, steep, slow-speed tech-fest, you’re always in control.

On undulating terrain, the bike has an addictive personality. It has ‘pop’ for days, encouraging you to hop, skip and jump your way along the trail, leaving the ground at every opportunity. Spy a rocky or rooty take-off, and the Top Fuel spurs you on to bounce the front tyre off the top and pull the bike skyward, before the low BB and long front end practically scream to be slung through the following berm as fast as you dare. Take the bike into the trees, and the wide bar and short stem, together with the tight 435mm chainstays, ensure directional changes are ‘jetboat’ rather than ‘oil tanker’ in speed, while the bike reacts to pedal inputs like Usain Bolt to the starter’s pistol.

With XC DNA running through its alloy chassis, the Top Fuel doesn’t shy away from climbs, either. The seated position is great, as is the rear suspension’s ability to prevent pedalling forces from compressing the shock. It’s not quite as light as you might imagine, though, at 14.8kg, which is perhaps its most distinguishing feature from a true downcountry bike.

THE TREK HAS AN ADDICTIVE PERSONALIT Y. IT HAS ‘POP’ FOR DAYS, ENCOURAGING YOU TO HOP, SKIP AND JUMP YOUR WAY ALONG THE TRAIL

Hammer the Trek as hard as you can into jumbled rocks or massed roots and the fork can twang a bit, but the 120mm back end is also going to struggle when you really batter it through the chunder, despite the shock’s progression later in its stroke. Spend a little bit of time learning how the bike needs to be ridden and you’ll find yourself hunting out opportunities to jump over these obstacles or smooth out the line with finesse, anyway.

If you spend your weekends searching out the gnarliest tracks, then the Top Fuel may not be for you. Thankfully, there are other bikes in this test that’ll float your boat. For the majority of everyday trail riders, though, the Trek has every trick in the book ready to pull out at a moment’s notice, whether you’re rallying trail-centre loops, carving turns in the woods or developing your skills on steeper, more technical terrain. It got us to the top of the hill without making us yearn for an XC rig, made us grin like Cheshire cats on fast flow trails and rarely balked when gradients steepened and a firm grip on bar and brake lever was required to navigate safely to the bottom.

TRAIL WINNER

TREK TOP FUEL

The diversity of bikes aimed at trail riders is as broad as the trails on which they’re ridden, and in a category where 140 to 150mm of travel is commonplace, picking a 120mm bike as the winner took a bit of soul-searching.

Perhaps the truest all-rounder in this test is the Specialized Stumpjumper, but it failed to really light a spark in us. Previous winners, such as the Bird Aether and Propain Hugene, are still hugely accomplished, too. The Canyon Spectral 125 was the machine that got us in trouble most often, while the Nukeproof Reactor was the most likely to get us out of it. It was the Trek Top Fuel, though, that stole our hearts in 2022.

It may have less travel than others here, but the Top Fuel proves that if you want a bike to do it all, it’s quality, not quantity, of suspension that does the bulk of the work. Shorter-travel and more agile, with great angles and a decent spec, if you take one for a spin, you won’t regret it!

THE TOP FUEL PROVES THAT IF YOU WANT A BIKE TO DO IT ALL, IT’S QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY, OF SUSPENSION THAT DOES THE BULK OF THE WORK

RUNNERS-UP

NUKEPROOF REACTOR 29 ALLOY PRO

Riders looking to aim their front wheel down the steepest, techiest tracks will find the Reactor fits the bill

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CANYON SPECTRAL 125 CF 7

A hooligan of a bike that encourages you to try things you might otherwise not dare to