Enduro: Lapierre Spicy Team

Plenty of choice for off-the-peg enduro-ready bikes, but we plumped for the one raced by Nicolas Vouilloz, the brand new Lapierre Spicy. It’s been updated with 650b wheels – it seems manufacturers have decided this is the wheel size for enduro bikes, so we’re seeing a lot of updated bikes next year. And the Spicy is one of the better looking bikes.

The new Spicy builds on some solid foundations, with a new carbon frame featuring the OST+ suspension, a four bar layout that offers exemplary suspension action, which they’ve been using for a good few years now.

Sandwiched in the front triangle is something Lapierre are proud of, the new e:i Shock. It’s an automatic system for adjusting the compression and lockout of the shock. It uses a stem-mounted head unit and accelerometers on the fork and cadence sensors on the frame, all powered by a battery borrowed from the road Shimano Di2 groupset. It allows the shock to dynamically respond to the trail, so in theory you have the best settings all of the time, without having to manually flip a lever on the bars. I chatted to Nico at last year’s Megavalanche, where he was running an early prototype, and he seemed genuinely impressed with the system, saying how it kept the bike in the prime suspension settings across rapidly changing terrain, allowing him to just concentrate on pinning the trails.

The Spicy Team costs £5,900 and comes with a RockShox Pike RC Solo Air fork with 160mm travel, a full SRAM XX1 11-speed groupset and SRAM X0 Trail brakes with 180mm rotors, a Easton Haven cockpit with a 750mm bar and 55mm stem and SRAM Rail 50 wheels wrapped with Schwalbe Hans Dampf tyres. So virtually nothing there that needs changing, just slap a number board on the bike and hit the trail.

Price: £5,900
More information: Lapierre Spicy Team