Fresh 2002 kit from Gary Fisher

If you squint you might make out a vague bike shape.

There have been a few leaked spy shots and various murmerings aboout a new longer travel version of the Sugar race bike. Given the Sugar's lack of mud room and flexible front end we approached the new Sugar + concept with trepidation but the designers have done every last bit of their homework.

The increased travel comes from a much longer, beefier and structural 'Sybil' (a film about split personality apparently) link than the previous minimalist 'B-link'. This uses a curved arc for the rear shock mount to give between 2 and a bit and 4 inches of travel. The press releases said it was QR, our bikes had bolts, we'll see what makes it to production.

To give enough room for the wheel to travel 4" the tyre hugging rear brace has gone leaving a clear run to the seat tube and masses of mud clearance even with big tyres. To offset the loss of structural reinforcement Fisher have used a much larger diameter bonded aluminium seatstay which now runs all the way through to the knuckle at the top of the shock link. Chainstays and main pivot placement stay the same.

Bigger stiffer link for bigger stiffer travel.

To complement the adjustable travel out back Fisher have fitted Rock Shox Psylo fork complete with it's twist for travel adjusters, which we really did use to squat the front end for steep climbing sections. The new "Wine gum" style translucent coloured plastic top caps are something you'll love or hate, but at least they're easy on the hands.

Final very welcome touch are 'proper' big tyres fitted as standard, with IRC's 2.25" Backcountry treads flattering the longer travel, technical feel of the Sugar + and still leaving plenty of mud room too.

Psylo's now come with suck it and see boiled sweet adjusters.

In short forget anything you've read about the Sugar as the Plus feels like a totally different bike. Rather than reluctant rear wheel compression only on the bigger hits, the fluid rear end is constantly snifing for traction uphill or through corners. Obviously the big carcass tyres help but it's certainly more suspended and ready to be blatted straight at and through sketchy stuff than first generation Sugars. Increased sag (to make the most of the travel) means you 'lose' the first part of the pedal stroke if you're lumping up and down out of the saddle. Sit and spin though and it was the best technical climber we rode on the whole trip, on loose gravel, naked Germans or damp roots alike.

The new stiffer downtube also means you can take your hands off the bars without arranging a child minder first, and there was little sign of any twist in the back end either (though we'd like to rive it around in the mud and rut sections at home to before we're totally sure). Weight is low enough for immeadiate acceleration even with the fat tyres, and the Genesis geometry is a great fast reacting technical set up, only feeling too eager when it tried to tuck under too hard on a couple of slow speed singletrack switchbacks.

We'll admit we had reservations about trying to "go large" with the Sugar but Fisher have done a superb job, creating a bike that's masses of fun to ride up, down or along. With only 4" of travel it's no big hitter but it's a very agile and surprisingly plush trail bike with mud clearance and tyres that are perfect for British trail conditions all year round. Sugar Plus good, in fact very good indeed.

The Sugar+ will also be available in a womens specific Genesisters design too.

Sweeter racing Sugar

Don't go thinking the Sugar has entirely given up lycra in favour of baggies though. The Sugar One and Two are still lightweight race ready tools but they've adopted many of the tweaks developed for the Sugar Plus. Firstly the one piece chainstay bridge and seatstay top section that caused all the mud clearance problems is gone. Instead bigger carbon fibre stays run straight from dropout to shock mount knuckle, where there's a new stiffer lattice shock rocker to take lateral loading off the Cane Creek shock.

The shock itself is Cane Creek's new Cloud Nine unit, which has a push button compression stiffener (it's not a full lock out) with an easily adjustable "blow off" valve to set the level of shut down you want. The mainframe also gets the same ZR9000 down tube as the Sugar + / Trek Fuel to keep steering in order and save a few grams. We only had a quick blast on this rig but initial impressions are of a similar suspension action to first generation Sugars but with a much tighter fore - aft feel when you push it hard.

Big wheeler

On the 29 incher front Fisher are definitely going ahead with two versions - Procaliber (as we rode at the Red Bull) and Mt Tam - running the same framsets with different levels of kit. Trek's spec chief also confirmed that the same frame will be used on their top end 700c hybrid bikes - much respect to Steve Worland from What Mountain Bike for spotting that one.

If you want more detail on how they ride read our Red Bull test, but the more familiar we become with the faster rolling, but slower steering responses of the big wheelers we realise they're excatly how most traditional racers like their bikes set up anyway.

Keep watching this space for news on Klein's updated Adept, Fox Fork ride test exclusive and news of the latest road gear from Trek and Klein as well as a whole bunch of other tests next week.