Strengths: Alloy material makes an excellent party snack when cubed skewered on cocktail sticks, perhaps with a little pineapple. Also marvellous grated onto pizzas, or toasted with a little worcester sauce.
Weaknesses: Snapped with minimal force. I now have half a bolt permanently stuck in my bottom bracket.
Overall: An expensive lesson learnt. I'll stick with steel in future.
Strengths: Much better than my Fire XCs in gooey muddy stuff.
Fairly cheap in steel bead - £25 a pair at Chain Reaction.
Weaknesses: Rear tyre still clogs when things get really sticky.
Overall: I was extremely impressed with these on my first few rides, in really rainy, wet muddy stuff. Compared to my various XC all rounders they were a revelation, really cutting through the gloop.
If there's a drawback, it's that the rear tyre still clogs up to some extent in the sort of sticky mud found in the Chilterns a day or two after rain. However, I usually wouldn't have got that far up the path on most tyres.
On the other hand, the rear's close but aggressive knobbles also cope very well on harder packed ground. In Swinley forest's mixture of sand, grass, gravel and mud, I've had very good results just using the rear mud tyre with a normal XC tyre up front, to give extra rear wheel traction on soggy but not totally muddy trails.
Strengths: Great to ride. Light, plush, extremely fast. Superb downhill.
The personal touch - you can spec to order and even name your colours from any of the bikes pictured in the catalogue.
Weaknesses: Took three months to arrive. Went back to Orange three months later with a strange clicking noise under suspension movement, almost impossible to pinpoint due to the soundbox effect of the big frame. Orange fiddled, never really pinned it down, but it's gone now and I got the bike back in a week, so last year's long warranty waits seem to have been solved. Marcus at Orange was very good about discussing progress on the phone with me throughout.
Wheels were slack on delivery and needed to be tightened by the bike shop.
Overall: I'm running 100mm forks too - Z3 bombers. The Orange web site recommends 80-100mm with a maximum of 100mm, and I checked with Orange before I bought the bike. With the long Orange stem replaced with a shorter Thomson one, the bike feels just right for me, perhaps slightly biased towards fast and furious stuff but still nimble enough to get on fine in the singletrack.
Strengths: Weigh next to nothing. Lovely feel - take the buzz out of the trail but still feel solid. Five year warranty, so the price doesn't look as bad when you compare it to the cost of several cheaper bars over the period. Very light and controllable.
Weaknesses: Perhaps a tiny bit flexier than a high-end alloy bar?
Strengths: Fast, durable. Solid enough to handle the odd bump, pothole or kerb-hop. Run them up to 60+ psi and the difference between these and off-road tyres on tarmac is huge.
Weaknesses: Perhaps a little heavy. Don't jam your disk brakes on too late at the lights on wet roads or you'll slide neatly through. Strong thumbs required to fit!
Overall: Well worth the small price - significant improvement on roads. These are transferring to my full-susser for the London to Brighton next year.
Weaknesses: ...but it shouldn't have got there in the first place.
Overall: On my first ever ride with them, they filled up after ten minutes in the rain and mud, and got wetter from there. Riding for an hour with two cold puddles in my socks wasn't fun.
Strengths: Excellent spec for this price band. Deore drivetrain and some very nice Bontrager components.
Fun to ride, comfortable and solid. I've upgraded the Judy TT fork to a Marzocchi Z3 but that was more because a bonus co-incided with a bargain - the Judy was certainly adequate.
Weaknesses: After 350 miles, I had to get the rear wheel respoked after two spokes snapped in three days. My LBS did this under warranty with no fuss whatsoever after a quick call to Trek. The bloke at the shop was less than complimentary about the spokes.
Overall: It's a very good spec for £530, and looks like a more expensive bike too. It's fun to ride - even after a long XC blast I find myself wanting more.
