Contrary to my belief that it’s a bike for riding trails, I found out later that it’s instead a bike for riding at trail centers, which I guess is proper mountain hyper bike biking. But in reality, I only spend a fraction of my time on mountain bikes. With few exceptions, we all like to think of ourselves as hardcore mountain bikers.
At just over 400 euros it’s not inexpensive, but it’s built to last and offers an insane range for the weight. Tires are, for me, one of the most important choices for any build. Most people, including Schwalbe themselves, seem to think that the “G” in Schwalbe’s G series of tires refers to gravel, however, it actually refers to wildman and all round good egg Grant. Grant works for Schwalbe in the UK but in his spare time is also a tire nerd, who indulged me and my fantasies about the kind of riding I might do for far longer than reasonable. It was built under the ambiguous and slightly tongue-in-cheek Sour SRD umbrella (more on that below). It’s neither an enduro bike nor their new race-proven ultra-distance/XC prototype we saw at last year’s Bespoked.
With the exception of the Rock Lobster (a superb bike in its own right), they all made fantastic touring bikes, and I put in many off-road miles on each over the years. But, by modern mountain biking standards, they’re all on the gravel end of the spectrum. Ride in style with the Hyper Bicycles 20″ girls swift mountain bike in Magenta. This kid’s bike features a steel full-suspension mountain frame with front suspension forks that allows users to ride harder for longer. The swift includes both a variety of gears along with hand breaks for a smooth ride on any surface and front and rear linear-pull breaks for the ability to stop and go as you please. It features 7 speeds, ensuring versatility in the ride.
Consisting of the Elevate 22, Daybreak 17, Summit 30, and Stuff Pack 30, features range from complete simplicity to those needed to accomplish creative, technical missions. I find intact collarbones to be both beneficial and desirable in my line of work and as a self-employed person, so I was overly cautious to start with, riding an alien-feeling bike on things that I can’t ride. It’s a good-looking bike with hyper mountain bike a concise and consistent design language used throughout the frame, with all the castings for the pivot points matching the dropouts and gusset shapes. It looks pretty minimal for a long travel mountain bike. Bike Yoke is a brand with which I was not previously familiar, as they are best known for their droppers, mountain bike specific saddles with integrated suspension, and alternative yokes for rear shocks.
Bikeyoke is relatively obscure outside of Germany but I hope that changes, as everything they specced on the bike looked great and was a joy to use. I’ve always been a fan of Dresden-based Acto5 and their absurd CNC-machined frames. Conceptually wild and, in the flesh, a sight to behold. I will never need the performance that they offer, so thankfully, they make cranks for fanbois.
They can provide service far and above what you’ll get from most big-box stores. Recently, there’s been a trickle down, so features previously only seen on LBS [local bike shop] bikes are creeping into big-box bikes at a fraction of the cost. You also have a large variety of bike choices at big-box stores. There’s usually a bike type for any taste — all on the cheap.
SRD (Sour Racing Development) also stands for Stadtreinigung Dresden, Sour’s local refuse collection and recycling company. The twist feels doubly fun as my SRD is made from tubes that were actually repurposed. Given my non-mountain biking background, there may have been some mixup before I took the bike about what a trail bike is for.