YT Industries Capra, but mail order and if you can find any, and also the Trek Slash 7 that comes in at £2700 has a RockShox Pike fork and 500 notes spare for a dropper and some upgrades. The Kona Process DL is very similar in spec and performs better… but not £800 better.

No (it’s 32.8lbs), it’s not light and its closest rival, the Kona Process, comes in at roughly the same weight. But for a 160mm travel beast it’s not too bad, you feel it a bit when you want to accelerate hard on the trails or are pushing the pace on the climbs, but it’s a bike that likes to go down, the steeper the better and the weight doesn’t affect this one bit.

I have to admit I am thinking about carbon now as it’s been around a while and proven to be durable, but other than the YT Capra there isn’t much on the market that really interests me as they seem to be more trail bike geometry or hideously expensive! There are plenty of ali’ 160 bikes that come in at around the 28/29lb mark depending on spec…. the Slash again being one of them. So I will stick with ali’ for the time being. I guess with Enduro racing now very popular we will start seeing more carbon bikes with more suitable geometry. I will keep my eye out for a 650b Specialized S–Works Enduro though!