I searched long and hard for a 6in-travel, do-it-all mountain bike and finally settled on the Lapierre Zesty/Spicy platform - James Huang / Immediate Media
Lapierre's Zesty and Spicy frames are actually identical, differing only in the build kits. The complete Spicy model that I really wanted wasn't available so instead, I bought a complete Zesty and then customized it from there - James Huang / Immediate Media
One of my requirements was a suspension system that I knew would work well on its own without the need for complex shock valving - which I often feel muddles a bike's ride qualities. Lapierre's true four-bar OST system is about as neutral as it gets with just enough anti-squat built into the kinematics to keep the pedaling efficient and spunky even without a platform-equipped shock - James Huang / Immediate Media
The stock Lapierre Zesty AM 927 came with RockShox's e:i electronic rear shock system but I was after something more straightforward that didn't do any thinking on its own. The electronic bits were quickly replaced by a RockShox Monarch Plus but these days the frame wears the absolutely awesome Cane Creek DBAir Inline CS. It's supple on little stuff, fantastically controlled on bigger impacts, and sports a tremendously broad tuning range - James Huang / Immediate Media
The ultra-wide carbon seatstays are a known issue for riders with big feet or who pedal with their toes angled outward. My feet thankfully point straight fore-and-aft so heel rub hasn't been an issue. The stoutness of those huge stays, however, has proven to be a boon on fast, technical terrain - James Huang / Immediate Media
I was so impressed with the Industry Nine Enduro 27.5 wheelset that I reviewed several months ago that I ended up buying them. They're not quite as wide as I might ideally prefer but their incredible stiffness is a great match for the Lapierre frame - and it doesn't hurt that the red anodized aluminum spokes match the rest of the bike - James Huang / Immediate Media
The near-instant three-degree engagement speed of Industry Nine's Torch rear hub has utterly ruined me. Nearly everything else now feels intolerably slow - James Huang / Immediate Media
Most of the Zesty's life has been spent with RockShox's fantastic 160mm-travel Pike RCT3 fork. I wanted to try something a little burlier, though, so it was recently swapped out for a Fox 36 - James Huang / Immediate Media
Doubt all you want whether the stiffness benefits of a 35mm-diameter bar and stem are noticeable but there was no questioning the difference in handling precision after installing the Race Face SixC and Atlas 35 cockpit - particularly on rough sections of trail where I'm really muscling the front end around. The stock 800mm bar was a bit much for my narrow shoulders so I hacked it down to a more reasonable 760mm - James Huang / Immediate Media
The collet-type pivot hardware has helped keep the Lapierre (mostly) creak-free. After nearly a year of regular riding (and far too little maintenance), all I've had to do is remove and relube the main pivot axle once to keep things quiet. And yes, I'm also a staunch believer in using flush cutters for zip-ties! - James Huang / Immediate Media
Much as I love the performance of the RockShox Reverb dropper post, I'm not a fan of the semi-regular bleeding it requires. I eventually bought an Elite Covert dropper from Thomson. I do wish that it topped out with more of an audible clunk but it's been 100 percent trouble-free since installation and that's been the most important trait for my busy schedule - James Huang / Immediate Media
Another requirement I had was the ability to mount a water bottle inside the main triangle. There's far too much horse poop on our local trails for bottles mounted beneath the down tube, and that position is nearly impossible to access while riding, anyway. Even with the oversized can on the Cane Creek shock, I can easily fit a large-sized bottle in there with no rubbing - James Huang / Immediate Media
The X0 Trail disc brake was the first sign to me that Avid was beginning to turn things around in terms of reliability. These have been trouble-free with absolutely no bleeding required, there's heaps of power, and at least in my opinion, better modulation than what Shimano typically offers - James Huang / Immediate Media
I modified the Thomson dropper remote with an old stainless steel V-brake noodle that I trimmed down and fitted with a barrel adjuster. The routing is much tidier than stock - James Huang / Immediate Media
A bell is standard equipment on any mountain bike I ride - personal or otherwise. I can't begin to tell you how many times a hiker or equestrian has thanked me for the ding, which not only sounds friendlier than the usual "on your left!" but is more readily heard by other trail users, too - James Huang / Immediate Media
I'm a big believer in wide-range 1x mountain bike drivetrains, even here in Colorado where climbs can easily last an hour or more. The SRAM XX1 setup has been bulletproof since day, and it's one of just a handful of items from the stock build that I kept intact (the other being the Avid X0 Trail brakes) - James Huang / Immediate Media
I gave up on saddle packs long ago in favor of Backcountry Research's aptly named Awesome Strap. It's simple yet wonderfully effective, very compact, and I've never lost any contents on the trail - James Huang / Immediate Media
Even when I first started mountain biking in the 90s, I've always preferred a faster-rolling tire out back so I was eager to try Specialized's new Slaughter tread. As I expected, it's a quick little design with fantastic straight-line speed, more than enough climbing traction for local conditions, and pleasantly stout cornering knobs. Up front is a meatier Specialized Butcher, which uses similar side knobs but a full-height central tread. Both are pretty good but I wouldn't mind a little extra volume all around - James Huang / Immediate Media
These Shimano XTR Trail pedals have seen more than their fair share of use and abuse and yet they're still going strong. They're not as pretty as they used to be but they work just like new - James Huang / Immediate Media
There aren't many options for securing a Garmin computer on a 35mm-diameter bar so I went with a K-Edge steerer mount. A Specialized chain tool is conveniently hidden away inside the steerer tube so it's there if I need it but practically invisible otherwise - James Huang / Immediate Media
I've ridden several carbon wheelsets that have impressed me but given how rocky my local trails are, I decided that alloy rims would be the more prudent choice - James Huang / Immediate Media
One of the bike's most recent additions is the burly Girder M30 crank from Turn - the crankset division of chainring maker Praxis. It's not the lightest thing around (and in fact, it's way heavier than the Race Face SixC carbon crank it replaced) but it's stout and tough - at least so far - James Huang / Immediate Media
I'm not exactly getting faster or stronger these days so I went with a 30-tooth chainring this time around - James Huang / Immediate Media
ISCG tabs are built into the frame if and when I decide to mount a chainguard - James Huang / Immediate Media
The underside of the down tube is protected by some thick tape up top and this ridiculously meaty carbon guard near the bottom bracket. It's sustained some rather alarming rock strikes so far with no ill effects - James Huang / Immediate Media
I'm a big believer in the benefits of chassis stiffness so given the opportunity to switch from a 15mm thru-axle to a 20mm one, I jumped at it - James Huang / Immediate Media
Arundel has been my favorite bottle cage ever since I tried a pair of handmade prototypes 15 years ago. This Sideloader model is a perfect option for the tight fit of this frame and I've never lost a bottle while using one - James Huang / Immediate Media
Life as a technical editor for one of the largest cycling websites in the world is admittedly a dream gig but it’s not without its downsides (I know, I know – cry me a river). It sounds ridiculous from the outside but constantly riding different bikes does get old and just as my colleague Oli Woodman noted several months ago, I likewise longed to once again have a personal bike – one that I actually paid for and could just mindlessly ride without constantly having to take mental notes. Having sold my beloved Santa Cruz Blur TRc a few years ago, it was once again time to go shopping.
I’ve always preferred downhills to uphills but I also like to earn my turns so I wanted a do-it-all mountain bike that was light and efficient enough to climb on for hours on end but tough enough to truly attack rough descents. My list of requirements seemed straightforward enough, at least initially:
150-160mm of travel
New-school geometry with a low bottom bracket, long front end, and a slack head tube angle
A neutral rear suspension design that didn’t require any goofy shock valving to pedal well. It also had to use a standard shock mounting system that would also allow me to test various rear shocks
A frame that was stiff but also quite light. I’m not particularly heavy and generally punch well below my weight class in terms of climbing ability so I wanted all the help I could get
Room for a water bottle inside the main triangle. There’s far too much horse and cow poop on our local trails to make under-the-down tube mounting practical, plus I find that location generally sucky regardless
Something semi-rare that I wasn’t going to see everyday at local trailheads
After months of searching and plenty of candidates being eliminated for various reasons, I ultimately decided to take a leap of faith and went with a Lapierre, wholly sight unseen and without the benefit of any test ride whatsoever. My British colleagues have long praised Lapierre’s longer-travel mountain bikes and as the company only recently started selling on these shores, I knew I wouldn’t see that many of them. The burlier Spicy model that I ultimately wanted unfortunately wasn’t available but since the Zesty AM uses the same frame (just with a more weight-conscious component build), I plunked down the cash for a Zesty AM 927 and eagerly waited for the box to arrive.
One of my requirements was a suspension system that i knew would work well on its own without the need for complex shock valving - which i often feel muddles a bike's ride qualities. lapierre's true four-bar ost system is about as neutral as it gets with just enough anti-squat built into the kinematics to keep the pedaling efficient and spunky even without a platform-equipped shock:
The 150mm-travel OST true four-bar rear end definitely ticked one of the boxes
Since the stock Zesty AM wasn’t quite what I was after, the bike as it stands today is ultimately quite different than how it was delivered. All I’ve kept from the original build are the SRAM XX1 transmission and Avid XO Trail disc brakes (which, I should mention, have been utterly trouble-free). The original 150mm-travel Fox 32 Float was quickly replaced with a far superior 160mm-travel RockShox Pike RCT3. And even though I’m a self-professed tech nerd, I still prefer to make decisions for myself so the fancy RockShox e:i auto-adjusting electronic rear shock system (along with all of its associated wiring, sensors, and battery) was jettisoned for a RockShox Monarch Plus.
These days, however, there’s now a Fox 36 up front (I wanted to try something beefier) and Cane Creek’s mind-blowingly awesome DBAir Inline CS rear shock. Both ends are set up with quite a bit of low-speed compression damping so I don’t have to worry too much about excessive suspension movement or brake dive in critical low-speed situations, and just enough high-speed compression damping to keep the treads firmly planted on the ground.
Most of the zesty's life has been spent with rockshox's fantastic 160mm-travel pike rct3 fork. i wanted to try something a little burlier, though, so it was recently swapped out for a fox 36:
I recently swapped out the 160mm-travel RockShox Pike RCT3 I was using for a new Fox 36
I was so impressed by the stiffness and ultra-quick hub engagement of the Industry Nine Enduro 27.5 wheelset I tested several months ago that I ended up buying them. I also eventually tired of rebleeding the RockShox Reverb Stealth dropper post. At the recommendation of my Colorado co-worker, Josh Patterson, I bought a Thomson Elite Covert dropper instead. I modified the remote for tidier cable routing but I otherwise haven’t touched it since.
The rest of the bike is a rotating mishmash of various test gear. As it stands currently, the bike weighs just 12.6kg(27.75lb), complete with a set of thoroughly used Shimano XTR Trail pedals. However, I’ve had my Lapierre as light as 12.2kg (27.0lb) with the Pike and a set of Race Face SixC carbon cranks in place of the present Turn Girder M30s.
I was so impressed with the industry nine enduro 27.5 wheelset that i reviewed several months ago that i ended up buying them. they're not quite as wide as i might ideally prefer but their incredible stiffness is a great match for the lapierre frame - and it doesn't hurt that the red anodized aluminum spokes match the rest of the bike:
As much as I like how carbon wheels ride, alloy rims are a more prudent choice for my ultra-rocky local trails
Either way, this thing has been everything I had hoped it would be. It pedals so well that I almost never use the rear shock’s climb mode, and yet both ends devour bumps and drops big and small. It’s also confidently stiff, particularly out back, so I never have to second-guess my chosen path through a bumpy corner or worry that I’m going to be bounced off-line through a field of babyheads.
And despite the PF92 bottom bracket shell, the bike has been almost completely creak-free (thank you, Lapierre, for maintaining tight tolerances down there).
Doubt all you want whether the stiffness benefits of a 35mm-diameter bar and stem are noticeable but there was no questioning the difference in handling precision after installing the race face sixc and atlas 35 cockpit - particularly on rough sections of trail where i'm really muscling the front end around. the stock 800mm bar was a bit much for my narrow shoulders so i hacked it down to a more reasonable 760mm:
The oversized 35mm clamp diameter of the Race Face SixC bar and Atlas 35 stem nicely complement the stiffness of the frame and fork
Is this the absolute best bike out there for what I wanted? If I were doing it again today, I would at least have to consider the new Ibis Mojo HD3 and latest Specialized S-Works Enduro 27.5 but even then, I might very well end up at the same decision anyway. Regardless, at this point the Lapierre and I have become fast friends and I’m not about to put it out to pasture any time soon.
Here’s to many more awesome rides to come.
I searched long and hard for a 6in-travel, do-it-all mountain bike and finally settled on the lapierre zesty/spicy platform:
James Huang is BikeRadar's former technical editor. After leaving BikeRadar in 2016, he worked at CyclingTips and Escape Collective. He now runs the Substack cycling publication N-1 Bikes.
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