Henry's Waffle House: All-Mountain Bikes Are Back, and They're More Pointless Than Ever

Welcome to Henry's Waffle House. Here, we serve only absolute waffle, each and every one doused in a hubristic sauce and washed down by an accompanying pint of inane babble. Bon appetite.

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Listen, when it comes to irrelevance, I know a thing or two. In fact, I consider myself the Lucasian Professor of being one step behind, tied up in knots of unknowing, and so much out of the loop I have circled back. I'm not the only one circling, either. All-mountain bikes are here, cooler than ever, and ready to be bought and unenjoyed by many north, south, east and west. So what the hell is an all-mountain bike?

An all-mountain bike is a very adequate term for a bike you can ride anywhere, and all while being the bike you wish to ride nowhere. Just enough travel to get by when things get rough, just enough weight to feel lethargic when things are smooth. Just lifeless enough not to live, but with enough of a pulse that you can't quite call it dead. I had a border terrier like that once. Hinterlanded. Sandbagged. Beached.


The problem is that all-mountain bikes are actually very good. You’ll buy one, and you’ll love it. Before the big purchase, you’ll peruse the brand’s website. It’ll have images in the copy of athlete’s shredding in sunglasses / welding masks and Pantone-matched helmets. The photos will have been shot somewhere you dream of one day riding, as photogenic smiles look more like luminous stamps on the faces of the models and are wholly unlike any smile you’ve ever had pushing through shit-slop on a wet Sunday morning at your local. But alas, you could grin that hard, if only you had a bike like that.


Once the 150mm bike arrives you’ll realize that there are issues. Firstly, it’s not as light as you’d hoped. In fact, for a bike that is carbon fiber, with just about the best of everything, it feels decidedly portly. No bother, for you too shall shred. Plus, weight isn’t important, remember?

So you’ll go out with your good-for-nothing friends who insist on riding pointless 170mm enduro bikes that you really don’t need, slop, slime, sunshine or otherwise.

After risking life and limb trying to keep up, either going at the same speed as you would on an enduro bike with wide-eyed terror or slower with fewer adrenal flushes, a thought will occur to you that often occurs to me when I ride this style of bike. This bike, this modern wonder is just so capable. Wouldn’t it be better with some bigger brakes? Maybe a longer dropper. Oh, and some heavier tires wouldn’t go amiss, either.


Yes, all-mountain bikes are better than ever but that’s the problem. They’re so good they completely undermine their own purpose because they excel at the things you would be much better served by an enduro bike while doing.

When I was a child, whenever my dad asked me to make him a cup of tea (one of the primary household duties of a child in England) I would always make it slightly cold, and with the cardinal sin of both an unstrained teabag and too much milk. That way he wouldn’t ask again for at least another year. When I was asked to cook I would make sure my family wouldn’t actually get food poisoning, but they’d consider it a real risk when the meal was presented. Tactics. Gamesmanship. Racecraft. The same problem exists for all-mountain bikes that did for my never-quite-fatal shepherd's pie. They’re satisfying their definition, but to truly be enjoyed need some small but required changes. And if those changes happen, suddenly it isn’t my own brand of poison anymore.

The all-mountain bike is undermined by two main things - firstly, the raft of manufacturers that spec the exact same frame, specced with most of the same parts, but with a stroke limiting spacer installed. This is absolute nonsense, and similar results could be achieved by merely pumping up the shock to a higher spring rate. Instead, you’re lugging around the same heavy frame, with maybe a fork that is around 10mm shorter. This isn’t so much bad design as it is a bad joke. And as an authority on bad jokes, I can tell you this one is an absolute doozy.


The second problem is perhaps more specific to your location but I think there are threads of relevance regardless for most riders.

Enduro bikes caught on because you could suddenly have a bike that would be well suited to not only the trails you could ride, but also the trails you hoped to ride. The bike is so capable it has a high ceiling, meaning that any rider, whoever they are, can grow into it and push themselves on trails that they work their way towards. You can then take this exact same bike, in the exact same spec you would have to ride your dream mountain bike destination and ride it around your local woods. Yes, it might not be lively, but it represents sheer value, both in terms of what you have to carry around but also money. No more expensive rentals or the need for a downhill bike. At most, you could change your tires and have something that covers off nearly every base.

With an all-mountain bike, they’re great for when you’re riding alone, riding the trails that you want to enjoy, but most of the time in groups you’ll be outgunned. You’ll take it to the bike park and loosen more bolts than a Boeing 737 Max 9 on takeoff. At the same time, you won’t go faster than anyone on the climbs and you probably won’t do so in any more comfort.


Now, I know what you’re thinking - Henry, you doughnut, I have an all-mountain bike for long rides and not this grind-up-smash-down style of enduro riding that you enjoy. To that I would say, each to their own, but one of the main inhibitors of comfort on big days is excessively steep seat tubes putting too much weight into your hands on flatter terrain and heavy tires. Neither of these problems are negated by the modern all-mountain bike with modern geometry.

Instead, you get a bike that will leave you with three choices - spec it with parts to make it bad at the thing you brought it to do, leave lighter parts on and make it bad for the thing you most likely love doing, or ride alone, so you don’t get very intimate with a tree while going very quickly trying to keep up with your friends on their sensible 170mm bikes that weigh a mere 500 grams more because their forks are 2mm thicker.

Posted In:
Reviews and Tech Op Ed Enduro Bikes Trail Bikes