Team bikes ridden hard for a year
End of Year SPECIAL OUR VERDICTS AFTER A YEAR OF RIDING
ROB’S NUKEPROOF GIGA 297 £2,799.99 (frame only, with EXT shock) Our technical-editor-in-chief has fallen head over heels for the Giga 297
When you really like a longterm test bike, this time of year kinda sucks. Looking back at my time on the Giga 297, I’ve nothing but fond memories, so knowing our time together is coming to an end is rather sad.
I knew this would be the case early on. The Nukeproof did, after all, win our Enduro Bike of the Year test in 2022, thanks to its capacity to be ridden savagely fast but never feel sluggish or dull on simpler trails. This was evident any time I hit the bike park, where lapping smooth, fast blue runs was just as fun as scaring myself senseless on gnarly black trails.
Why do I like this bike so much? For a start, the geometry of the medium size suits me down to the ground and feels incredibly well-balanced, which means it corners like it’s on rails. Then there’s the suspension. The 180mm of travel front and rear sounds like a lot, but thanks to how the Giga 297 doles it out, I was never left thinking it was too much.
The bike worked great with both shocks I tried it with, too, with the coil-sprung EXT Storia and air-sprung RockShox Vivid both suiting it brilliantly despite feeling quite different on the trail. The same goes for the Fox 38 and RockShox ZEB forks I fitted. (I had the EXT and ZEB tweaked to suit me, while the Vivid and 38 worked fine in stock form.)
Suspension aside, I’ve left the build largely as it was at the start of the year. I love the feel of the SRAM Code RSC brakes with massive 220mm rotors. As for the Continental Kryptotal tyres, I’ve had nothing but good things to say about them since day one. I’ve suffered just one flat all year, which is some going, after so many laps on raggedy, rocky trails and fast bike park tracks, slapping into ugly landings time and time again. The Giga 297 has handled it all. Well, apart from one hefty crash a month ago, which left it a bit battle-weary, but that wasn’t the bike’s fault.
Whenever we reach this point with the bikes, I always ask the team the same question: “Would you buy it?” In this case, yes, I think I would, and I’d probably go frame-only again, so that I could be selective with the component choices. As you can probably tell, I’m smitten with the Giga 297. So much so, that not even the white paint job bothers me anymore!
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