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$3,000 vs. $9,000 Mountain Bike - What's The Difference? [Video]

Intro

One of the most common questions we get is, “How does an entry-level bike compare to the higher end of the same model?” Using two Devinci Troys, we are going to break that down and get into the details, from weights and part specifications to overall ride feel. We have a Devinci Troy NX build at $3,199 as well as the Devinici Troy X01 build at $8,799, two ends of the spectrum. While $3,199 is still a lot for a mountain bike, it's on the more entry-level side of bikes and one of the only bikes we can test that uses the same suspension platform and frame geometry so we can have an equal comparison.

Initial Differences

Of course one of the most noticeable differences is the weight, as the Troy X01 build is about 4 lbs lighter than the Troy NX build. While the frames are a different material, carbon versus alloy, there are also a lot of weight differences in the components. For starters, the SRAM X01 Troy build has much more carbon all over the bike. Handlebars, wheels, and cranks are all carbon while the same parts on the NX Troy are alloy or aluminum.

These differences all have to do with weight, but there are also a few that have to do with feeling as well. The forks, a Pike and a Revelation, not only weigh differently but also don't share the same internals, so there is a ride difference. The brakes also vary quite a bit, as the X01 Troy comes with SRAM Guide RSC brakes while the NX Troy comes with SRAM Guide T brakes. The lever feel changes quite a bit between the two, as the Guide T’s don't have much adjustment, and the reach adjustment is also done by a tool, whereas the Guide RSC brakes have a tool-free reach adjust and also have a contact adjust that helps a ton in getting the brake to feel just how you want it. Another thing that is noticeable right away is the engagement on the hub, which is how often the pawls inside the hub engage. On a nicer wheel, typically the hub will engage faster, leaving less dead zone when you go to start pedaling either from a stop, out of a corner or on a technical climb. The X01 Troy comes with some nice RaceFace Vault hubs that feature 120 points of engagement. Anything over about 80-90 is pretty much as good as you need it. The NX Troy, on the other hand, has a more basic hub that features a lower engagement. While it still works great, in comparison to the Vault hub it's a drastic difference.

When the testers, Jeff, Zack and Jared, initially got on both bikes, the first differences they pointed out were the weight, rear hub engagement, and shifting performance. While the shifting on the Troy NX build isn't bad by any means, (I think SRAM NX Eagle is really damn impressive for the price), it's just a difference in direct comparison to the SRAM X01 Eagle on the Troy X01 build.

Click Weight Chart to Zoom

On the Trail Thoughts and Differences

I feel like a broken record, but the weight is noticeable especially when climbing or on slower, more technical sections of trail. The weight on the Troy NX build slightly hinders the playfulness of the bike, but once up to speed, it's hard to really notice the weight. Actually, I liked the alloy Troy NX when the trail pointed down as it felt very stable and it smoothed out the trail a little more. With a few upgrades, I think the Troy NX could be a killer mid-level priced bike, and I'll get into that a bit more with other upgrade options. Of course, the wheels of the Troy X01 build felt much faster and smoother, along with the engagement being much higher, but that isn't to knock the wheels on the Troy NX. The NX has wide profile rims and that gives the tires a very nice profile that helped contribute to the overall predictable feel of the Troy NX.

For the most part, once the suspension is set up, there is very little difference between the two bikes, as I think the last few years suspension has come such a long way that now even some of the more entry-level parts can compete with the top-shelf products. I'd say if it were a blind test between the two, I would have a hard time telling the difference from either bike’s suspension spec. The Guide T brakes still deliver enough power to stop on even the steepest terrain. What you notice with the less expensive brakes is the lever feel and the slight brake fade over long descents compared to the Guide RSC brakes. That just comes from more quality internals and while the Guide T will stop you, it could be worth it to you to upgrade down the road to a nicer brake spec.

Entry Level Upgrades

When many of us mountain bikers are in a position to buy a new bike, our taste is usually that of top-shelf champagne, but our wallets are more like some tall can malt beers from the corner store, or maybe I'm just the only one. Either way, I think if you can only afford to start with the Devinci Troy NX build and then upgrade some parts over time, you're going to not only end up with a bike spec that you love, but it's probably going to be pretty badass. As I mentioned above, the Troy NX still rode very nicely and with the upgrade of a few parts, you can have a really nice feeling rig for much less than the $8,799 Troy X01.

So keeping with the theme of weight, hub engagement, and shifting, I think the first and most beneficial upgrade would be wheels. We actually did a video on the best wheels under $750 to upgrade on your bike and I think any of those would make a great option to put on this Troy NX. Since we are looking at cutting some weight I would suggest the Industry 9 Enduro S 101 wheels, as they have 90 points of engagement and are also on the lighter side for a wheelset of that price. So that checks two boxes of weight and hub engagement.

Another worthy upgrade would be on the shifting. Going with an X01/GX combo would help save weight, especially going with an X01 Eagle cassette. The NX Eagle cassette weighs 623g compared to the SRAM X01 Eagle cassette that weighs almost half at 356g for a savings of 267g, over half pound in rotating weight! Also going with say a GX or even X01 shifter and rear derailleur will improve shifting quality and make those crisp gear changes that feel oh-so-good. The SRAM GX Eagle crank is also pretty heavy in comparison to a SRAM X01 or something else like a Race Face Next R. Either of those would drop a significant amount of weight. The SRAM GX Eagle crankset weighs 646g and the SRAM X01 crankset weighs 508g, which is another chunk of weight shredded off like a block of cheese at a fancy restaurant.

The other few upgrades you might consider on a bike at this level would be the brakes. Going with some SRAM Guide RSC’s or even another brand like TRP or Magura would help get just a bit more braking power and consistency over the stock Guide T brakes. Also some smaller things, like a dropper post remote, would make a pretty noticeable difference. While the stock one sits below the bar, a better quality remote like a Wolftooth Components, OneUp Components, or PNW Components remote improves feel. While not a huge part, if you ride like me the remote is being used almost as much as shifting your bike, so having a nice feel to the remote bumps up my experience.

Final Thoughts

Is there a difference between a bike that costs $3,000 and one that almost costs $9,000? Well, the answer is yes, but they might be a bit more similar than you think. Yes, you get much more carbon with the higher price tag, it's lighter, and you ultimately would be changing less in the long run. But is that to knock the lower-priced bike? Not at all. In fact, I think if you can't justify pulling the trigger on a bike that costs $8,799, and not many of us can, or even if it's a stretch but you could make it happen, I think there is something to be gained going with the less expensive bike and putting in some solid upgrades.

With things like wheels, shifting groupset, brakes and little details that are easily changeable, there is a lot of value to be gained going with that route. At the end of the day, these two bikes share the same suspension layout and frame geometry and both are amazing bikes. I personally prefer riding alloy or aluminum frames with nice parts. There is a certain feeling to them and the ease of mind when you crash that you might not ruin your bike is almost priceless. And if you are still not able to afford either bike, that's ok, just get out and ride something anyways!

If you're one strange human and would like to read a transcript of the video above, continue reading below!

Good day ladies and gentlemen I'm Jeff and today I'm going to tell you the difference between a three thousand dollar bike and a $9,000 bike and in case you're wondering I'm not going to continue with this awful accent for the whole video. a question I've been asked a ton in my life and we get all the time at the shop is kind of just what really is the difference between something like a $3,000 bike and a $9,000 bike? people who are buying bikes ask that question and people who are just total novices and don't ride bikes always ask that question so we wanted to really break that down for you guys and not only just talk about the very specific differences in components and quality and obviously big factors like weight are gonna play into here but also how does it actually translate on the trail? when you're riding this thing on the trail what's actually different about it? How does it feel? so check below in the video description for all of the actual text and data of these two things compared but we're going to talk about the details today, show the things on the trail, and show my differences and the differences that people feel and we've got Zack, Jared, and our final test candidate Bo, so let's go for it. so the two bikes were using for this test are Devinci Troy NX the retail on this thing's about $3,200 and Devinci Troy X01 the retail on this thing is close to nine thousand dollars as many of you probably already know one of the biggest differences is weight so this bike is just about four pounds lighter than this bike. so as you spend more money on a mountain bike or pretty much any bike they do tend to get lighter that has changed a little bit over the years the biggest thing over the years that's happened for bikes in this you know we'll call it twenty five hundred to four thousand dollar price point they've gotten a lot better just more value for what you're paying sure you've seen some you know good upgrades and stuff on the higher end as well but the lower price point has really sort of caught up in terms of quality and weight and everything else and these bikes haven't really gotten any lighter over the years they've just gotten a little bit more durable and a little bit fancier here and there. so I think, to me, two of the main diff is that you're gonna notice on a bike that is you know $3,000 to $9,000 is a couple things weight and details and details are what we're gonna dive into today so these are tiny little things that me as a longtime mountain biker and total bike snob really notice and really kind of give me a pet peeve and I do think I'm a bike snob but we'll see if other people think I want a bike snob yes yes yes wait we need as they call it depends mountain bikes yes grab a bike could have a nicer one a hundred percent bike saw so you might wonder if you're gonna notice these differences or maybe you already know that you do. So the first thing I mentioned was weight. so almost everything on here is aluminum so frame cranks rims handlebars and over here a ton of stuff is carbon the frame is carbon the rims are carbon the handlebars are carbon and there is pretty much what makes up your weight amongst the other thing is that thing is cranks as well suspensions fairly similar on both these bikes and although we're testing these two bikes, this whole analysis is very likely applicable to pretty much all of these bikes when you're comparing you know that $3,000 price point versus that $9,000 price point. so that's what we really wanted to dive into and again getting other people's opinions that aren't just total bike snobs like myself but I think something for me is since I'm so used to riding bikes of this price point I really do notice that like tiny little details and stuff when I hop over to one of these I've been riding both of these extensively to get a really good review on both of them and to let you guys notice the little finite details that I notice on these things as well some of the other guys

[Music] all right well we are back in the shop we all spent some time riding these things and before I dive into my detailed analysis let's see what the three riders thought of these things real quick. Zack you rode both bikes: the $9,000 carbon racer and the aluminum one just over three grand what were your thoughts? both are great bikes. the biggest thing was the engagement on this rear hub wasn't as good as this $9,000 bike as well as the shifting it just wasn't as crisp and smooth as say that X01. yeah second thing is it's heavy. yeah so it just wasn't as fast on the trail and the suspension the plushness of the suspension on the $9,000 bike into the dampening it's just so much better yeah totally popyness playfulness weight played a factor in that too Jeff family yeah yeah all right cool that's all so Jared what did you think between the two bikes and I know kind of what Zach just said the second I handed you the blue bike the first thing I saw you do was go to pedal and go ding and go all day in the engagement pretty much exactly is that very much took everything I was gonna say engagement on the hub first thing I would probably address on this bike because I mean instant engagement is hard to beat dropper lever also something I'd probably upgrade on this bike you know dampening also you know you could probably put a better damper in there and probably perform a lot better but aside from that sweet wheels that would probably be a good upgrade for the loo bike and yeah I can't really complain the Geo feels good on both bikes obviously super playful on this bike well yeah the weight kind of keeps this one a little close to the ground but aside from that both pretty great bikes are they both still fun yeah absolutely great bikes especially if you're into more bigger terrain and like bike park type stuff or enduro type stuff like an entry level bike like this like yeah it would be great totally cool there you have it

do you like 27.5 inch wheels or 29 inch wheels

Bo you are one of the best mountain bikers I've ever seen. Which bike did you like best? The blue one or the red one? blue. why? because I like it. oh did it ride nice? yeah. what's your favorite bike in the world? okay great that's all thanks. well as you can tell kind of the general consensus here is what I was trying to say earlier the weight and the details and again weight does make a pretty big difference in a bike this bike being 4 pounds heavier it's one of those things that if you're used to riding higher-end bikes you hop on one that's 4 pounds heavier and you can pretty much immediately tell and if you just ride them back-to-back you can really notice the difference the thing about bikes though is once you get used to riding one you kind of just forget what another one feels like so I actually spent a lot of rides on this thing and I didn't ride any other bikes in between and I kind of just forgot that it was heavy I just wrote it and it seemed normal probably I did like six rides on that thing like that and then I hopped over and rode this again and I was like ooh mind blown weight lighter and just felt different and a lot of that comes down to so the weight in that bike is a lot of it's in the frame about two pounds in the frame so you have a carbon frame versus an aluminum frame the other big thing is the wheels so this is just lighter hubs lighter spokes carbon rims versus aluminum rims the next thing where your weight is is in your drivetrain so carbon cranks aluminum cranks and then cassettes some of the less expensive cassettes they still shift beautifully but they're just made out of different materials and sort of assembled differently from the factory so they're just heavier so that's where all the weight is those three components so if this is your price point right now around $3,000 your best upgrades to shave weight are going to be your wheels and your drivetrain components and then eventually if you want to throw down and get a carbon frame there you go something I did a lot when I was younger and I didn't own a bike shop and didn't have the resources as I was buying bikes at this price point and I would just slowly upgrade them and get nicer and nicer stuff and you know we have a ton of people that do that and that's super common so weights a big thing because it does play a role in how that bike feels details let's dive into some of those and these are the little things that I really noticed is sort of a bike snob I think most people would probably notice especially if you rode them back-to-back if you've never ridden a bike like this maybe you wouldn't notice but if anyone hopped on both these things back-to-back they're gonna definitely notice weight and they're definitely gonna notice some of these details so to talk about that hub engagement hub engagements huge so lower end bikes are not gonna have as much engagement the hub what that basically means is how many ratchet points there is and that 360 degree around the hub so what that translate to on the trail is the dead space before your pedal engages it's right here so that dead zone before this actually engages the rear wheel that's gonna be determined by the engagement and there's a huge difference I think this one's about 28 gauge mccoy's and this one's about 120 so it's wildly different whereas the engagement on this once it gets about above 80 points of engagement it basically feels infinite so there's no dead zone at all and it just immediately engages it does make the hub a little bit louder but you notice it right away when you get used to riding with a lot of hub engagement you hop on a bike that doesn't you just feel like oh it's like dead zone before it engages so something super important and a good difference to notice between these two bikes other than that little details the dropper lever and just the controls in general so this SRAM NX stuff because it is sort of on the entry part of the spectrum for SRAM drivetrains doesn't have what they call matchmaker compatible and that means you can't really dial in the positioning as well because the shifter is not connected to the brake lever and that is just doesn't allow you to sort of get it in the perfect position so like the shifter is too far over and there's not really any way to adjust it unless you move the whole shifter on the other side of the lever and then it's too close to your hand so like you just can't dial in the controls as well when you can't dial on the controls as well it just doesn't quite feel as good speaking of controls same thing with dropper lever you know bikes in the three to five thousand dollar price point are probably gonna have more of like what you'd call generic dropper lever like this Devinci has and it just isn't as economic it kind of catches on the bottom of the brake lever there's no way to sort of connect it to like that matchmaker style to the brake lever so again you can't really dial in the positioning of the controls as well and yes these are tiny details I know but they're still important because we're trying to compare these things and I'm thinking of everything still on the controls the brakes are pretty different right so these are SRAM Guide RSC’S. The guide T's are obviously a bit heavier but they just feel a bit spongier there's so very powerful great brakes but they just don't have quite the precise modulation of the RSC’S and they also lack a couple important adjustment factors - one of them is tool free reach adjustment. Reach adjust is where that lever stationary position is the guide T still do have a reach adjust but you do need an Allen wrench to mess with it and it makes it a little like just kind of annoying to you know dial in and you got to have a tool right whereas the guide RCS you have a tool free meaning you can just do this out on the trail if you want it's really simple you just literally twist a knob. The other big thing for brakes is contact point. So the contact point is that dead zone and how far that lever pulls until it engages. So the higher end SRAM brakes have a contact point adjustment right here you don't need a tool. You just roll a little wheel and you can totally dial in the brakes that reach adjust with no tool the contact point with no tool those two little adjustments can really help you fine-tune exactly how you want those brakes to feel. does everyone care about that? probably not. if you're in the mountain bike world for a while you'll come to know and love those little adjustments and really enjoy them so those are definitely some important details that do matter. drivetrain wise once you're at you know the three thousand dollar price point bike they're gonna shift great the difference is and kind of what Zack and Jared said and we made a video once all kind of comparing the different Eagle Drive trains is that the feeling is different right so it still shifts it does what it you tell it to but it doesn't quite feel as crisp or or just tight and snappy it kind of just feels like there's a little more flex in the shift lever and a little more just flat sent everything in general so that's a little bit more of like a qualitative thing it's kind of hard to like pinpoint how that feels but I think most people if you rode these things back-to-back you would notice that so hub engagement little tiny details like in the controls in the dropper lever how the drivetrain actually feels really matter the adjustment on a suspension is pretty important too so you're gonna get a lot more adjustment and better dampers on the higher-end bike as opposed to that bike is at the end of the world. That's probably the least noticeable one. if you're not a bike snob and a suspension snob you're very unlikely to notice the difference between the suspension on a $9,000 bike and a $3,000 bike they feel pretty similar you are gonna miss some adjustments those adjustments are really not that widely used or very common but if you're riding them back-to-back and you're sort of really dialed into how your suspension feels you will notice that and it is meaningful there. so I think those are the things that sort of sum up the differences between these bikes. keep in mind these do have the exact same geometry and suspension platform so that helped kind of isolate that variable out of this whole thing, and again, I want this to be applicable to pretty much all bikes when you're comparing that price point of around $3,000 to around $8,000 around $9,000 those are some of the key differences that you're gonna notice. again really does boil back down to weight and details and if that matters to you then yeah you know save up go for the nicer one the cool thing about mountain bikes and something that our business does a lot is just upgrade bikes all the time so a lot of people come in to a bike like this and then just slowly upgrade stuff toss a new wheelset on there and you cranks it on there some carbon bars on there a new drop or a blah blah blah very common super usual thing. So let us know down in the comments what you guys think of this topic, make sure to hit the link below in the video description so you can see sort of you know side by side the weight differences of every single component of these bikes and all sort of the written analysis. hit that subscribe button we'll see the next one