It seems mountain bikes jump forward in leaps and bounds every year, with the rate of progression helping unlock new levels of potential out on the trails.
Whether that’s through geometry and suspension tweaks or entire redesigns, frame material refinement or a culmination of all those elements, finding a bad bike in 2025 is way trickier than getting a good one.
But all this extra performance can be at the cost of simplicity.
Head angles, bottom bracket heights, chainstay lengths, reach figures, suspension leverage rates and travel, wheel sizes and a host of other aspects are being tweaked – and are now often user-adjustable, too.
Flip chips, and angled and reach-adjusting headset cups, play their role in giving you an unprecedented amount of adjustment, so you can fine-tune your bike to your heart’s content to dial in performance.
This comes with its own perils.
One adjustment can affect another, and there’s the potential to stumble upon a mix of geometry and suspension settings that reduce performance.
If you’re not an expert – or at least well clued up – on what works and what doesn’t, you can unknowingly turn your bike from a top-flight flyer to a lame duck.
Amongst all the adjustability, some brands have taken a different route by only offering fixed figures.
This essentially takes the guesswork – and any potentially damning setup combinations – entirely off the table. But you’ll need to be more careful when picking a model such as this.
Taking the complexity out of bike choice and setup may be liberating for some; not thinking about whether your bike may feel better if it was in the long-chainstay setting or with increased shock progression might be a big bonus.
Our two reasonably priced trail bikes encapsulate the above dilemma. Giant’s Trance X boasts two points of adjustment, each with three settings, giving nine different options, and you can run it with either a 29in or 27.5in rear wheel.
The Canyon Spectral AL 6, on the other hand, has no adjustment at all. You must choose your rear wheel size when you buy it – it uses different chainstays, which is a cost-saving measure according to Canyon.
And you’re going to have to pay for the extra research, development and manufacturing required to build in geometry and suspension adjustment. There's a £1,200 asking price difference between our two bikes.
These two rigs have been pitted head-to-head to see whether there’s any discernible performance advantage to having all that geometry adjustment, or if you’re better off looking for a bike with the right figures in the first place.
Meet the tester – Alex Evans
With an unquenchable appetite for riding, Alex will head out in the worst conditions. Add his painstaking approach to testing, and he’s well-placed to find out which bikes shred and which should be consigned to the history books.
Introducing the bikes
Canyon Spectral AL 6
Canyon’s latest Spectral is made from aluminium. Touted as a no-frills trail bike, beyond some rubberised frame protection and bottle bosses, the frame’s about as uncomplicated as they come, forgoing geometry and suspension adjustment and onboard storage.
What it lacks in flip chips, it makes up for in value.
Up front is Fox’s 36 GRIP2 150mm-travel fork, matched with a Float X Performance shock, damping the 140mm-travel Horst-link suspension. Shimano’s SLX brakes and drivetrain are fitted, along with Canyon in-house finishing kit, bar the DT Swiss XM 1900 wheels.
Its fixed geometry has a 64-degree head angle, 76.5-degree seat tube angle and reach figures spanning 425mm to 525mm.
Canyon Spectral AL 6 geometry
- Effective top tube length: 653mm
- Seat tube length: 445mm
- Chainstay length: 437mm
- Wheelbase: 1,280mm
- BB height: 345mm
- Reach: 500mm
- Head angle: 64°
- Seat tube angle: 76.5°
- Sizes: Extra-small, small, medium, large*, extra-large
- Price: £2,799
Canyon Spectral AL 6 specifications
- Frame: Aluminium, 140mm travel
- Fork: Fox 36 Performance Elite, 150mm travel
- Shock: Fox Float X Performance
- Drivetrain: Shimano SLX M7100 (1x12)
- Wheels: DT Swiss XM 1900, Maxxis Minion DHR II 3C MaxxTerra EXO 29x2.4in (f) and Maxxis Minion DHR II 3C MaxxTerra EXO+ 29x2.4in (r) tyres
- Brakes: Shimano SLX M7120, 203/203mm rotors
- Bar/stem: Canyon G5, 780mm/Canyon G5, 40mm
- Seatpost/saddle: Canyon SP0081 dropper/Ergon SM10 Enduro
- Weight: 15.55kg, large size without pedals
Giant Trance X 1
The archetypal trail bike, Giant’s Trance is a long-standing model in the brand’s range.
Although it comes in many (many) different flavours, the alloy Trance X is probably the sweet spot. It has Fox dampers front and rear, with a 150mm-travel 36 fork and a Float rear shock, providing the control for Giant’s twin-link 140mm-travel Maestro suspension design.
Elsewhere, there’s a mix of Shimano’s Deore and SLX kit, and plenty of Giant-branded parts to finish.
A three-position flip chip adjusts BB height, head angle and seat angle independently of the supplied reach-adjusting headset cups. These alter each size’s reach by a total of 10mm.
Giant Trance X 1 geometry
- Effective top tube length: 623mm
- Seat tube length: 450mm
- Chainstay length: 439mm
- Wheelbase: 1,246mm
- BB height: 342mm
- Reach: 480mm
- Head angle: 64.8°
- Seat tube angle: 77.2°
- Sizes: Small, medium, large*, extra-large
- All figures quoted for large frame in mid flip chip and mid reach adjust headset position
Giant Trance X 1 specifications
- Frame: ALUXX SL-grade aluminium, 140mm travel
- Fork: Fox 36 Performance, 150mm travel
- Shock: Fox Float Performance
- Drivetrain: Shimano SLX M7100 (1x12)
- Wheels: Giant TRA rims on Giant Alloy hubs, Maxxis Minion DHF EXO 29x2.5in (f) and Maxxis Minion Dissector EXO 29x2.4in (r) tyres
- Brakes: Shimano Deore MT520, 203/180mm rotors
- Bar/stem: Giant Contact TR35, 780mm/Giant Contact SL 35, 50mm
- Seatpost/saddle: Giant Contact Switch Adjustable 170-200mm travel dropper/Giant Romero
- Weight: 15.4kg, large size without pedals
- Price: £3,999
How do the Canyon Spectral AL 6 and Giant Trance X 1 compare?
Regardless of how much tech a bike has, for it to be a worthy purchase, it needs to get the must-have ingredients right in the first place. Fortunately, both the Canyon Spectral AL and Giant Trance X have plenty of va-va-voom before you factor in their unique and defining design elements.
Both their alloy frames have chain-slap protection – and plenty of it – along with underside padding to prevent damage from rock strikes, and, in the Giant’s case, a pickup truck tailgate pad if that’s how you transport or shuttle your bike.
Each bike also has internally routed cables entering via ports on the sides of the down tube rather than through the headset; home mechanics will appreciate the easier maintenance.
There are bottle cage bosses on the down tube, and a secondary accessory-mounting location on the underside of the top tube.
At this point, the Trance and Spectral are level-pegging.
They also include the handy SRAM UDH (Universal Derailleur Hanger), but the Giant starts to deviate from the norm in some places. Instead of the 73mm BSA threaded bottom bracket seen on the Canyon, it’s got a press-fit PF92.
While the theory behind a PF92 bottom bracket is solid, fitment and removal of one requires more specialist tools than the standard threaded design.
The Giant has also got an oversized head tube to accommodate the reach-adjusting cups, although the fork uses a run-of-the-mill 1 1/8 to 1.5in steerer tube.
The Canyon also uses a standard steerer tube fork, with more usual tapered head tube sizing that limits the potential to install angle- or reach-adjusting headset cups.
Deviating – potentially for the worse – from the norm in certain areas, the Giant gains in others.
While you might have to put up with a hard-to-fit bottom bracket, the frame has onboard storage, accessed via a hatch on the top side of the down tube, and a neoprene bag to stash things in.
A premium feature such as this is excellent on a relatively affordable bike. The Canyon forgoes this luxury.
The Giant’s press-fit BB and the Canyon’s lack of frame storage aren’t compelling reasons to write either off; in this battle, the bikes are still even.
Spec similarities
The headline components on each bike – from big brands Fox and Shimano – are also comparable.
Up front, there’s a pair of Fox 36s, both with 150mm of travel.
While the Giant gets the less-adjustable GRIP damper, Canyon has specced the GRIP2 with both high- and low-speed rebound and compression adjustment.
Although that extra adjustment is appealing, the GRIP damper has a long track record of performing better than its more technologically advanced counterpart.
Out back, they share Fox-branded dampers, but the Giant has the basic in-line Float, while the Canyon gets the Float X with a piggyback reservoir.
Shimano’s 12-speed SLX drivetrain is fitted to both, although while the Canyon gets four-piston SLX brakes, the Giant has the more basic MT501/520 Deore equivalents.
Seatposts, saddle, bars, stem, and grips are from each brand’s in-house component line-ups. Giant follows this trend for the wheels, while Canyon outsources its hoops to DT Swiss, fitting the brand’s affordable XM 1900s.
In terms of tyres, both Giant and Canyon have fitted the right brand of rubber – Maxxis – but only Canyon has chosen the casings and compounds befitting of the bike’s potential.
A lacklustre dual-compound EXO Minion DHF and Dissector combination adorns the Trance X, while the Spectral gets tackier 3C triple-compound rubber with an EXO front and tougher EXO+ rear Minion DHR II setup. Most riders will need to upgrade the Giant’s rubber from the get-go, which is disappointing.
In their stock guise, there’s little to separate the weight of the two bikes. The Giant comes in at 15.4kg, while the Canyon is 15.55kg, the increase likely made up by the difference in rear-tyre casing.
Neither will set any records for the lightest trail bike on the market, but for reasonably burly builds with an affordable price tag, they’re both in the right area.
Virtual pivots for all
Giant’s long-standing co-rotating twin-link virtual pivot point suspension is present and correct on the Trance X, doling out 140mm of travel.
The Canyon also has 140mm of travel, but this is controlled by a Horst-link design, which, if we’re getting technical, also creates a virtual pivot point.
The phrase ‘there are many ways to skin a cat’ applies aptly to these two bikes, with both designs, despite their rather disparate looks, able to isolate pedalling, suspension and braking forces from negatively affecting one another.
One-upmanship
From here, things start to differ.
While the standard geometry figures aren’t far apart and bang-on for trail bikes – think head tube angles of around 64 degrees, long reach figures, steep seat tube angles and average 440mm chainstays – it’s the Giant’s adjustable geometry that edges it ahead.
The Canyon's five-size range (XS to XL) lifts off with reach figures at 425mm and rises in 25mm increments to 525mm.
Each size has 437mm chainstays, a 76.5-degree seat tube angle and a 64-degree head angle.
In its middle setting, the Giant’s figures are comparable, but you open a world of customisation once you factor in the adjustability.
The head angle can be between 64.4 degrees (low), 64.8 degrees (mid) and 65.1 degrees (high) depending on the flip chip’s position.
This low, mid, high rocker flip chip also creates a corresponding change to the seat tube angle, effective top tube length, wheelbase, chainstay, bottom bracket height, stack, reach (independently of the reach-adjusting headset) and standover.
Bespoke sizing
Include the three-position (plus 5mm, neutral, minus 5mm) reach adjustment on top of this and the shortest possible reach figure the Trance X could run is 421mm (small size, short reach, low flip chip), while the longest possible is 519mm (extra-large size, long reach, high flip chip), with each of the four sizes (S to XL) having a potential of nine different reach figures to suit your needs.
The smallest possible jump in reach between two sizes – the medium in its high setting with the plus 5mm cups and large in the low setting with the minus 5mm cups – is 2mm. Talk about bespoke sizing!
But the adjustable headset doesn’t only alter the reach. In moving the bars fore or aft, it also changes the effective top tube, wheelbase and front-centre of the bike, and will have a lesser effect on other bits of the Giant’s geometry.
Having the option to customise it is brilliant, especially if you fall between sizes or want to tweak how the bike rides. But there’s the potential to open Pandora’s box of geometry and get yourself in a pickle.
The Canyon’s reach figures are on the long side for each size – a large has a 500mm figure – but the Giant’s more conservative stock figures can be adapted to get pretty close.
Canyon Spectral AL 6 vs Giant Trance X 1 ride impressions
Out on the trails, despite the similarities, a bigger gulf opens up. But don’t jump to conclusions – neither bike is bad, they’ve both just got very different personalities and will suit different types of rider.
The Giant is quick to respond to rider input, picking up its heels when you mash down on the pedals.
Its eagerness to climb feels rewarding; you can reach hair-blowing-in-the-wind speeds with limited fuss or effort expended.
A big chunk of that is generated by the dual-compound, fast-rolling tread pattern of the stock Maxxis tyres.
They’re great for high-speed jaunts on fireroads or blue-graded trail centres, but come unstuck quickly once the trail technicality increases.
Riding over roots and rocks, especially if they’re wet, is a skittish and fraught affair. Add in the higher pressures needed to maintain carcass stability and you’ve got even less grip.
A tyre change is transformative; pop on some softer-compound and tougher-casing tyres to drop pressures and boost grip.
Set with more appropriate rubber, the grip generated by the Trance X’s smooth suspension can be unlocked – hitting rougher sections at speed isn’t like rolling the dice, you stick to your chosen line.
Stock out of the box
Out of the box, the Canyon’s tyres are more suitable for a bike for this ilk – tread pattern, casing and compound included. Not only does the triple-compound rubber glue itself to the trail better, it also provides an important layer of damping, boosted by the rear’s EXO+ casing.
The Canyon has a slow, calm and measured feel to it on the climbs. It's not going to break any high-speed records to the tops of the trails, preferring the calmer enduro-inspired winch and plummet method akin to a sit-up-and-beg bike.
The steep seat tube angle places your hips over the bottom bracket, boosting efficiency, comfort and capability.
This is great for long days in the saddle, but less suited to all-out efforts in the hunkered-down position found on lighter-weight, more aggressive trail bikes.
Fortunately, when seated, the suspension barely bobs as you pedal in a wide range of gears, boosting perceived effort transfer.
Stand on the pedals at a low cadence and it oscillates slowly in and out of its travel with each stroke, but almost every bike behaves like this.
There’s still plenty of smoothness from the Horst-link system – it’s fluttery but not otherworldly plush.
The Giant, on the other hand, has a more frenetic feel to it.
The rear end – and GRIP-damped fork – are super-fluttery at the start of their travel; there’s a bias for the suspension to move rather than remaining inert.
This is great for traction and comfort on rubbly fire roads, but means it bobs way more in all gears, whether you’re standing or seated.
Flicking the lockout lever reduces it, but it also robs you of the grip-rich ride that makes the Trance stand out.
Jack of all trades
Where the Canyon’s position is relatively relaxed with a bias to weighting your backside rather than hands, the Giant’s is more neutral.
Evenly distributing your body weight puts the Trance slap-bang in the middle of the trail bike category; you can sit up and relax to cruise a fireroad or lower your shoulders towards the bars to dig in.
Both are within the bike’s performance scope and make it as adaptable as its geometry.
Add in the 30t chainring – an excellent choice for those who spend a lot of time on steep climbs – and despite its bob, it’s an excellently comfortable and adaptable climber.
Biasing the lighter, faster-rolling, more energetic end of the spectrum, the Giant’s likely to please riders wanting to go uphill efficiently and quickly.
The Canyon’s enduro roots may exclude those looking for a nippier experience, but if you’re on the fence about whether you should get a trail bike or an enduro bike, the Spectral AL presents itself as a compelling compromise.
Mild, wild or both
Pointing them downhill reveals there’s even more to tell them apart.
The Spectral’s 500mm reach and generous wheelbase play a big role in how it rides, slowing down its handling and your perception of speed.
The reward is a bike that absolutely shifts without making a fuss. It masks how fast you’re going, which is great for snapping up PRs, but does take some getting used to.
Braking points need recalibrating, and so does your riding style.
The lower and more aggressively you position yourself on it, weighting the front wheel to boost traction and control, the more it takes off down the trail.
When you hit steeper sections, you instinctively drive grip and control through the front wheel, rather than cowering off the back, saying Hail Marys in a bid to regain composure.
High speed, steeper trails and general rowdiness are dispatched with confidence and control, proided you stay in command.
The enduro-lite or trail-heavy vibe it’s got on the climbs is well and truly dominant on the descents – the Spectral AL absolutely rips.
The Giant, on the other hand, has an energetic and involved feel; its suspension is playful and lively, feeling very eager to enter its travel and smooth out the trail.
In a full house of suspension bingo, it also has a healthy amount of support.
Pumping into compressions to go light over the next section is engaging – the bike accelerates forwards equally to the amount of effort you put in.
And with the grippier, more robust tyres I fitted, hanging on to knife-edge lines that require commitment is excellently rewarding.
The suspension works overtime to deliver grip and control, absorbing bumps from the smallest pebble up to the biggest hit.
Those who dare
The Giant's hand-to-feet relationship is balanced and feels very natural, and extending my test bike’s reach to its maximum plus 5mm position enhanced its ride by boosting stability.
Whether that was hammering into corners and letting the bike slip and slide or committing to steep sections at speed, the extra length meant I could tap into more control and composure.
Equally, if you prefer bikes with a skittish and twitchy feel, setting it to the shortest reach adjustment will speed up the handling.
Once you’ve calibrated how hard the Giant can be pushed in turns and compressions, the only thing that stands in the way of high-stakes antics is your ability to commit.
More daring riding seems to tap into the Trance X’s inherent performance; squaring off berms, driving speed and generally pumping, bouncing and jumping your way down the trail feels wicked.
The suspension’s progression holds the bike’s geometry firm, equating to fewer weight shifts and control inputs to keep it on track.
Up the trail’s speed potential and the Giant tops out.
While it remains fun to ride, an element of twitchiness creeps in when the pace is high, likely down to the head angle. But this can be forgiven – it’s a true trail bike that’s comfortable everywhere, but once the trail’s demands slip outside the middle of the bell curve, the Giant gets pushed to its limits.
Canyon Spectral AL 6 vs Giant Trance X 1 bottom line
Which bike is best? Well, that’s a tricky question to answer because it depends massively on what you prioritise.
If you're after the ultimate in adjustable geometry and a sleek frame with other high-tech features such as down tube storage, the Trance X is the clear winner.
But the Giant’s also one of the most middle-of-the-road trail bikes out there – everything about it screams generalist, from the suspension and spec to the geometry and weight.
That’s excellent for those who want to do it all and are willing to take a compromise or two at the more extreme ends of the terrain bell curve.
At the gnarlier end of the spectrum, it biases fun and playfulness over outright capability and speed. Towards the XC end of trail, its weight and suspension bob will slow you down compared to the tautest bikes.
On the other hand, the Spectral AL’s unashamedly showing its enduro DNA for all to see, from the slack, long and low angles through to the tyre choice and suspension feel.
It's better at cruising rather than blasting the climbs, but this switches once you get on gravity’s good side, with plenty of shred-ready performance easy to tap into.
Riders who are undecided between a trail bike and an enduro bike will enjoy the best-of-both feel the Spectral AL has. But, unlike the Giant – with geometry that can be adapted to suit different needs – the Canyon’s a one-trick pony.
It does its single party piece exceptionally well, but if you’re on the hunt for adaptability or a more neutral ride, the Canyon’s bias for going hard and fast puts a limit on performance potential in the other direction.
It’s still a generalist, but its performance band sits closer to the more extreme end of that aforementioned bell curve, rather than directly in the middle.
If it was my money, I’d opt for the Spectral’s bigger appetite for gnarlier terrain despite the Giant’s customisable and adaptable performance. But your needs may differ, and whichever of these two rigs you choose, you’re not going to be disappointed.
