Props to you for spending a ton of your own money on making an actually good high low series unlike another channel that just shilled their sponsors products and didnt do budget parts any justice
Yea same. I have z2 on my trail bike and they are great. I was surprised Evans didn't come with foam rings because mine certainly did. No foam rings is the penny pinching thing suntour usually does.
Marzocchi is for the Freeride/extremely hard riding crowd, I would know, I’m one of them with a 170mm green spring Z1 on my hardtail. Stiffer and more durable overall.
I'm surprised he's the only blogger/reviewer to dislike the Marzocchi and to actually push for the expensive = better mindset. It was as if everything cheaper has been demonized and typecast.
Law of diminishing returns definitely kicked in on the high bike. Furthermore, the low bike did not have "cheap" parts......it had "less expensive," quality parts.
This was a great series! No shame with that walk, stuff looked scary as hell. Now I need to figure out how to save up for carbon hoops for my Optic LOL.
@@dimimtb They're crap value. If you disregard the price then sure it might be a good bike but the prices for what you get are over the top. Especially for a 125mm travel bike.
Awesome series and thanks so much for all the effort, very well put together. I would love to see a "Sweet Spot" series where you compare and test the major components across the price range and find the point where performance gains are largely unnoticeable for a typical rider.
Man, you deserve all the rewards for this great series, you put the Pinkbike series to shame - You even took out the "other rider" variable. Massive ups to you Dude, well done.
Pretty epic scenery, that must have been a awesome day. Really glad you had the save instead of a rocky fail. The ultra high end is too Gucci for the most part…but they do have a nice resale value, so it’s not a total money burn. Pretty fun series. Your videos are quality enough and you are good enough in front of the camera to make a little longer vids if you ever wanted to. Remember we are all here for content, so the more content the better. Regardless though, nice job. 👍🏻 This series was fun, even though I wish the videos were longer. I think you have more than earned a subscriber, so I’m in.
As someone who's been researching budget entry level bikes for a while now, all I can say is thank you. I binged this entire high/low series and it's exactly the kind of information I've been looking for as a beginner. I hope you do more videos/series like this. Thank you so much.
Every episode of this series has been informative as well as entertaining . The breathtaking scenic beauty was a wonderful finale . Thank you for the time and detailed care you put into it .
I think it would be really cool to see a build with lesser known/ used brands high end suntour, dvo, Maggura, micro shift, trp, etc. I really loved this series keep up the grind
as far as im aware, shock fade actually causes the shock to give LESS support, you may be experiencing packing on the low bike, im sure you know what i mean. Super entertaining series!
Just bought my first gravel bike last week. Watching reviews for the bike i purchased this channel came in recommended. Been enjoying it greatly and now subscribed.
Another great video Evan! I'm still appreciative that you introduced me to Vitus bikes. I just finished building up an Escarpe frame. My first carbon framed bike! It never stops! Keep the videos coming!
Love this, 10x better then Bikbike's version and funny that you got the Idea off of Donut Media, I watch their VIdeos too. You could maybe do another one of these, but this time it would be low vs mid. so similarly cheap parts compared to mid-range parts that are not so overkill. That would actually be quite helping for making buying decisions. When I looked at your final conclusion I kinda thought sth. in the middle would have been the best. I am ready to spend more than 400 Bucks on a Fork, but I dont need a grip two cartridge ocashima coating. What you could also do is used vs. new comparing new cheap parts to similarly priced higher end used parts. Here you could also include how to determine wether used parts are in good condition and worth buying. I hope this helps develop and grow your channel, because I absoluteley love your videos and I am looking forward to seeing more similar ones. (Sorry for my most-probably horrible spelling and grammar, I am a 15-year old german and spelling has never been my kinda thing)
Great English! My wife recommended do Low vs Mid vs High. I think she's trying to kill me 🤣 all those were great ideas! If you were in America Id give you a job!
this was a cool video, I just bought my wife the D7 and its cool to see what are some useful upgrades. The D7 seems very capable straight out of the box.
I really enjoyed this series. I do enjoy having a bike that is more capable than I am and I'm lucky enough to be able to buy good quality parts. Several times I've been sorely tempted to spend money on carbon or other exotic materials but I've realised that spending a ton of money on something that is often only grams lighter really isn't worth it when I could ride the bike I have more and loose some weight.
Very cool series. I have a stock (save for the cockpit/pedals) Polygon D7. I took it to Bentonville last week and it did fine. I was, by far, the limiting factor.
Great vid Evan. Your channel will do very well if you keep on having fun with this... Don't let the "pressure" of making this a job near you down and don't be greedy for gain. At the end of the day, if you have fun making content and tinkering just keep doing that! We recognize your potential and just do it cuz you like to, not because you have to. If you ever feel pressure remember this comment bud👍🙋😎
Really enjoyed the series, I'm not even a mountainbiker. Although some upgrades seemed unreasonable to me (eg 2k brakes). I'd like to suggest something for the next season (after Chads carbon project). You'll build up 2 bikes again but with a limited budget. One bike may only use new parts from retail whilst the other bike may only use second hand parts from ebay, marketplace or similar (allowed to negotiate)
Excellent series. Great job discussing where it is better to spend money for performance upgrades. I think that a lot of people just want to know how to get the best bag for their buck. You've answered that question thoroughly. And, you put that sorry Pinkbike farce to shame.
Be'n following for the earlier episodes... Perfectly done....! The choice of bike is perfect for low budget... Upgradesis based of common options available..... Side by side comparison is objective... Your a big help for us beginers.... More power to your chanel....!
Yoooooo loved the series my man! I think it could be cool to do a series where you compare different levels of parts from the same manufacturer. Like low tier shimano components vs. high tier or rockshox and so on! Keep up the good work!
For the chute, the issue was poor line choice as Evan was going straight, which meant going on the most technical line while the right had the easier line.
Usually more expensive equals better, but there's a point where you get diminishing returns, the things that I've upgraded that made the biggest difference on my 2019 norco fluid fs1 were dt swiss wheels, and vittoria barzo tyres, that only cost $850 dollars, that got the weight down from about 15.5kg to 14.0kg, it came with a 35mm rockshox revelation with a motion control damper, the fork felt good except on fast braking bumps, but instead of upgrading to a charger damper I changed the damper oil from 5wt to 2.5wt, and now the fork feels great, I've also upgraded other things too, and now it weighs 13.87kg, but if you want best bang for buck wheels and tyres are your best bet, I wouldn't spend big money on suspension either, for example my 2017 trek slash 9.8 had a 160mm rockshox lyric with a charger damper, and the rockshox revelation with 2.5wt damper oil feels the same as the pike.
Amazing video, Evan! Your editing skill are so good! The amount of effort you put into these videos is so appreciated. I'm glad your channel is getting so much recognition!
Thank you man! You've been around for so long, thanks for sticking around and glad you could see the growth. I love the edit process, especially once the music gets added
@@EvansMTBSaga It genuinely made my day that you recognized my username 😭 Thank you so much! I’ll be around for all your future videos too. Thank you for the many hours of entertainment 🙏
Really enjoyed the series!! Love how you used top of the line new parts vs used good parts!! Can’t wait till the next series comes out!!! Carbon frames???🤔🤔🤔
Im surprised I only noticed this now I started whatching your videos when you were at around 16k now your at 35k you have done an amazing job at pumping out amazing content 👍
Great little series you did here keep it up. I will say that I have hated that Monarch rear shock. Best thing I have ever down was get rid of that thing. Always gave me issues and never felt right.
probably is because he doesn’t use the sram casette because he don’t have a compatible freehub i don’t know he change the casette after he changed the wheelset
You should do a test where it's low end vs high end of the same components, like a pike select vs pike ultimate, or a nx/gx vs xx1, gx axs vs xx1 axs. This would be very cool!
I loved this series. Was the reason I subscribed to your Chanel. Your are not the only one who is saying that the sram x01 and xx1 are having ghostshiftproblems like sram nx/sx. I have the sram nx group set. Thought about upgrading some things into gx and x01 but probably I'm going to buy a 12 speed shimano drivetrain over upgrading my sram groupset....
Suntour Durolux, Triair/Coil, Microshift advent X on a Siskiu N9. That's the way to build a cheap well working bike! But I had a lot of fun watching your videos and learned something about axles ;)
How much do you think the cost of what you spend on a part plays with the mind in what costs are involved in the occasional fails? Like sometimes I have more of a fear of financial burden and replacing expensive parts...and sometimes it is easier to just "send it" on cheaper stuff that is less expensive... probably why some people think I think too much..but I know that while my sins are forgiven and I know my Redeemer Jesus lives....I also tend to go from paycheck to paycheck and don't wanna have to save up for a long time due to part breakage.... I loved this series and agree with finding a middle tier upgrade for my bikes.
That's a good viewpoint. I didn't really think of that, but the expensive cassette and tires would be most concerning. I've also almost gouged my Kashima coating before too and that was stressful
I don't know about the compatibility issues on the "cheap" drive train, seems to me more like lack of research of what would and would not fit. I have pretty similar SLX/XT setup and it has worked absolutely flawlessly for the last 1600ish km I had it.
Props to you for spending a ton of your own money on making an actually good high low series unlike another channel that just shilled their sponsors products and didnt do budget parts any justice
He prob made it back and then some from the videos
preach!!
@@tannerschroth1788I would hope so
Just when Chad was showing some humbleness, he shows a carbon frame as a cliffhanger. Awesome man! Just brilliant. I love Chad. I'm one myself!
@@sawyerbarnes7439 When you swear so much that autocorrect automatically corrects "shot" to "shit"
Really surprised the Z2 didn't work well for you, it's been fantastic for me.
Likewise, mine started feeling horrible about a year into use but was fixed with a full rebuild.
Wonder if his fork just needs a full rebuild
Yea same. I have z2 on my trail bike and they are great.
I was surprised Evans didn't come with foam rings because mine certainly did. No foam rings is the penny pinching thing suntour usually does.
Marzocchi is for the Freeride/extremely hard riding crowd, I would know, I’m one of them with a 170mm green spring Z1 on my hardtail. Stiffer and more durable overall.
@@konakid548 no he doesn’t. Each rider has a different preference when it comes to parts and components.
I'm surprised he's the only blogger/reviewer to dislike the Marzocchi and to actually push for the expensive = better mindset.
It was as if everything cheaper has been demonized and typecast.
Law of diminishing returns definitely kicked in on the high bike. Furthermore, the low bike did not have "cheap" parts......it had "less expensive," quality parts.
This was a great series! No shame with that walk, stuff looked scary as hell. Now I need to figure out how to save up for carbon hoops for my Optic LOL.
Walk of sanity always beats bleeding to urgent care. I speak from experience.
why would you buy an optic 🤢
@@mctg9043 out of curiosity why? it's been a great bike.
@@dimimtb They're crap value. If you disregard the price then sure it might be a good bike but the prices for what you get are over the top. Especially for a 125mm travel bike.
So glad I got to be a part of this Evan, keep on shredding!🤙
This is exactly what I wanted the pink bike series to be! Thanks for the fantastic series!
Awesome series and thanks so much for all the effort, very well put together. I would love to see a "Sweet Spot" series where you compare and test the major components across the price range and find the point where performance gains are largely unnoticeable for a typical rider.
Man, you deserve all the rewards for this great series, you put the Pinkbike series to shame - You even took out the "other rider" variable.
Massive ups to you Dude, well done.
Really enjoyed this Evan. Top tier content from a channel with
Pretty epic scenery, that must have been a awesome day. Really glad you had the save instead of a rocky fail. The ultra high end is too Gucci for the most part…but they do have a nice resale value, so it’s not a total money burn. Pretty fun series. Your videos are quality enough and you are good enough in front of the camera to make a little longer vids if you ever wanted to. Remember we are all here for content, so the more content the better. Regardless though, nice job. 👍🏻
This series was fun, even though I wish the videos were longer. I think you have more than earned a subscriber, so I’m in.
Awesome series Evan! So stoked we were able to be a part of it :)
Great series! Really enjoyed watching these.
As someone who's been researching budget entry level bikes for a while now, all I can say is thank you. I binged this entire high/low series and it's exactly the kind of information I've been looking for as a beginner. I hope you do more videos/series like this. Thank you so much.
Every episode of this series has been informative as well as entertaining . The breathtaking scenic beauty was a wonderful finale . Thank you for the time and detailed care you put into it .
One of my favorite youtube series EVER. Great job Evan! You should be very proud dude
The editing on this video is pretty well done. It's been fun watching your saga grow! Nicely done!!
I think it would be really cool to see a build with lesser known/ used brands high end suntour, dvo, Maggura, micro shift, trp, etc. I really loved this series keep up the grind
That's a good idea I like that! Thanks Larry!
Actually that's a sick series "Off Brand series"
as far as im aware, shock fade actually causes the shock to give LESS support, you may be experiencing packing on the low bike, im sure you know what i mean. Super entertaining series!
Just bought my first gravel bike last week. Watching reviews for the bike i purchased this channel came in recommended. Been enjoying it greatly and now subscribed.
Big fan of the series! It actually helped guide me through my new bike purchase and I'm glad I went with the fox 34 fork. Keep up the awesome content!
This was legit the best series in biking of this history of UA-cam. Man your effort really showed here! I love it and thank you for making it
I'm kinda sad that the series has ended, loved it!
I love how these videos are always the same, but kind of different.
This series was great, you’ve improved with every episode!
High five for a very well executed series 🖐 Hope it will continue to generate subscriber growth for quite some time!
Love that outro 😂
Funny how the "low" bike is actually a high bike haha
Another great video Evan! I'm still appreciative that you introduced me to Vitus bikes. I just finished building up an Escarpe frame. My first carbon framed bike! It never stops! Keep the videos coming!
Loved this series! Can’t wait for Season 2… 🤞😉
Love this, 10x better then Bikbike's version and funny that you got the Idea off of Donut Media, I watch their VIdeos too. You could maybe do another one of these, but this time it would be low vs mid. so similarly cheap parts compared to mid-range parts that are not so overkill. That would actually be quite helping for making buying decisions. When I looked at your final conclusion I kinda thought sth. in the middle would have been the best. I am ready to spend more than 400 Bucks on a Fork, but I dont need a grip two cartridge ocashima coating. What you could also do is used vs. new comparing new cheap parts to similarly priced higher end used parts. Here you could also include how to determine wether used parts are in good condition and worth buying. I hope this helps develop and grow your channel, because I absoluteley love your videos and I am looking forward to seeing more similar ones. (Sorry for my most-probably horrible spelling and grammar, I am a 15-year old german and spelling has never been my kinda thing)
Great English! My wife recommended do Low vs Mid vs High. I think she's trying to kill me 🤣 all those were great ideas! If you were in America Id give you a job!
Your videos are getting better and better every time, keep up the great work
Never feel ashamed. Feel good that you got through it and live to ride another day. Good series.
Great series, thanks for doing this. Id love to see a bit more analysis on the carbon rims, the time difference seems out of this world
this was a cool video, I just bought my wife the D7 and its cool to see what are some useful upgrades. The D7 seems very capable straight out of the box.
Absolutely the best low vs high end bike comparison out there. Enjoyed every single video so much, thanks!
Great series, I can imagine how much time and editing was done, keep doing your story of riding and progression
This was a really cool series. Nice to see where it's worth spending big bucks vs, just mid tear parts.
Thanks for checking it out Peter!!
I really enjoyed this series. I do enjoy having a bike that is more capable than I am and I'm lucky enough to be able to buy good quality parts. Several times I've been sorely tempted to spend money on carbon or other exotic materials but I've realised that spending a ton of money on something that is often only grams lighter really isn't worth it when I could ride the bike I have more and loose some weight.
Holy sh1t! Nowadays they call "low-level" bikes those that cost $ 3300. 🤯
How have I never seen this channel before
Its just bike Donut and I love it
You even use the same music
Very cool series. I have a stock (save for the cockpit/pedals) Polygon D7. I took it to Bentonville last week and it did fine. I was, by far, the limiting factor.
I just binge watched the entire build of your D5. Great videos!
so happy when this came out cant wait for next vid
Great vid Evan. Your channel will do very well if you keep on having fun with this... Don't let the "pressure" of making this a job near you down and don't be greedy for gain. At the end of the day, if you have fun making content and tinkering just keep doing that! We recognize your potential and just do it cuz you like to, not because you have to. If you ever feel pressure remember this comment bud👍🙋😎
Really enjoyed the series, I'm not even a mountainbiker. Although some upgrades seemed unreasonable to me (eg 2k brakes).
I'd like to suggest something for the next season (after Chads carbon project). You'll build up 2 bikes again but with a limited budget. One bike may only use new parts from retail whilst the other bike may only use second hand parts from ebay, marketplace or similar (allowed to negotiate)
Excellent series. Great job discussing where it is better to spend money for performance upgrades. I think that a lot of people just want to know how to get the best bag for their buck. You've answered that question thoroughly. And, you put that sorry Pinkbike farce to shame.
Be'n following for the earlier episodes...
Perfectly done....!
The choice of bike is perfect for low budget...
Upgradesis based of common options available.....
Side by side comparison is objective...
Your a big help for us beginers....
More power to your chanel....!
The amount of effort in making this video back and forth changing tshirt. Amazes me. Great video.
Thanks it was a lot! Not sure I'd do it again without another person 🤣
Yoooooo loved the series my man! I think it could be cool to do a series where you compare different levels of parts from the same manufacturer. Like low tier shimano components vs. high tier or rockshox and so on! Keep up the good work!
I like that idea! I wanna do Kashima vs non Kashima!
That sounds like a banger!
LMAO, absolutely love the Donut Hi-Lo format (music and all) being applied to mountain biking! Great series!
I think a simple person will not even notice the difference in these two bikes, as for me, both the first and second bikes are cool)
Stellar effort, build, ride, and video! Thank you!!
The best series ever! can't wait for another series.
Loved the series… good work Evan.
I just remember when I subbed at 3k. The videos have just gotten so good. Keep up the good work
This series was some really good mountainbike content. Keep up the amazing and for the viewer valuable work!
Thank you so much for all your wrok and videos. Keep them coming.👍😀
Amazing finale Evan. Your videos are really great to watch. Looking forward to more!
Thanks for the support John!
Well said on just picking parts and showing how good mid grade and or used parts can be
For the chute, the issue was poor line choice as Evan was going straight, which meant going on the most technical line while the right had the easier line.
Really liked the series. Great job overall.
Usually more expensive equals better, but there's a point where you get diminishing returns, the things that I've upgraded that made the biggest difference on my 2019 norco fluid fs1 were dt swiss wheels, and vittoria barzo tyres, that only cost $850 dollars, that got the weight down from about 15.5kg to 14.0kg, it came with a 35mm rockshox revelation with a motion control damper, the fork felt good except on fast braking bumps, but instead of upgrading to a charger damper I changed the damper oil from 5wt to 2.5wt, and now the fork feels great, I've also upgraded other things too, and now it weighs 13.87kg, but if you want best bang for buck wheels and tyres are your best bet, I wouldn't spend big money on suspension either, for example my 2017 trek slash 9.8 had a 160mm rockshox lyric with a charger damper, and the rockshox revelation with 2.5wt damper oil feels the same as the pike.
Keep this going, Evan!
Amazing video, Evan! Your editing skill are so good! The amount of effort you put into these videos is so appreciated. I'm glad your channel is getting so much recognition!
Thank you man! You've been around for so long, thanks for sticking around and glad you could see the growth. I love the edit process, especially once the music gets added
@@EvansMTBSaga It genuinely made my day that you recognized my username 😭 Thank you so much! I’ll be around for all your future videos too. Thank you for the many hours of entertainment 🙏
Really enjoyed the series!! Love how you used top of the line new parts vs used good parts!! Can’t wait till the next series comes out!!! Carbon frames???🤔🤔🤔
That Sedona test ride was sick 🤙🏾💪🏾 that was a great finale 💯
Im surprised I only noticed this now I started whatching your videos when you were at around 16k now your at 35k you have done an amazing job at pumping out amazing content 👍
Great little series you did here keep it up. I will say that I have hated that Monarch rear shock. Best thing I have ever down was get rid of that thing. Always gave me issues and never felt right.
15:04 play in slo mo! He was smiling the entire time😂 I would have been shocked😂
The gear skipping could be because of the casette, thats usually the reason
Bad b-gap setup.
probably is because he doesn’t use the sram casette because he don’t have a compatible freehub i don’t know he change the casette after he changed the wheelset
You should do a test where it's low end vs high end of the same components, like a pike select vs pike ultimate, or a nx/gx vs xx1, gx axs vs xx1 axs. This would be very cool!
thanks for the series Evan, can't wait for more.
Great job man, this was a blast to watch!
I loved this series. Was the reason I subscribed to your Chanel. Your are not the only one who is saying that the sram x01 and xx1 are having ghostshiftproblems like sram nx/sx. I have the sram nx group set. Thought about upgrading some things into gx and x01 but probably I'm going to buy a 12 speed shimano drivetrain over upgrading my sram groupset....
This series was awesome. Keep up the great work!!!!
Loved this series, Evan. Way to go!
This is legit a Hi/Lo episode but instead of cars it’s mountains bikes and I love it!! 😂🤝
It was a super entertaining series to watch. Great job !
Great series brother. Gas prices are insane right now. Bike parts are going to cost more than gold, but I hope quality of parts increase with price. 🤣
For the slippery brake levers you could get some lever grips. I run them on all my stuff.
Waiting the video to start
Really nice job on the video, there's so much effort put into it
Love it, stoked to see what you get up to next!
Best low high comparison video I noticed so far 👍🏼
There is some Magic sauce in Polygon's Frame that defies it's humble roots.
Riding Hiline is hard enough already! Add switching Jerseys mid ride and you've got yourself a recipe for disaster! 😂
Oh yeah and swapping bikes that felt way different. I should've counted how many times I swapped jerseys
Really enjoyed the series!
So you prefer the haze brakes because of slippery levers, which can easily be solved by gloves?
Many problems could be solved by using gloves but maybe you don't wanna wear gloves ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just sayin'
suprised you guys switched to 29ers despite doing bmx as a kid so I supposed you would keep the 27.5s
Loved this series! Very well done!
Hey Evan, what do you think of the polygon siskiu T7 and T8? Cheers
This was an awesome series. Love the videos!
I just can’t fathom using a quick release frame for this project!
I really liked the spring suspension. But it was no more in last ep
I can say I at least cleaned that Climb on Highline. I however also walked a lot after the chute lol
Suntour Durolux, Triair/Coil, Microshift advent X on a Siskiu N9. That's the way to build a cheap well working bike! But I had a lot of fun watching your videos and learned something about axles ;)
Thanks Dylan! Your suggested build sounds super fun!
How much do you think the cost of what you spend on a part plays with the mind in what costs are involved in the occasional fails? Like sometimes I have more of a fear of financial burden and replacing expensive parts...and sometimes it is easier to just "send it" on cheaper stuff that is less expensive... probably why some people think I think too much..but I know that while my sins are forgiven and I know my Redeemer Jesus lives....I also tend to go from paycheck to paycheck and don't wanna have to save up for a long time due to part breakage....
I loved this series and agree with finding a middle tier upgrade for my bikes.
That's a good viewpoint. I didn't really think of that, but the expensive cassette and tires would be most concerning. I've also almost gouged my Kashima coating before too and that was stressful
I don't know about the compatibility issues on the "cheap" drive train, seems to me more like lack of research of what would and would not fit. I have pretty similar SLX/XT setup and it has worked absolutely flawlessly for the last 1600ish km I had it.
After you build the bike with the parts you like from both bikes I think you should run it through the trail and time it against high and low bikes.
Holy crap, evan! I didn't realize how much you've grown!