Ragley Mmmbop bike review

Ragley Mmmbop bike review from a lover of full suspension bikes.

So I killed a Trek Remedy a few months ago which was a case of  ‘user is an idiot’ rather than defective product. This put me in the situation of needing a frame of some sort in a hurry. I had some very specific requirements;

1. 1.5inch headtube
2. 31.6 seat tube diameter
3. Burly enough to take some abuse
4. Good value for money

After some questions on singletrack I was pointed at the Ragley Mmmbop amongst a few others. The Ragley fits all the bills so I spoke to the nice people at the bike chain, based in Edinburgh and I purchased an Mmmbop. The bike arrived and I built it up with Lyrics, Mavic Ex 321+ 2.35 single ply minions, a short 50mm Thomson stem, KS i900r, wide raceface atlas handlebars and other general xt kit.  It is worth pointing out that when I say ‘I built it up’ what I really mean is the bike faries at Evans Cycles Deansgate waved their magic wand and returned a bag of bits and some aluminium tubing, looking like and riding like, a rather excellent bike!   A fairly burly build you might say. It weighed in a 32lb. I will say that I haven’t really ridden a hardtail in the last 6 years since I’ve been riding seriously so I will try to seperate the hardtail differences with my impressions of the bike.

So I took the bike for a shake down at Lee Quarry on a Saturday which went well, spent a fair bit of time tweaking positions of various stuff, taking it easy.  Early impression were good though.  Today I went to my regular testing ground at Llandegla and gave it both barrels to see how it went. My normal route at Llandegla is the black with some laps on JJ’s jumps, then throw in some laps in the skills park at the end.  The ride up to the top was quick, the Mmmbop was fast and direct from the start, standing up and yomping on the pedals on the steeper sections was met with the expected reward. Cruising along the flatter sections was particularly rewarding with the bike keeping speed well and eating the small bumps.  The build is quite heavy so it was noticable when the gradient increased the bike certainly slowed a fair bit but that’s due the the finishing kit.  The fun really began, as you would expect, as I reached the top and started the traversing section of red with some small jumps and bumps. The bike performed great, when pumping the bumps it felt tight and snappy, partly due to the inovative 3 finger chainstay feature.  I built up some great speed. The Mmmbop railed the hard corner at the end of the first run well and felt really solid.  The next section was fast and flowing with some tighter corners and small jumps.  The mmmbop certainly dealt with everything I threw at it, I felt like the bike was alnmost as fast as the remedy I had ridden before, certainly snappier and quicker in the turns. The more I pumbed and pushed the bike the more it delivered.

In the steeper downhill section the Mmmbop also impressed. My love for all things suspension meant I wasn’t expecting to be grinning from ear to ear but, surprise surprise, I was.  The slack head angle, comparable to my revious bike, coupled with the lyrics left me feeling stable at speed whilst being able to move the bike around and make some really fun fast turns, again rewarding the pumping and efforts to carry speed.  In JJ’s jumps, a series of table tops, with the odd double thrown in the bike most impressed me.  It really took to the air.  Unweighting the bike on the lip was a confidence inspiring event and landing in the transition was remarkably smooth. The largest double, which always gives me the willies, was taken at speed and the Mmmbop performed flawlessly. Big grins all round!

Conclusion.
As a big guy with little in the way of finess on a bike I am hard on my stuff. I was nervous of getting a hardtail, the Mmmbop has completely changed my thoughts. The bike is confidence inspiring, has some real muscle hiding in its relatively slim tubing and still sprints rather than weezes it’s way up the hills. Point it down something steep with the recommended 150mm travel forks and you’re going to eat it up like it’s your favourite meal.  In a typically British understated fashion this mountain bike is really rather good!

The picture above is a still from a film we made using the mmmbop, you can check it out here