Transition Spur Test Ride Review

Full disclosure: this was a two-hour test ride of the Transition Spur, with no time to fine-tune or adjust set-up in any meaningful way. First impressions only. 

So – what’s new? The biggest change to the previous Spur is the switch to the UDH and ability to run a SRAM Eagle Transmission drivetrain. So now you can now get supposedly smoother shifting and a tougher derailleur set-up in general, with fewer breakable parts in the event of an accident. It feels like one of those things that everyone wants, really, and I know if I had it on another bike I’d never swap it for anything more complex or vulnerable. The build spec speaks to Transition’s view of this new Spur as an all-country bike – it’s light enough to race XC, (my XL test bike weighs 27.1 lbs with AXS) but tough enough for most anything else you’d want to ride.

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Transition Spur key specs

• Rider Profile: 6’’1” and 220lb with gear. Size X- Large build with XO transmission and AXS tested. 
• Suspension travel: 120/120mm front/rear
• Frame highlights: Full carbon (made from Japanese Toray fibres) with lifetime frame warranty, plus extra shields on the bearings to prevent contamination, and lifetime bearing replacement
• Geometry highlights: HTA: 66°, Reach: 510mm, STA: 677 mm, Chainstays: 435mm, Wheelbase: 1,255mm
• Price: $7,899 for the build as tested
• Buy from Transition.com or dealers nationwide

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Frame-wise, the geometry looks pretty slack for a bike you’re potentially supposed to spend all day riding, but it doesn’t feel that way in the saddle. I like a kind of BMX-y quality to my bikes, even road or gravel, and the straight line from the stem to the rear chainstay across both front and rear triangles looks good too; I like a design that’s instantly recognizable. 

The Fox Float 34 fork adds heft to the 120mm travel upfront and inspires confidence on the descents, and a Fox Float DPS Factory in the rear is unshowy, but more than capable of delivering smooth progression over 120mm of travel. It doesn’t feel plush or woolly, and that’s as it should be. 

I should also add that the SRAM AXS Eagle shifting had none of the glitchy lags I’ve experienced before on other bikes, and ran like a dream – maybe due the strength and stability coming from the UDH. I’ve had other bikes where AXS feels like a step backwards from manual shifting, but this made a tangible, positive difference. 

Out on the trail

I spent two hours or so riding on Ridge and Sketch trails in Sedona, with a lot of awkward, technical climbing, some steep ascents, and a couple of abrupt rocky drops and chutes. 

For a short-travel bike, the Spur feels amazingly at home on the brutal, square-edged rocks of Sedona. It might just have been the switch to a lighter, springier bike after a weekend on bigger travel bruisers, but the Spur felt like a recently freed mountain goat – straining to get up the climbs as fast as possible, and urging me on to do more with every turn of the cranks. A lot of the climbing in Sedona is best done as slowly and carefully as possible  – let the tires do the work and kind of crawl up, like an RC car – but the Transition had me attacking the uphill lines with the biggest hops, looking for harder lines and generally throwing my weight around for the sheer fun of it. 

You might also expect a reduction in fun when taking big hits downhill – there’s only 120mm travel front and rear – but Ridge has its fair share of drops, big G-out rolls and bone-shaking rock gardens, and the Spur didn’t feel under-suspended at all. I wouldn’t try Rampage on it anytime soon, but there was no sense from the bike that I should take it easy or avoid anything at all. More like a constant temptation to push things just a little further…

It may just be that the random gods of demo setup hit my suspension sweet spot – I like my suspension pingy and tense, like the strings on a tennis racket – but it felt like I could do really big hits on this short-travel bike without getting into too much trouble at all.  And with the sleek, clean geometry, you’d probably do fine on the pump track and dirt jumps too (not that I tried it.)

Everyone likes a different feel, so let’s be plain here – this isn’t one of those bikes that’s going to get you out of trouble by soaking up the tricky stuff, or carrying you over the jank like it isn’t there. Nor would I be chomping at the bit to do huge bikepark lines on the Transition Spur, even if I could actually do those. But for the 95% of riding that 95% of us do, this feels like a bike that’s punching way above its weight. I’d happily take this off into the rough backcountry of BC, or hit the biggest drops and jumps I’m capable of, and what’s more, I know I’d have a grin on my face the whole time. 

Because this isn’t a bike that will help you out of trouble – it’s a bike that’ll help you into it. 

Pros and cons of the Transition Spur

Pros

• Incredibly light
• Playful geometry
• Lifetime frame warranty

Cons

• Limited colorways
• Some might like more adjustability on the fame