Lapierre Spicy 516 - Final Review

So here it is the final review on our Lapierre Spicy Long termer…

If you missed out on any of our other coverage of the Spicy, check out the "First Look" we put together and the 6 week update here…

It brings me great sadness to be writing this final review. By the time you're reading this the Lapierre Spicy 516 that I have been using for the last 3 months will have been boxed up and returned to our friends at Hotlines.

No beating around the bush with this one, I have had a blast and absolutely loved every mile that I have pedaled the Spicy 516. It has coped with anything and everything that I personally could throw at it and even when removed from its comfort zone it still never once faltered.

Over the 3 month period I’ve taken the spicy for a considerable number of loops around the local trail centre, used it in my first ever downhill race and shuttled more runs up and down the local downhill spot than I care to count. It offered me absolutely everything I was looking for and more in an all mountain/trail bike.

Check out this short little run down shot at Haldon Forest.

The Ride.

I found the Spicy to be all very predictable when riding but that is no bad thing. Throughout all my time on the bike I never once felt like it was going to bite my head off when you pushed it to far.

I used the Fox I.R.D app on the iPhone to get an idea of what kind of settings I should be running the suspension on the bike but I would take this with a slight pinch of salt. Suspension setup isn’t an exact art and there will never be that "perfect" set up that will work 24/7, as for most of us our riding just isn't predictable enough. You could hit any particular corner 15 times in a row and will probably still take a slightly different line each time. It's always going to be a compromise when it comes to setting up your suspension but after a couple of hours I felt like it was about as close to spot on as I would ever achieve.

The bike remained as standard during its time with us apart from the installation of Renthal's awesome Kevlar compound lock on grips and a bash ring we had lying around!

I found the Spicy to offer incredible front end grip through the flat corners and gave you a real confidence to just put the front wheel exactly where you wanted it to be. The back end wasn't afraid to get a little loose when you really pushed it on the slicker stuff but very rarely did I ever feel truly out of control and a complete passenger heading for a tree flat out.

The Spicy feels planted and inspires confidence when the speeds increase in straight lines and it yearns for you to get off the brakes and let things roll, but it still performs when things get a little tighter and more technical.

It took some getting used to in my head but the bike tracks over cambers and through the rough stuff so well you start to forget about it and after a while it becomes a much lesser event and you can start concentrating on more important aspects of your riding.

Just when you think things can't get any better. Point it uphill flick the switches on the suspension to climb mode and it will happily ascend all day. Thanks to its 28lb build and some pedal friendly angles.

The Spicy defies the impossible.

Conclusion.

The Spicy is one of those bikes that just wants to be ridden hard and fast straight out of the box. It's a strange feeling that you don't experience very often and is very hard to put into words but the Spicy is at its best right when you are nearing your own personal limit. It gives you that little extra to take your riding up a gear.

I leant the bike to my good friend Greg so he could see what I was forever raving on about. One night ride later I received a tweet from him simply stating "Your not getting this one back!"

I think that sums this one up nicely.

The Lapierre Spicy 516 is an absolutely fantastic bike straight from the box that kills every scrap of trail you can throw in front of it.

Many thanks to Chris at Hotlines for sorting out this loan of the bike! It's been a blast! 

Lapierre are distributed in the UK by Hotlines UK.

Words: Angus McIntosh
Video: Mitchell Gatting
Pictures: Angus McIntosh, Greg Berry, George Bennett.