Everyday riders, their own bikes, their own trail, and Sidekick swapped in.
Racers have ridden Sidekick and magazines have reviewed it, and both went well for us. But maybe you haven't heard from everyday riders, and no one in your friend group is on Sidekick yet.
So we took a set to Redwood Park in the U.K. and handed them to whoever was riding that day so you can hear from them directly.
The rule
Ride your own bike first, a few uplift runs on your own trail, at your own pace.
Then we fit Sidekick wheels to your bike and send you back up for two or three hours, long enough that you stop thinking about them.
Then we put your own wheels back on.
That last part is the one that matters, and most product testing skips it. New parts always feel like something. What tells you more is what you miss when they come off.
They already knew the claims
We didn't hide what the hub is supposed to do. Most of them had heard of Sidekick before we handed it over, and a fair few turned up skeptical.
Joe Poyzer of e*thirteen UK says the same two questions come up constantly: how is it actually going to affect my riding, and is this just a product for pro racers.
That's the useful part. Someone who has read that a hub makes suspension feel more active, and isn't sure they buy it, is the person reading this post. What they want is a lap, not another explanation.
So we asked them something narrower. Would you notice it on your own bike, on a trail you already know, in an afternoon?
Why do it this way
A back-to-back test on your own bike removes most of what makes product opinions unreliable.
The trail doesn't change, the bike doesn't change, and it's the same rider on the same afternoon, so fitness and mood stay roughly where they were. The wheel is the only thing that moves.
None of these riders had a stake in the answer either, and none of them owed us a kind word about a component they had been handed an hour earlier.
What they said
One rider introduced himself as a run-what-you-brought type who did not expect to feel anything. "I couldn't believe I could feel the difference from the first run," he said. "The biggest benefit I felt was less feedback through the pedals, especially in rough stuff. Feels like my suspension is moving more. It's more active and just got more grip."
Another had six runs on Sidekick before we handed his own wheels back, which is the moment the whole day was built around.
I've done about six runs with a Sidekick on. Just put my normal wheel back on. The first thing I notice is how harsh it is. As soon as I hit any sort of little bumps, big bumps, bottom outs, compressions, the harshness through my feet and through the pedals.
A rider at Redwood Park
Not everyone rode it as delivered. One spent part of the day on the adjuster. "I just changed it from the 18 degree to the 15," he said. "Really simple to change the engagement. A little bit more engagement, but you've still got the smoothness going through stuff."
The pro-racer assumption came up again and again, and it kept not surviving the afternoon. "I thought it was mainly for elite guys, but it actually does make a difference," one rider said. "Removes a lot of harshness. Feels overall smoother." Another put it shorter: "No tension. There's no tension there at your feet. Your feet are free. I was skeptical. Thought it was a fad, and it really isn't."
A day at Redwood Park: demo bikes arrive, wheels get swapped under the tent, and riders take their own bikes back out.
