It was in the rock sections that you discover quite how much a big fork matters, how much trust you put in it, your front man when things get hectic. You don’t arm wrestle a Fox 40 through rocks, you simply walk all over them. At speed. Oh the speed. Even if the clock shows a fraction of second difference, the difference on this bike is definitely perceptible.

The track dropped steeply over some big boulders and its here the good and bad of big wheels comes into scrutiny. On the plus side, you can nose dive the bike without it tucking under, I tried this on a few occasions and whilst on trail or enduro bike it still offers an a advantage over 27.5” in this situation, the big 40 allows even more of that. Clearly nose diving is poor rider technique however we’re seeing the pro racers adopt even more front wheel placement so the big wheels will clearly be of use in beaten up ground.

On the downside there is a tendency for the rear tyre to buzz your bum on super steep stuff, and we’ve heard from other brands that riders have complained that they cannot run their seats in the usual position. A seat re-design might sort that out but there are issues around running more travel on 29” DH bikes that need tackling.

This particular Trek runs around 180mm travel. The question is does it need the full 200mm or beyond? That’s a complex question. Even though it seems this bike can match and even beat the speed of 200mm x 27.5” bikes there is always the need for more. Just because.