Hi Y'all
Now that I've had the MIG for a few weeks and have put it through some gruelling tests, I thought I’d share my experiences of where I rode and thoughts on the bike. I've posted it here as it's not really a pure bike review, more a trip with a new bike report.
A bit about me..., I'm not a massively experienced mtb rider, but have been riding bikes a looooong time and spent my youth (late 80’s) in skateparks and on half pipes.I’ve got four bikes, a 2014 Charge Cooker 4 (hardtail, general mtb/bikepacking), a 2015 Norco search 1 (high mileage commuter), A 2018 Genesis Tarn 20 (hardtail plus bike) and the MIG. All of my bikes are steel framed apart from the MIG.
The MIG. It’s pretty well sorted out of the box, it came complete in a huge box with just bars to straighten, but I’d recommend going over it and checking everything as I found a few loose bolts. Comes with all the EU crap, like reflectors and catastrophically bad pedals (if you buy a MIG, make sure you get some better ones as nobody deserves the supplied pedals!) It also comes with a couple of fork and rear shock tokens and brake bleed blocks. It’s a stealthy looking beast that looks more military equipment than catwalk stunner. I really like the looks though.
My first location was The Dolomites where I camped at Camping Marmolada, which was a great site, had electric hookup, cheap, quiet at night and near the lift! I did the Sella Ronda route anti-clockwise, which has more climbing. This was a proper mix of everything, flowing singletrack, five trails up to red (s2), fire roads, roads, shared paths and anything else you could imagine.
As it was my first location and the first time out on the ebike I was taking it very easy and was on the brakes a lot, this definitely showed up the weaknesses of the twin pot deores on the longer descents. I like how the brakes feel when cold, but the increasing pressure needed when they get hot was not confidence inspiring. I know this has a lot to do with my inexperience and the fact that I was riding these trails for the first time, but if you’re doing long alpine descents, you want better brakes. Aside from that, the bike was extremely agile and went everywhere I pointed it, turned very quickly and was a pleasure to ride (without cooked brakes).
There was a huge road/fire road climb that I think the motor got very hot on, I don’t think it’s a problem, more to do with me being a fat b*stard (105kg-ish), having an extra battery in a backpack and doing a 6/700m climb in boost. There was a nice restaurant at the top though, so it had a good cool-down while I stuffed my face.
My next location was Zermatt, Switzerland. As an ex-climber who had never visited the Alps, I wanted to see all of the Iconic peaks I could and have them as a backdrop to rides, Zermatt didn’t disappoint. I stayed in Tasch at Camping Attermenzen, which had electric hookup, was cheap and quiet at night (I think a pattern of what I want in a campsite is emerging...). You can’t drive to Zermatt as it’s car free, all of the vehicles in the town are electric, It felt right to be there on an emtb.
Zermatt is amazing, it’s very touristy, but being able to sit outside a cafe, have lunch and look at the Matterhorn is going to attract people.
I had my first bike problems here, the cassette seemed to be quite floppy and worst of all my charger stopped working. I messaged Emma at the UK Thok point for advice and she replied within about 30 mins
. There was a Shimano service centre in Zermatt and she advised me to go there. Luckily I had a full battery and half charged battery, so the 12k ride to service centre would be easy.
Once I’d found the shop, which was a bike sales/rental shop in the basement of a clothes shop, I explained the problem, they plugged in the charger and it worked! I was both relieved and annoyed, it turns out the EU to UK adapters I had bought at Argos were actually only rated for 1A and how they had been working up until now was a mystery. I had two of them and had blown the fuse in both of them, so feeling like a bit of an idiot I then moved onto the cassette issue. The shop didn’t do their own spannering and used another shop in the same block, I went there and they sorted the issue which was that the cassette wasn’t tightened properly. I did have to pay for the work, 25cf, pretty much £25 which was slightly annoying, but this is the only negative point I have about the MIG and TBH, it’s not even about the bike, it’s about one part of the assembly.
If I wasn’t so pushed for time from receiving the bike to going on the trip I would have found this problem and rectified it myself and with the level of service I’ve had from Thok, you’d have to be a real d*ck to get annoyed at this.
So, bike fixed, new adapter purchased I was ready to go. I didn’t really go too mad in Zermatt and did a nice ride to a glacier carved gorge and did a couple of amazing flow trails as a descent, they really were nice! I also did the descent from Blauherd to Täsch which was nothing short of incredible. It’s a path shared with walkers, but wasn’t very busy and really only needed care on blind corners and when spotting walkers. I did purchase a mini cow-bell which was great for alerting walkers to my presence.
From Zermatt I passed through Chamonix, which apparently has some bike restrictions in July-August, so I just stopped for a walk around and look at the mountains. I’d like to go back there once I understand the restrictions better as it’s supposed to be a great mtb location.
Semnoz was the next stop. It’s a big hill next to Annecy with sublime views of the alps. I planned to do the descent down the ridge to Annecy, but this was pretty crap as there were loads of trees cut down across the path. It felt like the landowners didn’t want you to do the route so I gave up and went a little off-piste on some trails through the woods. I quickly ran out of talent and cooked my brakes a few times. I really didn’t fancy crashing and getting hurt on my own in some deserted woods, but the trails I found would be amazing if you were confident on black diamond trails. I wasn’t.
From here I decided to go to Alpe D’Huez. If you’ve not been, it’s quite different to most ski resorts as it’s got loads of space. I camped at the car-camping area, which is a very basic area for motorhomes, I’ve got a small Renault Trafic camper and was dwarfed by the few other residents of the park. It’s a very basic site with water, toilets and not much else. I’ve got a solar panel on my van, so managed to charge my emtb battery, but hookup would have been preferable.
The bike park here is great and has loads of trails. I only did a few of the blues as everything above that looked quite gnarly and being solo, didn’t want to risk crashing. I’d love to go back with a bit more protection and push a little harder though. I did do a long ride around one of the neighbouring hills which was very pleasant.
From here I drove back into Italy to have a look at Sauze D’Oulx. I camped at Camping Gran Bosco, an amazing site, with hookup, quiet, yada yada, yada.., and also serves the best pizza in the world in their on-site restaurant. Loads of Italians in the area come here for pizza, nuf said.
I found Sauze D’Oulx to be quite a hardcore bike park, with mainly red and higher trails. I rode to the top of the mountain, which took a full battery, and did a couple of red trails on the way down. Unfortunately my brake pad had expired before my descent so the trails were more noisy and terrifying than flowy and enjoyable. So another lesson learned, if you’re going to be on the brakes all the time, best pack some spare pads!
The drive to Sauze D’Oulx was incredible, it passed through the Ecrins National Park, which has a great river running through the valley that seems very popular for white water rafting, it’s also a superb ice climbing venue in the winter (according to my internet research).
Needing some new brake pads, I headed to Les Deux Alpes, which is a huge resort, with an even bigger bike park and littered with bike shops. 32 Euros (!) later and I had some new ones and was ready to cook my brakes again. I camped in the car-camping areas, which was basic, but had hookup, yada, yada, yada...
I wanted to do another large descent and not having the minerals to try the Megavalanche course on the neighbouring peak I found that you could get to to 3200m via the Jandri Express lift and descend the blue Jandri enduro trail to about half height and then a choice of black, red, blue or green trails back to the resort. I opted to take the blue ‘Bike Patrollers’ trail and that combination made an epic fast ride through what looked like the surface of another planet going into an incredible flow trail. As soon as I was back in the valley, I headed straight back to the lift and did it again!
This was by far the most enjoyable big ride of the trip, I was confident in the bike, had the suspension set up, had decent-ish brakes (although I cooked them on each descent of Jandri I knew their limitations by then). A huge thumbs up for Les Deux Alpes, it’s not the prettiest of bike parks from the glacier, but it’s super awesome for someone riding at my level.
As my trip was coming to the last few days I was looking for another stop on the way back to Dunkirk, a rest day surfing the net and drinking beer and I’d found my last bike park. Morzine.
Morzine is a very well groomed bike park, it’s got a real mix of trails, some very gnarly blacks right through to my absolute favorite trail of the trip, Alpage.
This was a superb green flow trail, just over 4k long. It’s mainly out in the open and as it had been raining hard that day, the other trails were mudfests, so that kinda swayed me towards Alpage.
I did five runs on the trail, by the third I was seriously going for it, hitting everything as fast as I could, jumping the doubles and grinning like a mad man.
An absolutely perfect end to the trip.
I’ve not talked much about the bike, mainly because aside from the initial setup niggles and me being an idiot with the charger it was perfect. Maybe it would be better on the long fast loose descents if it was a tad longer, but then it wouldn’t feel sublimely agile on the tight twisty stuff, maybe it would be better on fast chunkier stuff with a little more travel, but then it would possibly be wallowly on the tighter techy stuff. I think this bike is a true all-rounder, I never felt like I’d brought the wrong bike, it really just did everything really well.
The bike is currently stock aside from some RaceFace Chester pedals. Having said how good the bike is, it’s not perfect. These are the Immediate upgrades/changes I plan to make.
Shimano e7000 controller and under bar dropper - the controller isn’t bad, but the dropper lever is horrible and a cockpit setup like the YT Decoy looks very attractive.
Remove stem spacers and chop fork, it has three. - I’ve gone down to a single one and it’s improved everything! Personal preference/sizing I guess.
And for next alpine adventure…,
Yari Rct3 upgrade, possibly go to 160mm or a 29” front wheel - for separate low and high speed damping settings and a bit extra travel/fast rollover capability.
4 pot calipers with better heat management - less force required to brake on long descents so less fatigue and hopefully less brake fade.
Levers with bite point adjustment - Brakes were good, but I really like to have them exactly right especially when blowing through pads very quickly!
2.6 tires, probably minions with tougher casing on rear - the 2.8 did feel a little cumbersome at times, but not that often once I got the pressures right.
If you got this far, thanks for reading!
Steve
Now that I've had the MIG for a few weeks and have put it through some gruelling tests, I thought I’d share my experiences of where I rode and thoughts on the bike. I've posted it here as it's not really a pure bike review, more a trip with a new bike report.
A bit about me..., I'm not a massively experienced mtb rider, but have been riding bikes a looooong time and spent my youth (late 80’s) in skateparks and on half pipes.I’ve got four bikes, a 2014 Charge Cooker 4 (hardtail, general mtb/bikepacking), a 2015 Norco search 1 (high mileage commuter), A 2018 Genesis Tarn 20 (hardtail plus bike) and the MIG. All of my bikes are steel framed apart from the MIG.
The MIG. It’s pretty well sorted out of the box, it came complete in a huge box with just bars to straighten, but I’d recommend going over it and checking everything as I found a few loose bolts. Comes with all the EU crap, like reflectors and catastrophically bad pedals (if you buy a MIG, make sure you get some better ones as nobody deserves the supplied pedals!) It also comes with a couple of fork and rear shock tokens and brake bleed blocks. It’s a stealthy looking beast that looks more military equipment than catwalk stunner. I really like the looks though.
My first location was The Dolomites where I camped at Camping Marmolada, which was a great site, had electric hookup, cheap, quiet at night and near the lift! I did the Sella Ronda route anti-clockwise, which has more climbing. This was a proper mix of everything, flowing singletrack, five trails up to red (s2), fire roads, roads, shared paths and anything else you could imagine.
As it was my first location and the first time out on the ebike I was taking it very easy and was on the brakes a lot, this definitely showed up the weaknesses of the twin pot deores on the longer descents. I like how the brakes feel when cold, but the increasing pressure needed when they get hot was not confidence inspiring. I know this has a lot to do with my inexperience and the fact that I was riding these trails for the first time, but if you’re doing long alpine descents, you want better brakes. Aside from that, the bike was extremely agile and went everywhere I pointed it, turned very quickly and was a pleasure to ride (without cooked brakes).
There was a huge road/fire road climb that I think the motor got very hot on, I don’t think it’s a problem, more to do with me being a fat b*stard (105kg-ish), having an extra battery in a backpack and doing a 6/700m climb in boost. There was a nice restaurant at the top though, so it had a good cool-down while I stuffed my face.
My next location was Zermatt, Switzerland. As an ex-climber who had never visited the Alps, I wanted to see all of the Iconic peaks I could and have them as a backdrop to rides, Zermatt didn’t disappoint. I stayed in Tasch at Camping Attermenzen, which had electric hookup, was cheap and quiet at night (I think a pattern of what I want in a campsite is emerging...). You can’t drive to Zermatt as it’s car free, all of the vehicles in the town are electric, It felt right to be there on an emtb.
Zermatt is amazing, it’s very touristy, but being able to sit outside a cafe, have lunch and look at the Matterhorn is going to attract people.
I had my first bike problems here, the cassette seemed to be quite floppy and worst of all my charger stopped working. I messaged Emma at the UK Thok point for advice and she replied within about 30 mins
. There was a Shimano service centre in Zermatt and she advised me to go there. Luckily I had a full battery and half charged battery, so the 12k ride to service centre would be easy.Once I’d found the shop, which was a bike sales/rental shop in the basement of a clothes shop, I explained the problem, they plugged in the charger and it worked! I was both relieved and annoyed, it turns out the EU to UK adapters I had bought at Argos were actually only rated for 1A and how they had been working up until now was a mystery. I had two of them and had blown the fuse in both of them, so feeling like a bit of an idiot I then moved onto the cassette issue. The shop didn’t do their own spannering and used another shop in the same block, I went there and they sorted the issue which was that the cassette wasn’t tightened properly. I did have to pay for the work, 25cf, pretty much £25 which was slightly annoying, but this is the only negative point I have about the MIG and TBH, it’s not even about the bike, it’s about one part of the assembly.
If I wasn’t so pushed for time from receiving the bike to going on the trip I would have found this problem and rectified it myself and with the level of service I’ve had from Thok, you’d have to be a real d*ck to get annoyed at this.
So, bike fixed, new adapter purchased I was ready to go. I didn’t really go too mad in Zermatt and did a nice ride to a glacier carved gorge and did a couple of amazing flow trails as a descent, they really were nice! I also did the descent from Blauherd to Täsch which was nothing short of incredible. It’s a path shared with walkers, but wasn’t very busy and really only needed care on blind corners and when spotting walkers. I did purchase a mini cow-bell which was great for alerting walkers to my presence.
From Zermatt I passed through Chamonix, which apparently has some bike restrictions in July-August, so I just stopped for a walk around and look at the mountains. I’d like to go back there once I understand the restrictions better as it’s supposed to be a great mtb location.
Semnoz was the next stop. It’s a big hill next to Annecy with sublime views of the alps. I planned to do the descent down the ridge to Annecy, but this was pretty crap as there were loads of trees cut down across the path. It felt like the landowners didn’t want you to do the route so I gave up and went a little off-piste on some trails through the woods. I quickly ran out of talent and cooked my brakes a few times. I really didn’t fancy crashing and getting hurt on my own in some deserted woods, but the trails I found would be amazing if you were confident on black diamond trails. I wasn’t.
From here I decided to go to Alpe D’Huez. If you’ve not been, it’s quite different to most ski resorts as it’s got loads of space. I camped at the car-camping area, which is a very basic area for motorhomes, I’ve got a small Renault Trafic camper and was dwarfed by the few other residents of the park. It’s a very basic site with water, toilets and not much else. I’ve got a solar panel on my van, so managed to charge my emtb battery, but hookup would have been preferable.
The bike park here is great and has loads of trails. I only did a few of the blues as everything above that looked quite gnarly and being solo, didn’t want to risk crashing. I’d love to go back with a bit more protection and push a little harder though. I did do a long ride around one of the neighbouring hills which was very pleasant.
From here I drove back into Italy to have a look at Sauze D’Oulx. I camped at Camping Gran Bosco, an amazing site, with hookup, quiet, yada yada, yada.., and also serves the best pizza in the world in their on-site restaurant. Loads of Italians in the area come here for pizza, nuf said.
I found Sauze D’Oulx to be quite a hardcore bike park, with mainly red and higher trails. I rode to the top of the mountain, which took a full battery, and did a couple of red trails on the way down. Unfortunately my brake pad had expired before my descent so the trails were more noisy and terrifying than flowy and enjoyable. So another lesson learned, if you’re going to be on the brakes all the time, best pack some spare pads!
The drive to Sauze D’Oulx was incredible, it passed through the Ecrins National Park, which has a great river running through the valley that seems very popular for white water rafting, it’s also a superb ice climbing venue in the winter (according to my internet research).
Needing some new brake pads, I headed to Les Deux Alpes, which is a huge resort, with an even bigger bike park and littered with bike shops. 32 Euros (!) later and I had some new ones and was ready to cook my brakes again. I camped in the car-camping areas, which was basic, but had hookup, yada, yada, yada...
I wanted to do another large descent and not having the minerals to try the Megavalanche course on the neighbouring peak I found that you could get to to 3200m via the Jandri Express lift and descend the blue Jandri enduro trail to about half height and then a choice of black, red, blue or green trails back to the resort. I opted to take the blue ‘Bike Patrollers’ trail and that combination made an epic fast ride through what looked like the surface of another planet going into an incredible flow trail. As soon as I was back in the valley, I headed straight back to the lift and did it again!
This was by far the most enjoyable big ride of the trip, I was confident in the bike, had the suspension set up, had decent-ish brakes (although I cooked them on each descent of Jandri I knew their limitations by then). A huge thumbs up for Les Deux Alpes, it’s not the prettiest of bike parks from the glacier, but it’s super awesome for someone riding at my level.
As my trip was coming to the last few days I was looking for another stop on the way back to Dunkirk, a rest day surfing the net and drinking beer and I’d found my last bike park. Morzine.
Morzine is a very well groomed bike park, it’s got a real mix of trails, some very gnarly blacks right through to my absolute favorite trail of the trip, Alpage.
This was a superb green flow trail, just over 4k long. It’s mainly out in the open and as it had been raining hard that day, the other trails were mudfests, so that kinda swayed me towards Alpage.
I did five runs on the trail, by the third I was seriously going for it, hitting everything as fast as I could, jumping the doubles and grinning like a mad man.
An absolutely perfect end to the trip.
I’ve not talked much about the bike, mainly because aside from the initial setup niggles and me being an idiot with the charger it was perfect. Maybe it would be better on the long fast loose descents if it was a tad longer, but then it wouldn’t feel sublimely agile on the tight twisty stuff, maybe it would be better on fast chunkier stuff with a little more travel, but then it would possibly be wallowly on the tighter techy stuff. I think this bike is a true all-rounder, I never felt like I’d brought the wrong bike, it really just did everything really well.
The bike is currently stock aside from some RaceFace Chester pedals. Having said how good the bike is, it’s not perfect. These are the Immediate upgrades/changes I plan to make.
Shimano e7000 controller and under bar dropper - the controller isn’t bad, but the dropper lever is horrible and a cockpit setup like the YT Decoy looks very attractive.
Remove stem spacers and chop fork, it has three. - I’ve gone down to a single one and it’s improved everything! Personal preference/sizing I guess.
And for next alpine adventure…,
Yari Rct3 upgrade, possibly go to 160mm or a 29” front wheel - for separate low and high speed damping settings and a bit extra travel/fast rollover capability.
4 pot calipers with better heat management - less force required to brake on long descents so less fatigue and hopefully less brake fade.
Levers with bite point adjustment - Brakes were good, but I really like to have them exactly right especially when blowing through pads very quickly!
2.6 tires, probably minions with tougher casing on rear - the 2.8 did feel a little cumbersome at times, but not that often once I got the pressures right.
If you got this far, thanks for reading!
Steve
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