Fantic Integra XF1 160 Review

[Rob Rides EMTB]

I really wanted to love this bike. On paper, huge spec. Brose motor, 630Wh battery, enduro geometry. But I just couldn’t gel with this bike. Not good enough on trails, not quite enough travel for the chunky stuff. Check my vid and let me know your thoughts.

Continue reading...

 

[Trail Doug]

Great vid Rob. Really had me thinking about how they built that entire range of bikes.

 

[davosaurusrex]

Nice review Rob. Which bike park is that?

 

[R120]

Its such a frustrating bike, as it has so much potential. I rode it round the car park, and it felt nice in terms of fit, but the first thing I noticed was that I thought the dropper post was broken - it wasn't , it just had F All of a drop on it!

 

[Rob Rides EMTB]

Great vid Rob. Really had me thinking about how they built that entire range of bikes.

Cheers.

Looks like they only have actually made three Integra frames (Small, Medium and Large) and they are shared across all of their models (the 180, 160 and 140).

 

[Rob Rides EMTB]

Nice review Rob. Which bike park is that?

Thats Rogate Downhill. Neat little bike park. I did a vid on it last week on my YouTube if you want to see more ?

 

[All Mountain Coaching]

Nice honest review there. I was apprehensive that when people get thrown bikes and kit they start to please people to keep the gravy train going, but it was nice to see an honest review. It's ok to say stuff isn't great and people respect that more. Keep up the good work.

 

[Master Link]

Thanks Rob, nice review. This type of review is what’s needed and should make manufacturers sit up and take note. Have you had any response yet from Fantic?

 

[Rob Rides EMTB]

Thanks Rob, nice review. This type of review is what’s needed and should make manufacturers sit up and take note. Have you had any response yet from Fantic?

Yes - well their U.K. distributor. I shared the video early with them and let them know my thoughts. They were really good to me, delivered 2 bikes (first was too small) and put a different set of tyres on the second bike.

 

[Master Link]

Great, at least a positive response then. Your comment about UK conditions and bike suitability are spot on. I recently came back from South Africa and I am getting used to the wetter and muddier trails. Really enjoying them, but not the cleaning afterwards?.

 

[liv2ryd]

I was left wanting after this review. For some, changing bars, seats, tires etc..is no big deal. In my old dirt bike days, you always expected to change much of the trim. What I didn't get from this review was details on the motor/battery (range, ease of use, fitment, controller), suspension action, handing (on climbs, descents, flats), brakes, drivetrain. I am still very interested in this bike. I like the 29/27.5 wheel choice, the frame geo looks promising, the battery size and motor placement look bang on. I would suggest working with the UK distributor to modify the bike with proper bars, stem, tires, suspension tune, wheels etc and report back. Maybe Fantic will offer an upgrade build thru their dist network for a small upcharge to satisfy its shortcomings.

 

[All Mountain Coaching]

I was left wanting after this review. For some, changing bars, seats, tires etc..is no big deal. In my old dirt bike days, you always expected to change much of the trim. What I didn't get from this review was details on the motor/battery (range, ease of use, fitment, controller), suspension action, handing (on climbs, descents, flats), brakes, drivetrain. I am still very interested in this bike. I like the 29/27.5 wheel choice, the frame geo looks promising, the battery size and motor placement look bang on. I would suggest working with the UK distributor to modify the bike with proper bars, stem, tires, suspension tune, wheels etc and report back. Maybe Fantic will offer an upgrade build thru their dist network for a small upcharge to satisfy its shortcomings.

Good idea. Looks and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Spec can be specific to terrain and price. Motor and power delivery, as well as range would be a welcome addition to the reviews.

 

[Kangr]

I was left wanting after this review. For some, changing bars, seats, tires etc..is no big deal. In my old dirt bike days, you always expected to change much of the trim. What I didn't get from this review was details on the motor/battery (range, ease of use, fitment, controller), suspension action, handing (on climbs, descents, flats), brakes, drivetrain. I am still very interested in this bike. I like the 29/27.5 wheel choice, the frame geo looks promising, the battery size and motor placement look bang on. I would suggest working with the UK distributor to modify the bike with proper bars, stem, tires, suspension tune, wheels etc and report back. Maybe Fantic will offer an upgrade build thru their dist network for a small upcharge to satisfy its shortcomings.

I would be very wary of doing a second review as I think this could knock your reputation. I remember bike magazine did something like that once and they were slated afterwords.

 

[Kangr]

Great review. It is refreshing to see a review that does a more negative slant on the bike.
If people start to recognise that you will give a honest opinion that is biased due to pressure from sponsors or advertising team.
I think this is one reason that some magazines don't like youtubers as they don't have the freedom to give a negative review or to say what they want to about a bike.
keep up the good work Rob

 

[Pug907]

Good honest Review Rob, thanks. If you don't tell them, they won't know.
Your shutting down incident was a bit of a worry for me. As you may have seen, I've bought a 160 and waiting for a large model to arrive. The medium one I had wouldn't turn on if left overnight. The cure was to plug the charger into the bike to wake it up again. Not so ideal when you're 50 miles from nowhere. Hopefully, they were the only 2 Friday afternoon lemons & my new one won't suffer the same fate hahaha.

 

[R120]

Rob covered some of this in his first look video, he tends to do two vids now, an initial walk around look at the bike with first impressions, then a follow up review:


I am a serial part swapper and will always assume I am going to change out some of the components on a bike, but with reviews I think you always have to take what you are given as the basis for the review, as a lot of people won't , or at the price of the bikes won't want to be spending more on top.

I still really like these bikes, but they have been somewhat hobbled with a strange spec out the box.

 

[Kangr]

Rob covered some of this in his first look video, he tends to do two vids now, an initial walk around look at the bike with first impressions, then a follow up review:


I am a serial part swapper and will always assume I am going to change out some of the components on a bike, but with reviews I think you always have to take what you are given as the basis for the review, as a lot of people won't , or at the price of the bikes won't want to be spending more on top.

I still really like these bikes, but they have been somewhat hobbled with a strange spec out the box.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm not a serial upgrader but it always surprised me when a bike was marked down because of the tyres that come with it. I'm thinking er you can just change them. Same with grips.
As the components get more expensive on the bike like brakes then yeah this is important.

Thinking about it, I'm not a serial upgrader because im used to buying a bike frame only and specing my own parts on there. so I've built it how I like from the start. It's a whole new world to me that your getting a bike as a complete package and I still find it a bit strange. The bikes im looking at now, I have a list of things that I'm going to swap straight out the box. Mostly bars, stem, grips, saddle, dropper post

 

[Rob Rides EMTB]

Thanks for the feedback. Some good tips.

There were 2 things about the bike for me that I didn't like. Firstly, it didn't really excel at trails or more technical stuff (I took it twice to a bike park). Too lazy for trails, not enough travel for the chunkier stuff).

In terms of being marked down for spec, i've done this as the out of the box spec barely meets the intended use. It's not like the bike comes with 'lower down' specs in the range, it has an incorrect spec for intended use.

Its a £5k bike that they market it as an Enduro bike but it comes with

• Nobby Nic tyres (2.25" on front)
• 25mm 29er front rim
• 120mm dropper way too short for taller riders, you can drop it enough on DH
• 160mm not quite enough travel front and rear
• 60mm stem and 740mm bars (personal preference but way to short for me being over 6 foot)

Then the rest of the spec is just lower down components, that will likely be OK, SRAM Level T brakes, NX drivetrain etc. Again, will be OK for a while but not necessarily what you'd expect on a 5K bike from a relatively unheard of company built for enduro and DH.

When you can get a fully sorted Enduro bike like the Vitus E-Sommet for £3799 I just felt the Fantic was well off the mark for up to date 2019 EMTB.

 

[Kangr]

I totally understand where your coming from Rob. My comments about tyres was about MTB reviews in general, er I had actually forgotten you had mentioned the tyres. but it is a strange mix of components that don't fit the intended use. If i saw a bike listed with 60mm stem and 740 bars, I would be thinking is this bike intended for xc, and would make me think twice about even considering the bike as a possible choice.
I've noticed a few manufactures specing different length dropper posts for different size frames. but at least the drop got bigger as the frame size increased, but it would be nice that if a manufacturer is specing post size for different sizes that they could also give the buyer a choice of dropper size.

Looking at the spec sheet of that bike, It does look like a old school xc riders spec list that's been slightly modified for what a xc person would think goes on a longer travel bike.
the stem is long for trail and enduro but short for old school xc.
the bar width again is more old school xc.
Tyres. nobby nics were a great favourite of xc riders.
Dropper post, again this would correspond to the a old school way of thinking, as they really didn't like droppers and if they did have them they would shorten the drop.

So maybe the person in charge of specing the bike is a old school rider who doesn't agree with all these modern changes but has to make some concessions as to sell the bike.

 

[highpeakrider]

These are great vids, but for the length of them need more information to hold interest, I guess it must be a huge learning curve but I’d cover things once and maybe a review of key points at the end?

 

[Kangr]

The longer the better for me. I must admit I do like Robs style of video when hes talking as hes riding along, to me this is way more interesting than just watching riding shots. This is what got me watching the channel in the first place.

 

[highpeakrider]

Don't get me wrong i like them but, get the 180, get the 180, get the 180, get the 180, gets a bit repetitive.
I guess its hard to create discussion points but really i just want the info once without the repeats.

 

[Rob Rides EMTB]

Don't get me wrong i like them but, get the 180, get the 180, get the 180, get the 180, gets a bit repetitive.
I guess its hard to create discussion points but really i just want the info once without the repeats.

Thanks for the feedback ?

I’ll try to add a bit more structure to them in future.

 

[Tim29]

I agree 100% with Robs review.
This is why we sell the 160 in the states through our shop with a few upgrades, 35 internal front wheel and 40 internal rear wheel, 35mm stem, 800mm bars, offset rear shock bushing, 2.6 front and 2.8 rear tire.

 

[Tim29]

Robs review was taken to Fantic Corp And showed them that it’s not just USA Market that is unhappy with how the bike was spec.
They took notice. And the 2019 bikes that have already left the plant are being shipped to dealers with a goody bag, so you get new set of tires, stem and bars.
Looks as though Fantic is listening.
There was some comments made that Rob was a Specialized groupie and if it wasn’t a Speshy it wouldn’t get a fair review.
Well i stand up for Rob on this and state i believe his review was 100% spot on.
Even though Rob didn’t get a chance or resource to change the parts in question and test them, i can fill in these blanks.
I have Been working on the Fantic for over a year now and have testing many things and here my finding.
Going from 51mm to 42mm offset fork has really helped trail and bike park agility, 35 internal front wheel with a 2.6 tire finishes the front end out and makes it a very versatile bike.
In rear 40 internal rim with 2.8 tire is best all around feel.
The bike in stock form is lazy and slow in tight conditions, those upgrades make unbelievable difference, twice what you feel possible.
As for the power not turning on. It’s a BMS fault, something in the battery didn’t go right and it shut the power off. This is why 24hr and it worked fine. If you should have this problem again this is how you fix it.
Unplug battery on trail, wait 30 seconds, plug battery back in and hold power button on the battery for 10 seconds, then turn bike on by monitor as usual.
When this problem happen to Rob i didn’t have an answer. I tried several ways to replicate the shut down, what i was able to find is if i had the bike on and under a load and disturbed battery to motor plug it would shut off and not turn back on.
If you charge the battery it resets BMS and works fine. Or do the reset option i described. A clean and secure battery plug should elevate this from happening.
Looking at how the BMS works if you ratchet the pedals really hard and fast, it’s possible to trick the BMS into thinking there’s a short in the system. That safety shut off is to prevent battery fires.
I haven’t had any of the battery shut off issues with the 8 bikes i have had.

 

[liv2ryd]

That's great to hear Tim29. Sounds like all your testing along with Rob's review has been very productive. All the changes you summarized should make big improvements to the bike. Do you have details on what make/model bar/stem/rims/tires will be provided with the bikes in the US? Also, is the stock fork 51mm offset? If so, wouldn't going to a 42mm offset slow the steering down and make the bike less agile?

 

[Tim29]

I know they will be swhalbe tires, not sure exactly what size and model will be sent with bikes.
Looks as if it be FSA stem and bars.
The wheels will not be replaced.
What the new rim spec on later bikes will he is still not clear.
I had this discussion. With another member, longer offset fork lengthens the bike and increases the turning circle. Going to shorter offset allows the bike to fall into the turning lean faster. When you have larger turning circle the bike gets stood up more when you turn into the corner as front offset is longer.
I was under the same impression myself. More offset made bike turn faster.
But after testing the bike and multiple riders all with the same input.
Went to the bike to see what was different. Only difference was the reduced fork offset.

 

[MattyB]

This might help...

Fork offset: what is it and how does it affect your riding? - MBR

 

[Tim29]

I had what seemed to be a ten page battle with another member few months ago about this as he was not going to listen to the less offset speeds up the slow speed turning.

 

[Tim29]