If you’re looking for the most outstanding mountain bike, your first step should be to find out which reputable mountain bike brands sell the brand you desire.
Below are the most significant mountain bike brands, in our opinion. Check out the list and read our total reviews to learn more about each brand and the bikes they sell.
Best Mountain Bike Manufacturers
Specialized
Specialized manages to push massive innovation while continuing to offer some of the longest-standing classic mountain bike models in the business. Stumpjumper was founded 50 years ago and made the world’s first mass-produced mountain bike in 1981.
The company’s most recent invention is the Turbo Levo SL, a combination of the Stumpjumper and the Turbo Levo e-bike that is 10 pounds lighter and ultralight. The team’s new SL motor battery technology is to thank you for the weight reduction. On the trails, the bike handles well despite being powered by an electronic motor.
The brand also produces gravel, road, and entry-level mountain bikes.
Date of establishment: Probably in the early 1970s.
Morgan Hill, California, is the company’s headquarters.
The company has 1,350 employees.
Stumpjumper and Rockhopper are two more popular models; we’ve had both.
For the best deals, go to specialized!
San Cristobal
For decades, Santa Cruz has been a trailblazer in the mountain bike industry with its full-suspension, high-end bikes. Skateboarding icon Rob Roskopp founded the brand in the early days of trail bikes with rear suspension.
The firm specializes in lightweight carbon fiber and aluminum models with a choice of suspension ranges. There are trail-style models, but jumps, gravel, and electric bikes are their collection.
A Santa Cruz Syndicate team competes in downhill races. If you’re looking for a bike with more range, check out the V10, Nomad, or Bullit.
Juliana
Juliana specializes solely in the sale of high-end women’s mountain bikes. Juliana: The geometry of each model is devised by the brand’s subsidiary company, Santa Cruz. Juliana Furtado, a competitive rider and Olympian, was the driving force behind creating the brand.
Shocks are calibrated for lightweight riders, and frames are available in sizes small as an XS. Women-specific grips and saddles are also included on the bikes, which many industry executives believe to be the most critical component in terms of anatomical design. Try out one of their six models if you’re short and want a comfortable mountain bike.
Bicycles by Ibis
From the origins of the sport, Ibis has been designing mountain bikes. Because of Scot Nicol’s work with Joe Breeze and Charlie Cunningham, the company was born in 1980.
Roxy Lo is one of the few women in the bike industry who makes frames for Ibis. The brand concentrates on manufacturing a batch of well-crafted, specialized designs—they don’t strive to please every type of rider. They have six different types of full-suspension mountain bikes, including the carbon Mojo and a long-travel 29er, the Ripmo, that can compete with other enduro racers.
GT Bicycles
Like numerous foundational firms in the mountain bike realm, GT Bicycles started with BMX frames. Gary Turner, who developed modern BMX bikes, and Richard Long co-founded the brand. GT Bicycles is a mega-company now, offering a lot of bikes at reasonable prices.
Carbon gravel bikes were launched in 2015 by the brand. Known as the Grade Carbon Pro, the bike was named Bike Radar’s Gravel Bike of the Year 2020. The bike is as light as a road bike, has disc brakes, and has the company’s triangular design.
The seat stays overhang the seat tube and top tube, and the stays are not attached to the seat tube. The result? Flexibility and efficiency for a comfortable ride on rough terrain. GT offers full-suspension and hardtail mountain bikes, as well as electric bikes.
Trek Bikes
Whether you are a cyclist or not, everyone has heard of Trek Bikes. The Trek brand is a household name and one of the leading mountain bike brands. Its US headquarters opened in 1976, and today it manufactures and sells over 40 unique models all over the world. From Trek, you can buy hardtail mountain bikes and full-suspension bikes in different sizes and styles.
Diamondback
Diamondback’s initial bikes were sold to the BMX community in the 1970s. The brand grew into a mountain bike firm, and today its mission is to produce comfortable, approachable off-road bikes for newbies.
The company debuted a variety of hardtail bikes with 1x drivetrains starting at $700: the Hook, Line, and Sync’R. The brand also creates high-end goods like Mission 1 Carbon ($4,000) and still seeks to provide a low price for the materials.
Along with their all-mountain, trail, and hardtail mountain bikes, Diamondback also offers road, gravel, fat, and e-bikes.
Giant
One of the most famous bike brands, Giant, is one of the world’s most famous bicycle manufacturers. Based in Taiwan, Giant was founded in 1972. The company manufactures a wide range of mountain bikes, including electric models.
Although Giant is known for its entry-level and mid-range mountain bikes, it also offers high-level versions, many of which are ridden by the world’s best mountain bikers.
Cycles of salsa
Salsa Cycles is an American bike brand specializing in producing mountain bikes, fat bikes, and gravel bikes. Salsa belongs to a boutique brand, so that it will cost a bit more. However, these are luxury mountain bikes with top-tier components, lightweight materials, and state-of-the-art engineering. MTB riders throughout the world agree that Salsa has the best brand.
Pivot Cycles
Pivot Cycles, a brand of bicycles headquartered in the United States, was started in 2007. This is one of the most sought-after and authentic brands available in the mountain riding market. High performance, innovations, and competitiveness are all significant characteristics of Pivot Bikes, directed by engineers who share these passions.
Yeti Cycles
Yeti’s business model revolves around high-end, high-performance mountain bikes. There are seven models in the line, all of which have enduro builds. Richie Rude, the Enduro World Series winner, said they’re good.
Among its triumphs, Yeti devised a revolutionary rear suspension system that gives superior support mid-stroke and effective pedaling force, named the Switch Infinity, in 2014. We’ve tried out a lot of modern models with the technology, like the SB100 and SB130, and they did very well.
Cannondale
Cannondale has made Cannondale mountain bikes since 1984. In its prime, the brand was trendy. However, it doesn’t have the same clout today.
The brand just developed one of the lightest full-suspension frames: the carbon Scalpel SE. In the early days of making motorcycle frames, the company was the first to use light alloys.
The front tire is tucked beneath the headset for better power transmission on these bikes, which have higher geometry than trail or enduro bikes. As a result, they have done things that aren’t typical. For example, they made an ultralight single-sided cross-country fork called the Lefty Ocho.
The brand expects to have an equal number of men and women in its athlete pool to be more inclusive.
Liv Cycling
If you’re a woman seeking a bike created explicitly for you, here’s a decent starting point. People in the cycling community aren’t happy about gender-specific bikes, but Liv Cycling has stood firm.
It pioneered anatomical and physiological data in designing frames for women. The proportions of each bike frame were designed according to this research. Women’s torsos are shorter than men’s, regardless of their height.
Liv, a company, led by Bonnie Tu, also sells clothes and gear for women. Only female crewmembers work there.
The brand recently released the Pique Advanced 29er with XS and small frames, a problematic pairing and one-of-a-kind in the lineup. The 2020 Bicycling Bike Awards gave the bike a stamp of approval for its design.
Revel Bikes
Revel Bikes creator Adam Miller purchased his first bicycle at 11 and deconstructed it to sell parts or build his bike. He has never stopped loving bikes. Borealis Fat Bikes were the first company in the industry to offer a carbon fiber model, which he introduced during his college racing career.
Then he introduced Why Cycles hardtail dirt and road bikes before establishing Revel. The two-for-one momentum was successful.
The firm garnered honors for the Revel Rascal 29er, voted Outside Magazine’s Best Mountain Bike of 2020. With its new Canfield Balance Formula (CBF) suspension, the bike’s rider stays neutral no matter how rough the road is.
The result is a highly comfortable ride in a wide array of situations. Only Revel and Canfield Bikes are authorized to make use of the technology.
Revel also focuses on sustainability. Carbon fiber, a key component in bicycle construction, is notoriously hazardous during the production process, both to the environment and workers’ health. Revel also jumped manufacturing wheels with recyclable carbon fiber to address non-biodegradable carbon fiber waste.
Guerrilla Gravity
Guerrilla Gravity is one of the nation’s few bike brands with localized manufacturing – the team manufactures all bike parts in-house. The supply chain can be simplified to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the business. Another advantage is that they’re more flexible and can cut back on inventory, which means less waste and better quality control.
Providing rider customization for the bike to develop with you rather than be replaced is a primary goal of this brand. Enter the Modular Frame Platform. The front triangle of each bike may be swapped out, as can the seat stay, and the reach and wheelbase can be adjusted.
The brand has developed a patented manufacturing technique called Revved Carbon Technology (RCT) that uses an environmentally friendly carbon fiber blend that is recyclable and 300 percent more impact-resistant than standard carbon.
What Is a Decent Mountain Bike Brand?
Your riding tastes will determine which mountain bike brand is best for you. Yeti, Santa Cruz, Salsa, Trek, Cannondale, Giant, and Niner are just a few well-known MTB bike brands. There’s a bicycle brand for every rider, including beginners and experienced riders.
Mountain Bike Brands: What to Stay Away From
It’s critical to research any brand thoroughly, but it’s incredibly critical to do so with an online brand that only works with Amazon or Walmart. While comparing different mountain bike brands, there are a few things to consider.
Brands with a poor reputation
We can say with certainty that you don’t want to buy from a brand with a bad reputation or no reputation at all. Brands you find on Amazon at a low price may not be as reputable as those where you spend a significant amount of money. Then again, the higher price is not a guarantee of good quality either, but more on that later.
You may learn a lot about a brand’s reputation by reading reviews and explanations from other customers and forums like this one. If the customer reviews and other forms of feedback are unfavorable, the chances are that it’s not a good brand.
You should also see whether studies or news articles warn about a particular feature that the brand you’re buying from is suspicious of.
Design Flaws in the Suspension
When it comes to suspension design, there are no one-size-fits. However, some more famous brands provide exceptional value for the price of suspension designs. Unfortunately, some bike manufacturers keep making bikes with inadequate suspension systems that put the rider under a lot of pressure when they brake and use their energy.
Materials
When it comes to materials, they should be exceedingly strong and lasting. That’s because mountain bikes take a lot of beating and ride on challenging terrain and hills, and a soft material might easily be bent and damaged. The same goes for tier quality, maneuvering, and much more.
It’d be great if your bike were manufactured out of robust materials such as stainless steel. Even better, you’d ensure a futureproofed bike if various alloys and materials were combined with the stainless steel. Solid frames, rather than tubular ones, are an additional option.
If you find that the selection of materials employed to create these bikes is not suitable, it’d be advisable to avoid acquiring that bike. Looking at the construction of the complete bike can also be challenging, but we know that it can be rather challenging to determine from images.
Too cheap or too expensive
Finding the correct mountain bike at the right price might be a real challenge if you’re a novice. What appears to look cheap or have an affordable price tag is typically not that good. For those who are only interested in riding for fun and don’t intend to regularly, spending upwards of $3,000 for a mountain bike may seem excessive.
Certain brands overestimate their pricing models and charge for parts that can be purchased for less money while maintaining quality. If you’re just getting started with mountain biking, it’s critical to evaluate your options and long-term goals.
On the other hand, if the mountain bike is inexpensive, it is more likely to have defective components or non-warranted ones that will not last as long. As a result, when setting a budget for a mountain bike, be smart and think about all of your options.
Short Warranty
A guarantee may be offered on various equipment components when a mountain bike or other complicated goods are being sold.
As a result, a frame may have a specific warranty, brakes may have a different warranty, and other parts may have a different warranty.
The usual rule of thumb for most respected brands that offer mountain bikes is that the bike should be warranted for ten years. Some companies provide a lifetime warranty, while others provide a lengthier warranty period.
Considering how harsh and bumpy the terrain is for mountain bikes, even five years might not be enough.
Conclusion
The perfect mountain bike brand for you will depend on your riding tastes. Many well-known brands within the MTB market, such as Yeti, Santa Cruz, Salsa, Trek, Cannondale, Giant, Niner, etc. This is a list of bicycle brands that make high-quality bikes that are good for beginners and more experienced riders.
