The 5 fastest MTBs in Nove Mesto

The Nove Mesto World Cup brings to an end an exciting start to the season that will continue in June in Leogang, Austria. But there is still time for that and for the moment we are going to take a look at the mountain bikes of the 5 fastest riders at the XCO event in Nove Mesto. This time they are all full suspension bikes and it is expected that this will be the norm for the rest of the season.

The 5 fastest MTBs at the 2021 Nove Mesto World Cup 

5. Jordan Sarrou's Specialized Epic S-Works

Current world champion Jordan Sarrou showed this weekend that he is closer to the level at which he won the last World Championship. On Friday he was fighting in the sprint for the victory in the short track, and in the XCO race he finished fifth. Under his feet, the Specialized Epic S-Works customised with the rainbow colours of his jersey. Here you can read our test of this model.

4. Ondrej Cink's Kross Earth 

There are a lot of big names this season and that means that we have missed some great performances, but the Czech Ondrej Cink was undoubtedly one of the best. He is still a sure thing in competition and even more so if we take into account that the level is one of the highest in recent years. He competed with the Kross Earh along with the new Fox 34 fork.

3. Mathias Flueckiger's Thömus Lightrider Worldcup

Swiss Mathias Flueckiger is at the best level of the last years, he has always been at the front, but now he is more consistent than ever. In Nove Mesto he was the only one to get close to Van der Poel and Pidcock from the back and then fight for second place with the Dutchman until the last lap.

Although 7 days before the breakage of the telescopic seatpost took him away from the victory, he relied on it again. By the way, the frame reminds us a lot of the new Berria Mako.

2. Mathieu van der Poel's Canyon Exceed

Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel was back to his best on the Nove Mesto course. He started strong from the beginning and managed to get away from almost everyone and did not have any major setback during the race. Under normal conditions his performance would have been enough to win but yesterday he had to deal with the appearance of the extraordinary Tom Pidcock. For sure we will continue to talk about their duels in competition this season. Van der Poel competed on the Canyon Exceed, which we reviewed in detail here.

1. Tom Pidcock's BMC Fourstroke

The chances of meeting another mountain bike genius in the same decade were low, we thought, until yesterday when we saw Tom Pidcock win with an overwhelming superiority over Mathieu Van der Poel. When we thought that both were more or less at the same level, the British rider made an attack towards the middle of the race with which he got an unbeatable advantage until the finish line. In fact, it was the biggest advantage ever won so far on this circuit. Now we have to see if Pidcock's performance is consistent throughout the World Cup, as he himself said he is not yet at 100%.

Under his feet we find one of the most peculiar bikes of the whole World Cup, a BMC Fourstroke without any logo and mounted with components of all kinds of brands. All this because Pinarrello, the partner of the Ineos Grenadier, has no mountain bikes. We will be analysing this bike in detail shortly.