Whyte 729

We’ve had our share of Whytes come through the MBA offices in the last 24 months. This distinctive UK based brand is a minor player in the global bike game, but their bikes have consistently impressed us. A while back I rode their carbon framed 29C and declared it the best hardtail I’d ever ridden—to this day I’m more than happy with that statement!

As a comparatively small company, Whyte chooses to focus on doing things their way, rather than trying to cater to cyclical trends and expectations of the mass market. Whyte’s selling proposition is one of design and geometry rather than NASA materials or epic marketing and sponsorship budgets. It’s fair to say that you may not see another Whyte on your local trails and your riding buddies may never have heard of the brand, but our experience suggests that they capable of producing a rip-roaring trail machine.

Most of Whyte’s mountain bikes use alloy frames. Alloy can be heavily manipulated and tuned when designed by a skilled engineer and fabricated by an equally adept manufacturing partner. Weights won’t be as low as those for a carbon frame, but the cost of production is much lower (especially for small volume brands, such as Whyte) and there’s rarely a reason that an alloy frame couldn’t be designed with perfect geometry. Geometry is where Whyte drive a wedge between themselves and the competition. A few grams in a frame or a few newton meters of ‘flex’ won’t stop a dialled bike from being a bucket load of fun, nor will they make an unwieldy bike agile. Whyte knows this, although it goes against the grain of the spin-doctors employed by the big brands.

New School 29er

Whyte has been a leader in slack head-angled trail and XC bikes for quite a number of years, certainly well ahead of the times. Their 29ers combine slack head angles with very short chainstay lengths, the result being bikes that descend well and are stable, but not so long of wheelbase as to be sluggish or hard to wheelie and manual. The 729 shares the identical alloy frame with the cheaper 629 and 529 models (which makes them comparative bargains). It uses 440mm chainstays and a trail-bike slack 68.5 degree head angle. Our medium sized test bike has a 615mm effective top tube and modest 470mm seat tube. So it’s slack up front but tight out back with a long and low top tube. It’s a world away from the 29er hardtails of few years ago (or even today, depending on the brand) that ran steep 72-degree head angles and 450mm plus chainstays.

As a mid-to upper-end alloy XC hardtail, logic suggests that it should be a good race-style cross-country bike, albeit a little heavy due to the components. Forget that concept and start clean; although the 729 can do these things, it’s not the kind of machine that pigeonholes neatly in between other bikes with similar specs. Whereas most $2,000 plus hardtails are budget priced descendants of race bred carbon hardtails, the 729 is more like a race bike that was designed by a gravity enduro rider who was given a clean sheet of paper. If cross-country hardtails are for skinny, lycra wearing roadies, the 729 has come from parents that wear baggies, run a Go-Pro rather than a Garmin, and drink beer as a recovery drink. This is a trail-rider’s XC bike, if that makes sense.

The frame of the 729 has been designed by Whyte from the ground up. They take the development of their alloy framed bikes very seriously, as they’re not just a price-point product to sit below an extensive range of carbon bling machines. High performance alloy bikes keep Whyte in business. I was granted some insight into the various revisions that Whyte made when developing their alloy M109 dually frame. Although I can’t share the actual images or exact commentary, the attention to detail was pretty impressive. Whyte sweated the finest details to optimise the strength of the frame, especially fascinating were the extensive revisions of weld passes, lengths and angles to enhance durability and stiffness. There’s definitely more than one way to skin an alloy cat.

Things like weld details go absolutely unnoticed to the untrained eye, but make a big difference to end product. The 729 frame gives plenty of strong visual cues too, both as to where Whyte has spent money and where they’ve opted out of expensive ‘upgrades’ that don’t enhance the ride. Firstly, there’s no press-fit bottom bracket or drop in headset bearings on the 729 frame. The bottom bracket is a conventional threaded unit, and the head tube uses pressed in alloy cups rather than costly integrated machined bearing seats. The press-in headset cups make zero difference to the performance of the frame while the threaded bottom brackets afford greater serviceability than the in-vogue press-fit type. The front derailleur uses a simple band clamp rather than the increasingly popular direct mount style (which requires a welded-on and accurately faced mount) and the rear dropouts are the traditional 135mm quick release style rather than a thru-axle or a convertible variant. It’s all simple and functional stuff.

Sweating the Details

Whyte has put a lot of effort into the rear triangle of this frame. The chainstays are bridgeless, which gives generous tyre clearance around the bottom bracket. The manipulation of the drive-side chainstay is very cool; the tube has been flattened to the point where it almost resembles a plate of metal when viewed from above. This isn’t easy to do; in fact many brands choose to weld a plate of metal between the bottom bracket and chainstay to improve drivetrain and tyre clearance. Employing tube manipulation rather than machined yokes gives the 729 plenty of clearance with fewer welds. The seat stays are an s-bend style, which gives equally generous tyre clearance. The down tube of the 729 looks pretty skinny and round, but it’s ovalised where it meets the bottom bracket and almost square at the head tube. If you look underneath it’s also been concaved to give the same supportive effect as a gusset, but you’d have to go looking to find this detail.

Thankfully, Whyte has two sets of bottle mounts for long days in the sun—don’t start me on a rant about hardtails with one bottle mount, okay… You’ll also notice two bolts on the underside of the downtube; they allow you to mount a Crud Catcher mud guard. This is a real UK-centric feature, but riders in wet areas like Tassie or the tropics might find that this is the best thing since tubeless conversion kits. In a running change for 2014, Whyte has routed the derailleur cables through the top tube. It looks very clean, although the rear brake hose still runs on the outside of the top tube, so the aesthetic isn’t complete. The cables use a full length outer, so they’re protected from bad weather.

The handlebar, stem, grips, post, saddle and wheels are all Whyte branded items—own-branded parts are something we’re seeing more and more these days. The 70mm stem is about as short as you’ll find fitted from standard on an XC bike, and the 700mm-wide bar gives reasonable leverage to put the front of the bike where you want in spite of the lazy head angle. The grips lock on with one bolt and they stayed put. Their pattern is very similar to the well-known ODI Ruffian MX and as far as stock grips go, they’re pretty darn good.

Whyte make a little bit of a deal about their wheels. They say that they’re light yet strong and by supplying these in-house they’re able to boost the performance of the bike for no cost-penalty. As far as standard equipment OEM cross-country wheels go, the XC-209 wheelset is decent. The green anodised hubs look great on the colour-matched bike and the bearings spin with little resistance. Cassette engagement speed is average and pretty typical for a bike in this price area. You’ll find 28 spokes up front and 32 in the rear with eyeleted welded join rims. It should be a durable set up that’s easy to true if need be. The 2.2-inch wide Maxxis IKON EXC are spot on for the 729, rolling fast while offering deceptively good traction.

Spec’ing the parts for stopping, going and squishing are typically the biggest challenge for a smaller brand such as Whyte. They are comparatively small-fry in the bike game and lack the buying power of the more mainstream brands. People may wonder where their $2,600 went when they note the alloy frame, X.7 front derailleur, non-series SRAM 1400 cranks (X.7 level) and Elixir 5 brakes. Certainly, none of it is fancy. Thankfully the 729 runs X.9 shifters, which are light years ahead of X.7 in terms of feel, and the RockShox Reba RL fork is a good choice too.

On the trail the drivetrain did all we could ask of it while the fork was stiff, tuneable and plush on small bumps—the Reba is without a doubt the working man’s champion of XC forks. The cranks are spec’d with a 38 tooth big chainring and 24 tooth little ring. The 24 tooth is a proper bail out granny gear while the big ring is a real fire road hauler; while the total gear range is impressive, there’s also a pronounced gap between the ratios that can catch you out on the trail. One nice feature of the 1400 crank is the removable spider; riders that want to run a single narrow-wide front ring can remove the spider and get a direct mount ring to replace it. It saves weight, and looks quite slick. That said, there are plenty of narrow-wide rings available to fit the stock spider.

Spec vs Handling

The 729 sits in a precarious spot. With an alloy frame and SRAM X.7 parts spec, it’s pretty much assured that bargain hunters will scan straight past the Whyte. People could easily assume that the frame is a basic unit, befitting of entry-level spec as seen on the lower models. Thankfully, this isn’t the case. The cheaper models actually offer excellent value if the actual ride quality of the frame is weighted into the calculations. This isn’t a dumbed down alloy frame but a performer with less fancy clothes. The 729 is still going to face some tough on-paper comparisons, but the frame, fork and wheels make the rest of the package somewhat irrelevant once you hit the dirt.

The faster or steeper the trail is, the more the 729 shines. The intrinsic feel of ‘flow’ or ‘rhythm’ that any mountain biker instantly recalls is where the 729 hits its sweet spot. Hovering above the saddle with knees and elbows bent and a light finger covering the rear brake, the Whyte zooms from corner to corner with ever increasing speed. The short rear and wide bar let you hang off the back and loft the front wheel over and off the trail as needed. The raked out fork ensures that the front wheel doesn’t get hung up on steep edges too, so you can roll out of some hairy situations. In technical terrain it’s far more capable than your typical short and steep front ended XC hardtail.

The downside of the Whyte’s geometry is found at low speeds and on steep climbs. This is where the slack head angle means that you’ll need to use more body language to get through intestinal singletrack, and the front end wants to wander when the grade is steep, so extra attention needed to get over the front wheel. This is something that you grow accustomed to and with familiarity the technique soon becomes second nature. The payback comes with the amplified fun factor that you’ll get everywhere else.

The 729 is a very fun bike to ride. Whyte has spec’d it with parts that allow their design and intention come to the fore, but it’s definitely a leap of faith for any prospective buyer who doesn’t get to test ride the bike first. It’s unlikely that this machine will see serious race use, and Whyte has joined their geometry dots accordingly with some thoughtful tubes that ensure that the best elements of riding are enhanced to the fullest. This isn’t the best hardtail I’ve ever ridden, but the fun factor of the 729 is on definitely par with the big hitters.

Thumbs Up

Fun ‘trail’ rather than ‘race’ geometry

Thoughtful frame fabrication

Excellent fork 

Thumbs Down

Low value parts spec

Big jump between chainrings 

Specifications

Frame: 6061 Hydro Formed T6 Aluminium

Fork: RockShox Reba RL 100mm travel

Headset: FSA 1 1/8 - 1 1/2

Handlebars: Whyte alloy flat 700mm

Stem: Whyte Alloy 70mm

Shifters: SRAM X.9

Front Derailleur: SRAM X.7

Rear Derailleur: SRAM X.9

Cassette: SRAM PG-1050, 11/36 10-speed

Chain: SRAM PC-1031

Cranks: SRAM 1400 24/38

Bottom Bracket: SRAM GXP

Pedals: N/A

Brakes: Avid Elixir 5

Wheels: Whyte XC-209

Tyres: Maxxis Ikon 2.2

Saddle: Whyte dual density

Seatpost: Whyte Alloy 20mm Offset

Weight: 11.5kg without pedals (Medium frame 1,914g)

Available Sizes: S, M (tested) & L

Price: $2,600

Distributor: Carbuta Pty Ltd 0439 902 770 / www.whytebikes.com