Commencal Meta vs Bird Aries

wardy235

Hi Guys,

I've seen the light after trying on of my friends meta's (old frame) and decided to to extend my budget to about £2500+ abit.

I'm after a trail bike and have narrowed my choices to the Commencal Meta AM Race Rockshox or Bird Aries (thinking X1 spec with pike). With the current exchange rates the Commencal is about £100 cheaper with equivalent specs.

Would appreciate your advice with regards on which one to go for, and what spec I should specify if getting the bird?

chrisdouglas

Funnily enough mate I've narrowed my choices to the same ones. I'm leaning more towards the Bird personally but I think it's just a personal thing that.

I'll be interested to see what people say though regarding one against the other.

wardy235

Think I'm slowly edging towards the Bird. Out of intrest what spec do you think you'll go for?

I'm currently thinking the GX and putting the Pike RTC3 on the front and the Monarch RT3 on the back. Have you got any suggestions you think may be worth adding?

rockmonkeysc

I wouldn't have the GX transmission. It's the usual nasty SRAM budget kit. I'd go for Shimano XT.

chrisdouglas

Yeah I was going the same route pal, Just leaving the X1 drivetrain on it though and upgrading to the Hope wheelset.

King_Pin_Rich

The GX groupset gets positive reviews and has a lot of trickle down tech so I wouldn't just write it off as nasty and cheap.

Ive been eyeing up bird bike recently as well, but I wish they would sort spend a bit if time sorting the website out. It's horribly frustrating and looks a bit cobbled together, put me off them at first.

wardy235

Just too make my decision harder, thanks to their Facebook adverts! I've found anothe potential choice which is the Air drop edit, link below. http://www.airdropbikes.com/collections/airdrop-edit

It looks very similar to the Bird, so adds another choice... What do you guys think?

Also with regard to the GX kit it got 5/5 by Bikeradar so they obviously think it's not a bad bit of kit.

chrisdouglas

Won't let me open the link in work unfortunately I'll check it out tonight. To throw a spanner in the works, I've also test rode a couple of Orbea bikes this weekend, and I've also found devinci bikes in my budget too...I'm trying to be as realistic as possible tough and some of these bikes are overkill for me and my riding.

EDIT: Regarding the GX getting 5/5 on bike radar, they consider the value for the money spent too which could be a big reason for the full marks.