ENDURO Readers' Choice: The Best Brands 2018

Let’s be honest: there’s no shortage of decent bikes and components these days and it’s hard to deny that the standard is shooting up faster than prices in Whistler. But regardless of how packed the market is, certain brands are able to distinguish themselves from the masses, defiantly taking their products to the next level in terms of innovation, quality, performance and design to ultimately overshadow the competition. We carried out an extensive readers’ survey to see which brands they consider deliver the best products. 28,148 riders responded – and here are the best brands in the bike industry:

Santa Cruz is the best bike brand

Santa Cruz Bronson Freisteller 1140x654 — Our readers responded: Santa Cruz build the best bikes!

YT Industries is the most popular brand

YT CAPRA 29 CF Pro Race liquidmetal 01 1140x694 — YT Industries ranks as our readers’ most popular brand, a statement based on which bike brand they are most likely to buy for their next bike.

The results: in-depth

So how have these results been compiled? It’s really simple: in our readers’ survey we asked which brands create the best bikes and which brand you are most like to buy. As a bi-lingual magazine, we seized the luxury to obtain and analyse data not only from our German-speaking readers but also from the international readers of our English edition. We then chose to keep these separate, and it threw up some exciting results.

A mixed bag of responses: ‘Which brand make the best bikes?’ (black) and ‘Which brand are you most like to buy?’ (blue)

Best Brand 2018: Parts & Accessories

A top-flight bike is naturally more than just the sum of its parts, but even the best bikes are only as good as their weakest component. So which brand makes the best products? We asked, you responded: here are the best brands across 13 different categories:

Die besten Rear shocks: Fox — **Rear shocks**

Die besten Drivetrains: SRAM — **Drivetrains**

Die besten Backpacks: EVOC — **Backpacks**

Die besten Bike glasses: Oakley — **Riding glasses**

The results: in-depth

Just like with the bikes, we’ve compiled two separate sets of data when it comes to parts and accessories based on German-speaking and international readers. While there’s common consensus in certain categories, there are stark contrasts to be seen in the brand choices across others. The definition of ‘Best Brand’ refers to the brands that received the most votes in total; languages and nationalities have no effect on this result. But as you can see for yourself, the breakdown of the results is particularly interesting:

About the ENDURO Readers’ Survey

The Readers’ Survey ran from 22. March to 31. July 2018. 28,148 riders from 86 different nations participated and answered over 80 questions. The prize draw winners have been announced here.

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