Editors’ Choice 2024: Saracen Ariel 30 Elite

Saracen Ariel 30 Elite is yet another Ariel model from Saracen that looks the absolute bee’s knees. Literally. How does this yellow zinger handle the trails?

Sometimes you get on a bike and find a million things to fiddle with and swap out before you can feel ‘right’. This is not one of them. Off the peg and from the get-go, I enjoyed riding the Ariel 30 Elite. There’s nothing on it that needs a swap, or getting used to, or a firmware update. Set up the suspension (also a no-drama experience) and ride. Clean bike, lube chain, ride, repeat. It’s not just all the components that have been well chosen. The frame design is sorted too. The alloy frame delivers a quiet, comfortable ride with no distracting rattles or flex, while a simple suspension layout nevertheless delivers a decent climbing platform, and a pile of fun on wriggling descents.

The colour might be the showiest thing about this bike, but it’s a lesson in less is more. Or perhaps more is more – this Elite model offers an extra 10mm of travel up front, making it a 130/140mm mullet bike in the medium size I’ve tested. Fox suspension with Fox 36 fork, useful tyres, DT Swiss wheels, Shimano XT groupset – it’s all good stuff without having bling on the top. Tons of function, tons of fun, this is a bike that makes you want to get out and ride, find playful lines, and puts a grin on your face. I don’t care if they’re calling it ‘double downcountry’ in the marketing department, it’s a proper trail bike for proper fun.

• Brand: Saracen
• Product: Ariel 30 Elite
• Price: £3,999.99
• From: Saracen Bikes
• Tested by: Hannah for 7 months

Pros

• Excellent suspension for its nominal travel
• Thoroughly capable spec
• Very capable reach and wheelbase figures

Cons

• Sheer frame length sometimes writes cheques that he head angle doesn’t like to cash
• The cheaper Ariel 30 models arguably better all-round value
• Only available in yellow (which is fine by us but may be a bit vibrant for some!)

Back when this arrived we wrote in Fresh Goods Friday: “This is one of those Normal Mountain Bikes that we used to hear about back in the day. Aluminium. 130mm rear travel via Saracen’s own TRL linkage driven single pivot. 140mm travel Fox 36 up front. Shimano XT everywhere. DT Swiss EX511 rims. 170mm KS dropper post. 450mm stem. 780mm bars. What isn’t so very back-in-the-day is the wheel size and the geometry. This is a mullet. The Small and Medium (this bike) Ariel 30 models come as mullet bikes. The Large and X-Large models are full 29ers. Geometry-cally speaking this Medium has 410mm seat tube, 480mm reach (oof! yes!), 65° head angle, 76.5° seat angle, 440mm chain stays and 30mm of BB drop.” Which is as good a summary as any!

Apart from the colour of the bike, there’s nothing super shouty and ‘look at me’ about. No Kashima coatings. No electronics. Hardly any plastic fantastic. And do you know what? That’s a very good thing. Riding this has been an exercise in remembering that keeping it simple isn’t all that stupid. In fact, it can be downright fun.

The Saracen Ariel 30 Elite adds an extra 10mm of travel at the front comapred to the other Ariel 30 models. You get a 130mm rear travel Fox Float DPS Performance Elite rear shock, plus a 140mm travel Fox 36 Performance Elite fork.

The Medium (tested) and Small sizes come as mixed-wheel mullets. Large and X-Large sizes are full 29ers. DT Swiss EX 511 alloy rims on KT hubs, with Maxxis Minion DHR II tyres. A KS Lev Integra dropper comes with a sensibly shaped Westy remote that mounts to the only bit of carbon fibre here: the RaceFace Next R 35 bars. A Shimano XT groupset finishes off the build kit. It’s an all function, no undue frills set up.

On the trails

The only thing I swapped out was the grips, finding the supplied ODIs just a teensy bit firm – and with plenty of test grips needing tested on hand. If I’d just bought this bike, I probably wouldn’t have bothered.

There’s every chance you should buy this bike. It’s genuinely great. A simple following of the manufacturer’s suggested settings and the suspension was nicely set up for my needs out on local trails. From the first ride out, I was pushing myself to ride trails I’d sometimes avoid. That chunky-for-trail-riding Fox 36 gave bags of confidence on local rocky trails. No flexing, no twanging, very predictable and nicely balanced with the rear suspension so that my feet stayed on the pedals.

What you really want for this bike, though, is the kind of snaking singletrack that gets the most out of a descent. Just enough gradient to pick up speed, just enough wriggle to keep things lively, with rocks to pop and drop thrown in.

Standing up, the ride position places me perfectly over the bars, giving me bags of control and getting me out of any ‘hanging off the back’ bad habits. If I could scrub, or shralp, I would. It’s that sort of feeling – you just want to play.

“But what about the weight?” perhaps you’re wondering, if you’re one of those folk who still think anything over 30lbs is “heavy”. Honestly, this bike climbs really well and never once felt unduly heavy to me. Although there is a switch on the shock to firm things up, I rarely bothered to use it. The linkage-driven single-pivot has been well thought through, minimising any unwanted slouching on long smooth climbs, but staying supple enough to give you goat-like tendencies on technical bits.

Moreover though, it seems to me that the seat tube has been steepened up compared to Saracens of the past that I have ridden (and that have troubled my knees on long climbs). No such troubles here. Oversized bearings do their job, with no discernible flex through the yoke and shock. It’s a quiet, smooth, efficient ride that never had me wishing for the shaved grams of carbon fibre.

The bike was so good that I wanted to see just what it was capable of, so I took it for a day out riding uplifts at Dyfi Bike Park. I kept it all as it was – not swapping the tyres out for anything burlier, despite Dyfi’s fearsome reputation when it comes to shredding rubber.

I did spot one other person on a hardtail, but as I stood in the uplift queue among a sea of dual crown forks and big enduro bikes, I wondered if I might be biting off more than I could chew? After all, my last visit had resulted in a dislocated shoulder, I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t nervous…

After the first run down, my worries were allayed.

No, I wouldn’t be winning any races down Dyfi’s red tracks on the Saracen Ariel 30 Elite, but I could certainly get down them without needing new pants. As I got more familiar with the tracks and picked up speed, I could certainly notice the difference between this trail bike and a beefier enduro bike. I had to be more alert, the bike needed riding and pushing – particularly over rocks and holes on steep rollers. That not-that-slack 65° head angle caused the fork to get a little hooked up in the holes between the sharp edged Welsh rocks, and I found my body position nervously slipping backwards on the steeps in order to avoid that ‘imminent OTB’ sensation.

The usually quiet ride got more rattly under the bigger forces in the rocky chutes, and the lack of skills compensator you get with a bigger, slacker, bike was more noticeable. But it wasn’t detracting from my fun. If anything, it was quite nice to feel like, for once, I was really riding on the limits.

If you want to ride Dyfi Bike Park level reds (or blacks) on a regular basis, you’re not going to want to take this Saracen as-stock. But if you’re the kind of person that might end up doing that kind of riding once in a blue moon, I think the Ariel 30 Elite should be on your shopping list. Along with some beefier tyres.

Yes, if you push it to such extremes as I did, you’re going to feel like you’re running out of bike (having said that, simply swapping in some burlier tyres would have made a world of difference). But for the 90% of my other riding, it’s absolutely fine. More than fine: really, really good.

Spending the bulk of this year on a bike that lacks the journo-spec bling I usually find myself testing has been hugely refreshing. I really, really, like being able to get on a bike and know it will be ready for me, no flashing lights or app updates to attend to. And discovering that there is just as much fun to be had without those distractions? That is a winning formula.

Overall

The marketing describes it as a ‘double downcountry’ bike, perhaps because ‘a very good trail bike’ doesn’t justify an office slide and ball pool in the marketing department. Would I be sad if this was the only bike in my shed? Absolutely not. It’s not going to win me an XC race, or a DH race, but it would make ride after ride in a whole range of terrain a big pile of fun. With functional and durable components, it’s a bike you can grab from the shed without the forethought of battery charging. It’s metal, no nonsense and quiet frame keep maintenance distractions to a minimum.

Saracen Ariel 30 Elite specification

• Frame // Series 3 Custom Butted and Hydroformed 6013 alloy
• Shock // Fox Float DPS Performance Elite, 210 x 50mm
• Fork // Fox 36 Performance Elite, 140mm
• Wheels // DT Swiss EX511 rims on KT Sealed Bearing hubs
• Front Tyre // Maxxis Minion DHR II EXO TR, 29 x 2.4in
• Rear Tyre // Maxxis Minion DHR II EXO TR, 27.5 x 2.3in
• Chainset // Shimano XT, 170mm, 34T
• Drivetrain // Shimano XT, 10-51T
• Brakes // Shimano XT 4-pot, 203/203mm
• Stem // RaceFace Turbine R 35, 40mm
• Handlebars // RaceFace Next R, 780 x 20mm
• Grips // ODI Elite Motion
• Seat Post // KS Lev Integra, 170mm, 30.9mm
• Saddle // Saracen Custom CRMO MTB
• Weight // 15.0kg

Geometry of our M size

• Head angle // 65°
• Effective seat angle // 76.5°
• Seat tube length // 410mm
• Head tube length // 110mm
• Chainstay // 440mm
• Wheelbase // 1,239mm
• Effective top tube // 625mm
• BB height // 30mm BB drop
• Reach // 480mm

This product was selected for our Editors’ Choice Awards 2024

In the Editors’ Choice Awards we highlight our standout bikes and products from the past year. These are the bikes that we’d like to have in our sheds. These are the components and clothing that we still use long after the nominal test period has expired. This is the good stuff.

To make the cut, each thing must have proven itself out on the trails. They’ve got to have been reliable and ride-enhancing. We don’t do technology for technology’s sake. Nor are we overly swayed by showy, high price tags and bling materials. That said, we don’t prioritise anything solely because it’s cheaper than its rivals. Nor do we penalise a genuinely great product if it is conspicuously expensive. Performance is what matters in Editor’s Choice.

This was a star performers of The Class of 2024.

Review Info