Review: Commencal Meta AM2 29er

7 May 2013  |  

When I was offered the chance to get the Commencal Meta AM2 29er I jumped at the chance. We’d recently had the Meta AM3 in for review so to compare it to its 29” wheeled big brother would make for some interesting reading.

commencal meta am2 29er

I have never had a lot of experience with 29ers apart from a bit of a test ride on a specialized camber but I was certainly open minded to the idea. In recent years there is no doubt that the bike manufactures have manipulated the performance of the 29” wheel into a frame that almost simulates a standard 26inch bike…

Commencal Meta AM2 29er
How long tested for: 1 Month
Tested By: Angus McIntosh
RRP: £2599.99

First Impressions.

Now I thought the Commencal Meta AM3 we had in for review was a good looking bike… For some reason the 29” version of the Meta AM is significantly better on the eye. I can’t put my finger on it and you are entitled to think I’m wrong but the bigger wheels just fit the curves of the frame just that little bit better or maybe it’s the absolutely awesome green colour.

commencal meta am2 29er

This test works out quite well as this bike has an pretty much the same spec to the Meta AM3 . The identical spec between the 2 bikes has enabled me to draw some straight comparisons between the 2 bikes as the only change is wheel size and frame geometry.

29” vs. 26” (Caution contains maths.)

There are some obvious reasons why you would run bigger wheels if you are to listen to the Mathematicians and physicists…. Eg. Per rotation a 29” wheel will travel 2.31m vs. a 26” wheel that will only roll 2.07m. That’s a gain of 24cm per revolution and just under a metres gain for every 4 turns of the larger 29” wheel.

If you scale this up further the gains become even more apparent… over 1 mile… A 29” wheel will go around 674.03 times per mile vs. the 26”s 777.64 revolutions… If you were pedaling in a constant 5th gear on the larger ring on the Commencal Meta AM2 29er (38/22) you would require 402 turns of the crank to do 1 mile. If you were to be riding a 26” wheel you need to turn the crank 447.04 times to cover that same distance… Now in my world that’s just about enough time to stop for a Mars bar and a drink of water!

NB. I am aware that to turn a bigger wheel a larger amount of torque would be required so 29” wheels aren’t entirely a free meal ticket but the principal is the same…

Tech Specs

The Commencal Meta AM2 29er comes as standard with a combination of Sram X5/X7 transmission, Formula RX brakes, Fox Float suspension and that same Commencal VIP Cockpit and Seatpost/Saddle combinations that’s seen across a good chunk of the lower end of Commencal’s range.

commencal meta am2 29er

Some chunky and soft compound Kenda 29x2.2 Nevegals are entrusted as rubber on Commencal’s own branded wheels supplied by Jalco and Joytech. This pairing aren’t really anything special and significantly add to the overall weight of the bike but this is obviously the type of decision faced by manufactures when choosing the spec on lower end bikes.

The frame comes in a bright green colour with internal cabling throughout and despite not having a dropper as standard, if you were to upgrade at a later date it has the correct holes and plugs to run the cables through the frame and onto the handlebars keeping the neat and tidy look and feel.

I still can’t stand the Commencal lock on grips which are supplied with the bike, the front end is a little on the high side and a dropper post wouldn’t go amiss but these aren’t big complaints as such, more niggles and personal preferences.

Commencal Meta AM2 29er
Frame: Aluminium 6066 Triple butted, 130mm, tapered headtube, 12x142 axle
Fork: Fox 32 Float CTD Open cartdrige 130mm
Shock: Fox Float CTD
Wheels: Jalco/Joytech 29" for Commencal
Tires: Kenda Nevegal 29x2.2
Brakes: Formula RX 180/180
Cranks: Sram 1000 38/24 10spd
Rear Derailleur: Sram X7 10spd
Front Derailleur: Sram X7 direct mount 10speed
Shift Levers: Sram Trigger X5 2x10
Seatpost: Commençal VIP 31.6mm
Handlebar: Commençal VIP 0.75" rise OS 6061, 730mm
Stem: Commençal VIP OS

Geometry

I think the best way to summarise the geometry of the Meta AM 29er is against its 26inch brother… The 26inch model featured a fairly standard “aggressive trail bike” geometry for todays standards with a 67° head angle and 73° seat tube angle with once again a fairly average chainstay length of 430mm and a 3mm rise on the Bottom Bracket.

Obviously if you go and put larger 29” wheels on a bike you are going to have to change the angles to replicate the same sort of feel. The AM2 29er has a 68° head angle which on paper is one degree steeper, when actually riding it feels anything but. It uses a 72.5° Seat tube angle that is 0.5° slacker than the 26” version but it still leaves a very comfortable pedaling position. The chainstays are 28mm longer which brings them to 458mm in an attempt to keep the same snappy short chain stay feeling that we see on so many modern do it all trail/all mountain bikes.

commencal meta am2 29er

For me I think the one thing that turned the bike into a completely different beast was the 33mm bottom bracket drop. This isn’t anything groundbreaking either a 35mm(ish) BB drop is seen throughout the Specialized range of 29er’s.

Now I never took note of this when we had the 26” Meta in for review but I am willing to put my bottom dollar down to say that the actual BB tube to ground measurement would be nearly the same on both the 26 and 29” bikes but the 29er feels like a very very different bike. A better bike.

As I have outlined… there really isn’t a lot to choose between the 2 bikes and only minimal changes have been carried out to make sure the 29” wheels physically fit in the frame…

I have had a real struggle in my mind over the last few weeks wondering what made the 29” wheeled version of the Meta AM quite such a different beast to the 26” model. How can the Meta 29 lose 20mm of travel yet feel like it has far more and why does it generally feel like a better bike to ride than its 26” brother at virtually all times.

The Ride

I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from the Meta AM 2 29er when it actually came to riding it. After all it uses exactly the same suspension platform and components as the Meta AM 3 I had only just finished reviewing a few weeks previously. How wrong could I be…

I didn’t think the 26” Meta AM was a bad bike by any stretch of the imagination. It was predictable, robust and certainly got the job done but it lacked that little sparkle that would bring a smile to your face.

commencal meta am2 29er

After about 3 minutes on the Meta AM2 29er I was blown away by how quickly the bike picked up speed on the trail. A few turns of the pedals and it was off…. This unstoppable big wheeled force of nature just annihilated anything in front of it. It’s incredible turn of pace shocked me and scared me more than once.

I’m not a racer by any stretch of the imagination but I do occasionally like to switch on the Strava to see how my times around the local tracks stack up to some of the other local pinners and against other bikes I’ve ridden. My first ride out on the bike one evening, I destroyed all my personal best segment times. The most surprising fact was the segments I had taken the most time off on were the more technical tight and twisty sections where 29” wheels are claimed to be inferior.

commencal meta am2 29er

The bike felt great in the air and braking and traction performance was supreme with the amazing Formula RX brakes and large volume Kenda Nevegal 2.2 tires. I had so much trust in the bike after a few rides I was braking later than ever for the turns and in some cases not braking at all, just pitching the bike right over and letting the shoulders of the tires do there thing or just slip into a predictable drift.

The bike excelled tracking rough ground and I would happily find myself pointing the wheels through a more technical line than I would trust most other trail bikes through without any doubts things would get a bit wild.

The Meta AM2 29er has the sparkle that its 26” brother was missing and the smile is firmly installed on my face and has been for the last few weeks.

commencal meta am2 29er

Conclusion

Commencal’s Meta AM2 29er has firmly made me step back and look differently at the way I both see and ride trail bikes. Everything I had been lead to believe in terms of sluggishness with handling was false and the bike just seemed to want to do everything one hundred times faster.

I would almost go as far as saying I don’t think there’s actually any disadvantage of running bigger wheels if aggressive trail riding/enduro is the type of riding you are doing most often. I pushed this bike reasonably hard and it never felt like it left its comfort zone or even got close for that matter.

commencal meta am2 29er

Hand on heart its been one of my favourite bikes I’ve had the joy of riding for a long while. I'm not going to say I've been converted to a big wheel rider but I can see it makes sense in a whole lot of situations...

The handling in the turns feels surprisingly snappy for a bike with such a long wheelbase and to my surprise it still reacted well when you added a but of muscle to carry it through the tight turns. The spec certainly doesn't let it down, but there’s nothing ground breaking on show. In the long term you might possibly want to lose some weight in the wheels and go to a tubeless setup.

The Commencal Meta AM2 29er will set you back £2599.99 which seems a fair price for a bike of this calibre and is distributed by Decade Europe.

The Commencal Meta AM2 29er is one hell of a bike. It picks up speed like a runaway train and corners like its on rails. This bright green trail ripping machine shouldn't be sniffed at when your looking for a trail bike. You won't be disappointed!

Angus McIntosh

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