Whether you are you are looking to go all-mountain or enduro, opt for 29″ wheels or stick with 27.5″, with a budget for carbon or just alloy, Lapierre has one bike for you – the ZestySpicy. OK, so well it’s kinda more like eight different Zestys & Spicys. But they all start out with the same frame platform – pick carbon or alloy first. And then Lapierre builds that common frame into anything from a 140mm 29er Zesty trail bike up to a 170mm 27.5 Spicy enduro shredder for budgets from around two to six thousand euros.
2019 Lapierre Zesty & Spicy: one frame for AM or enduro
We got a sneak peek at the new combined Zesty/Spicy carbon frame back this summer at Eurobike. But details were few & far between at the time. Now with the bike almost available to the public we get the full breakdown of the all-mountain and enduro builds, Lapierre’s new rider-adaptable FIT program, and why you might pick each option along the way.
Zesty/Spicy – Carbon vs. Aluminum
Since there are effectively just two frames – carbon or alloy – this is the first thing you need to pick, before you settle on suspension travel, riding style & wheelsize. Both the full carbon frame and the all alloy frame share the same geometry and technology.
That includes the same new FIT adjustability, the wheelsize & riding style adapted geometry, and the all-new four-bar suspension kinematics. The 1x specific frames feature Boost spacing, internal routing, flip-chip adjustability, PF92 BBs, a 31.6mm dropper seatpost, and metric trunnion mount shocks.
The only difference besides a few hundred grams of weight is that the carbon bike includes the LP Box, an extra integrated storage box for a tube & tools that doubles as a guard to protect the carbon downtube in front of the bottom bracket. The alloy bikes are all under 3000€, while the carbon bikes go up to twice that.
Zesty all-mountain vs. Spicy enduro geometry
Next you pick how you plan to ride the bike.
Zesty builds lean towards lighter weight and more pedaling, with air suspension, shorter travel of 140 or 150mm, and steeper geometry.
The Spicy builds feature longer forks & longer stroke shocks for 160 or 170mm of travel, which together slacken geometry by a degree making the bike more of a descender.
Spicys also move to coil suspension and beefier, gravity-focused components for an enduro ready build.
Zesty/Spicy – 27.5 vs. 29er
No matter which material or riding style you choose, you also get to pick wheelsize too. All of the bikes offer the ability to be built up with either 27.5″ (but not plus) or 29″ wheels.
To keep the geometry from being adversely affected, the shared Zesty/Spicy frame has a flip-chip at the main suspension pivot (which also shortens shock stroke) and a two position headset. Plus all of the bikes use the same 29er forks which can be adjusted internally to limit travel by 10mm. The complete swap isn’t a quick change, so Lapierre doesn’t recommend changing the bike over on a whim, but a competent bike shop could surely convert it if you wanted to change in the future.
So yeah, now that you’ve made it to picking wheelsize you pick travel as well. The all-mountain Zesty gets 150mm front & rear with 27.5″ wheels, and 140mm when you set it up on 29″ wheels. At the same time the enduro Spicy features 170mm of travel in 27.5, and 160mm of limited travel as a 29er.
The Zesty/Spicy is available in four frame sizes (S-XL), and Lapierre assigns the smaller 27.5 wheels to the small & medium, while the medium, large & extra large automatically get 29″ wheels. But with that said, all four sizes can handle either wheelsize. So a Lapierre dealer should be able to get you out the door with a small 29er or large 27.5.
Zesty/Spicy rider sized FIT program
Since you are essentially getting four distinctly different bikes out of the same carbon or alloy frames, Lapierre set out an adjustable FIT program to adjust other elements on the bike to fit bike & rider sizes. Just like scaled component sizing relative to just rider size, here the concept take into account riding style inferred by suspension travel. Of course wheelsize is one – but while both get spec’ed with 2.4″ tires, you can mount up to 2.6″ tires for either wheelsize (no Plus tires though.) Two crank lengths & chainring sizes are size & travel specific, as are two handlebar widths, two grip diameters, three dropper post travel lengths, and two different rotor sizes.
2019 Lapierre Zesty all-mountain & Spicy enduro Pricing & Availability
The new Zesty is available in two carbon & two alloy complete bikes. The top Zesty AM Fit 8.0 Ultimate sells for 5500€ with X01 Eagle & Fox Factory suspension, and the Zesty AM Fit 5.0 Ultimate for 3600€ with GX Eagle & RockShox, both with carbon frames. In alloy, the Zesty AM Fit 4.0 is 2700€ with NX Eagle and the Zesty AM Fit 3.0 is 2200€ with NX 1×11.
For the more aggressive Spicy builds, there are three complete bikes, one in alloy. The top Spicy Fit Team Ultimate retails for 6000€ with X01 Eagle & RockShox suspension, and the carbon Spicy Fit 5.0 Ultimate for 4000€ with GX Eagle & Fox suspension. The only alloy Spicy Fit 3.0 brings the price down to 3000€ with NX 1×11 & RockShox suspension.
The new Zestys & Spicys are trickling out to Lapierre dealers now with complete availability expected at the start of 2019.
