The ‘First Ride’ of my all new SCOTT Ransom built with Shimano XTR took place in Aberdeenshire as it’s one of my favourite riding locations in Scotland as it has every style of mountain biking - hand cut technical single track, purpose built flow and jump lines and also big mountain riding. To test it thoroughly and showcase the improved qualities of the components, I had 3 locations in mind. Aboyne for technical trails where you need dialled ergonomics to help with control, Tarland to showcase the shift speed of the drivetrain system and Morven to demonstrate the consistency and power of the brakes.

Starting with ergonomics, XTR M9200 has been redesigned, it’s now easier than ever to adjust every single detail to suit the rider from shifter paddle position which you can now adjust to perfection and further details like improved upsweep on the M9220 brake levers. Aboyne was the perfect playground to test and dial this in. Short punchy laps that were repeatable made it easy to set the cockpit up and the trails I choose were insanely technical - you don’t want to be moving far to pull a brake lever or grab a gear when it’s needed.

Shift speed is something that the XTR M9250 RD and Shifter are known for and it is FAST but what’s often missed is how easy it is too actuate. Tarland was a great place to showcase this, a series of tight purpose build switchbacks where you were consistently changing up and down gears made it great to demonstrate how fast and reliable the all electronic system is. I’d double shift up (a feature unique to XTR) and then drop down once I’d made the turn making momentum easy to carry through.

My final test location was at the top of Morven, a route that I’d wanted to tick off for quite sometime. The descent was nothing crazy but it did give some steep and prolonged sections of trail where I was hard on the brakes. There was no fade, the bite point was consistent and the power was there when I needed it. The lower portion of the mountain required a lot of control to keep the flow and the M9220 brakes certainly helped maintain composure throughout some of the steeper sections of trails that I’ve ridden.

I may be biased but I love the new XTR M9200 series and would love to know what you think, drop a comment on the video or send me a DM.

All the pictures you see here are shot by Dan Milner.