CUBE Bikes Sting 140 Pro 29 2014
Reviews / Enduro Bikes
402,599
At A Glance
The Sting 140 Pro 29 is a new bike from Cube this year, it inherits the tried and tested Stereo suspension platform and, if you look closely at the spec sheet, shares almost identical geometry to the Stereo too. So what’s the difference? This year the Stereo is all carbon right across the range; the aluminium Sting gets you all the performance of the geometry and suspension that the Stereo offers, for a fraction of the price, £1799 GBP in the UK, with a small weight penalty of course!
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Tech Heads
The frame is made from triple butted 7005 aluminium using Cube’s Advanced Mechanical Forming for optimised tubing. There is 140mm of rear wheel travel built around what Cube call the Effective Trail Control Four Link system. ETC essentially lets the suspension work without influence from braking or pedalling.
The rear suspension is catered for by a Fox Float CTD (climb, trail descend), with a low volume air canister. At the front a Fox Float 34 29 CTD with 140mm of travel keeps your front wheel in control.
The drivetrain is an all Shimano affair with SLX shifters and front mech, the rear mech is an XT shadow, although not a clutch type. The crankset is Deore with 40x30x22t and the set up offers 3x10.
A Sun Ringle Radium wheelset with 15QR front and 142x12mm rear end hubs are wrapped in aggressive Hans Dampf tyres with Kevlar and Snakeskin from Schwalbe.
The cockpit is an all Cube affair with 720mm Flat Race pro bars being held on with a Performance Pro 6 degree stem. A Selle Italia X1 Trail saddle is held up with a Cube Performance 31.6mm seatpost.
Cube Sting 140 Pro 29 18”
Seat tube 470mm
Effective top tube 586mm
Head tube 120mm
Chain stay 452mm
Wheel base 1162mm
BB drop 38mm
Head angle 68°
Seat angle 74.5°
Reach 412mm
Stack 644mm
Weight w/o pedals 32.2lbs
On The Trail
Long travel 29ers are always fun to ride, and the Cube Sting 140 Pro 29 is no exception. This bike would be happy riding pretty much anything you can throw at it, from woodland singletrack, to alpine descents. Point it downhill and the long wheelbase and low bottom bracket combine to offer an exceedingly stable ride.
As with most 29ers the handling isn’t as nimble as a 26inch wheeled bike, or even a good 27.5, but that’s not to mean it doesn’t’ go round corners. You just have to get used to the slightly slower nature of the turn, trust in the immense grip offered by the wide footprint of the aggressive tyres and lean the bike in.
Once you start to get used to the way the bike handles you’ll find it has immense grip in the corners, it feels like it is on rails. We never got bored of putting this bike round a bend once we’d got it dialled in.
Uphill the traction also provides good results, it climbs with ease and by utilising the CTD offered on both the shock and the fork you can power up most hills without having to think about the bike too much. We never found ourselves squirming off the nose of the saddle looking for more grip, or getting hung up on roots and step-ups on the climbs.
You’ll need to be careful with your rear shock tune on this bike though, we set it up with our usual 25% sag and found it bottomed out quite easily. Once we put some more air pressure in the shock and ran it at around 17-20% sag, the bottom out was gone. Be prepared to run a little more pressure than you might normally do to get the most out of the Sting.
Whilst this bike offers fantastic value for money, we can’t think of another long travel 29er specced this highly at this price, we didn’t get on with the rear mech. Whilst it shifts impeccably and the drive train is of a high standard it would have been good to see a clutch rear mech on this bike. We never dropped the chain, but there was a fair amount of noise from the rear mech as it bounced around on rough ground. The triple ring crankset means there is quite a bit of chain kicking around and the bike isn’t a silent runner when at speed over rough terrain. A clutch rear mech would have solved this one small grumble.
For
The Cube Sting 140 Pro 29 is a fantastic bike at an even more fantastic price; it’s great to see the cost of mountain biking coming down, but the quality still going up. Sorted geometry and big wheels make this a very smooth ride and the 140mm of suspension will enable it to tackle just about everything you can find. Solid componentry make it even more of a bargain.
Against
Our one complaint would be the noisy ride over rough ground at high speed, the mech and chain slap around a fair bit and without ISCG tabs for a chain guide a clutch type rear mech would make this bike even better than it already is.
Overall
If you are looking for a long travel 29er with more grip in the corners than you’ll probably ever need, then the Sting 140 Pro 29 is going to be hard to beat. Capable on the downhills, a mountain goat on the ups, it’s great fun to ride!
Videos
This review was in Issue 29 of IMB.
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By Nigel Garrood
Nigel Garrood was one of the instigators of the IMB project and has been with us since the very beginning. This loveable rogue has more stories than the Bible and is known to enjoy a beer or two. On the bike, he’s fast and loose and often puts younger riders to shame. Equally he’s been known to suffer from the odd crash and carries the scars to prove it. He was once referred to as being a robot sent from the future to save us all!
