Whyte Montpellier

The 2011 Whyte Montpellier was a three grand exercise in brand awareness as much as it was a bike for sale, but the 2012 incarnation comes in at only just over half the price whilst keeping some of the aspirational componentry bolted to Whyte's MTB-derived urban frame. Overall it's a cracking bike, fun and versatile, although the existence of the £999 Stirling is for a lot of people going to provide the biggest disincentive to buying one.

Whyte's approach to building urban bikes is to make them a bit like their mountain bikes. That means they're long and rangy, with a relaxed head angle. The Montpellier frame is crafted from multi-butted, hydroformed 6061 Aluminium. It's 130mm across the rear dropouts to give a bit of extra room for your heels, and the rear disc mount is mounted inboard on the chainstay so that the calliper doesn't befoul your mudguard or rack; assuming you want to fit them, there's rack mounts on the seat stays and one hole on the dropout that'll do both assuming you don't want to carry massive loads.

Well, there is on the frame at least. The fork of the Montpellier is a straight bladed, full Carbon affair that's beefy and purposeful, but it doesn't have mudguard eyelets. That's a bit of a miss on a utility bike - even a posh one such as this - and it means you'll have to resort to P-clips (or SKS Raceblade Longs) if you want to fit a front 'guard.

2011's bike came equipped with SRAM Red shiftgear, and that's been downgraded to a Rival rear mech and Apex front mech, with SRAM's dual paddle SL700 shifters instead of the nice DoubleTap ones. The crankset is an FSA Gossamer compact, and you get an 11-32 cassette, so there's plenty of gear range to play with. The BB shell is a press fit unit.

The Hope brakes and wheels have taken a hit too, but the good news is that it's still Hope brakes and wheels, albeit ones not quite as spangly as before. The Hope X2 Race discs are super-light at about 270g per wheel but they don't have masses of power; that got them a bit of a kicking in the MTB press at times but it's much less of an issue in this context. The wheels are Hope EVO hubs (the rear one specially made to fit the 130mm dropouts) laced into Alex Black Dragon rims. Maxxis Detonator 28mm provide the grip and a bit of cushioning.

First impressions are that this is a light bike. It's not 16lb like the original Montpellier was, but it's still sub-20lb and it shows. It's easy to spin up to speed and once you're rattling along it's pretty easy to stay there, too. The wheels aren't the lightest part of this bike – neither the rims nor the tyres are especially feathery – but while that blunts acceleration a touch it's barely noticeable once you're going.

What is noticeable is the slack geometry, and not in a bad way. It's a lovely stable bike, which goes where you point it. I was worried that the head angle would make the steering feel a bit mushy, but there's none of that. Even with the amusingly named Ultra Narrow bar – 'only' 58cm wide – the steering feels direct and responds well to your input. The upright position means that there's not a lot of weight over the front wheel, but even so the front tyre grips well and the bike never feels vague.

Well, almost never. All the above is true up to a point, and that point was about 40mph for me. Once you're really tearing down the hills the unweighted front and slack angles start to make everything feel a touch woolly. Not so's you'd end up in a hedge or anything, but enough for you to scrub the edge off your pace. It's a super bike to carve through the tight turns at the bottom of Cheddar Gorge, for example, but along the top section with its fast, lazy dowhnill curves it wasn't a match for a tighter road frame.

A lot of the time you'll not be on the open road on a bike like this, though, but hacking through town. Those 58cm bars aren't the best when you're filtering through the cars. There's certain gaps you wouldn't go through that you might try on a narrower bike. On the whole though it's very well behaved on city streets, and light and quick enough to get where you want to with a minimum of fuss. It's not the kind of bike you fling through gaps though, anyway. It's more like riding a road bike through town, quick enough to keep up with the traffic and the steering's positive but neutral. The 28mm tyres take the sting out of bad surfaces and the saddle and grips are well padded too. On top of that, the sloping frame means you're running a fair amount of seatpost which helps to soak up the bumps.

Anyway, comparing it to a road bike at all is testament to the fact that this is a hybrid bike you can do really long rides on. Normally with a bike of this ilk I'd drag myself on a 50km loop just to find out what the maximum sensible ride length would be but I never found the limit of the Montpellier. You could ride this bike all day, no trouble at all. It's comfortable, efficient and easy to pilot. The transmission is excellent, with well defined shifts and good feedback. The frame is exceptionally stiff through the bottom bracket and chainstays so you never feel like you're wasting your input. When you come to slow down the Hope X2 brakes are perfect for road, with plenty enough power and good modulation from a very lightweight unit.

Contact points are good. Saddles are a personal thing but I got on fine with the SR Viper, which is racy in shape but with a bit of give. The Ergon GP1 grips give a nice solid platform for your hands, although as ever I'd prefer to see bar ends for that extra hand position.

All in all it's an excellent ride. There's lots to like about the Montpellier and if you're in the market for an expensive urban bike then I can recommend it. Admittedly that's a bit of a niche but equally, this bike would do for a light tourer, or a flat-barred 'crosser if you're not a serious racer. It's a pretty versatile platform. The main reason not to buy one would be that you can have the next bike down, the Stirling, for £600 less, and at £999 it sneaks under the cycle-to-work limit too. Okay you'll have to make do without your Hope bits, and it'a a bit heavier overall, but I can't shake the feeling that if it was my money I'd be hard pressed to justify the extra expenditure for what is, in nearly every sense, a very similar machine. I'm guessing they'll sell a lot of Stirlings and the Montpellier will remain a low volume range topper, albeit at a lower price and higher volume than the previous year. That doesn't make it a bad bike though, it's very well built and enormous fun to ride.

Verdict

Well built top-end hybrid that's fun to ride, although its sub-£1000 sibling looks the value-for-money buy