Two Days of Testing and Talking Bikes: The Shan Nº6 at the Testpilot CoPilot Event

You know those weekends where you drive home completely knackered and still want to turn the van around and go straight back? The first CoPilot event at Geisskopf Bike Park in Germany was one of those.

If you don’t know Testpilot.bike, it’s one of Germany’s best independent mountain bike magazines. A while back they started bringing readers into their testing, putting real riders on real products and printing what they actually thought alongside the editorial team’s views. It went down so well that they’ve now built a whole event around it.

Here’s how it works. Twenty-five “CoPilots” from the Testpilot community. Thirteen brands. Two days at Geisskopf. Riders booked 90-minute test slots in advance, and the event area was at the top of the car park, a few pedal strokes from the lift. There were 14 trails to choose from, from flowy blues to proper downhill tracks. That meant riders could lap the same terrain on bike after bike and feel exactly what was different, rather than guessing.

It wasn’t a trade show, and that’s what made it so good. There were no crowded halls, no small talk before the next appointment, and nobody selling at you. People rode, tweaked, rode again and talked, then everyone sat down for a BBQ in the evening. By Saturday night it just felt like a big group ride with mates. Admittedly, they were mates who could happily spend an hour debating two clicks of compression.

Being a small brand that builds bikes by hand has a lot of upsides. Getting people a test ride isn’t one of them. Most riders never get to try a Production Privée before buying one, never mind riding it back to back with other bikes on the same trails. CoPilot put the Nº6 under riders who really know their stuff, and they gave us honest, unfiltered feedback. You can’t buy that.

We took the Shan Nº6, our steel and carbon enduro bike. It’s built for going fast when the trail gets rough.

The Nº6 has a steel front triangle, handbuilt in Andorra, with Reynolds 853 tubing for the top tube and down tube, paired with a carbon rear end. It runs 167 mm of rear travel with a 170 mm fork and a 64.5° head angle. Its 457 mm chainstays give it stability and grip at speed. The frame uses a long-stroke 225 x 75 mm shock for more consistent damping on long descents. It can be set up as a full 29er or a mullet, with both lower shock mounts included.

This was the bit we were nervous about. Testpilot published a summary of the CoPilot feedback for every brand there, and the Nº6 came out as one of the standout bikes of the weekend.

The words that kept coming up were quality, innovation, looks, drive, stability and uniqueness. Testpilot summed it up as light-footed, safe and hugely entertaining. We’ll take that.

It’s not just about the bike

One thing that really stuck with us was riders saying how much they valued talking directly to the people behind the brand. Honestly, that’s the best bit for us too. We build these frames by hand, so explaining why the bike rides the way it does, then watching someone come back from a run grinning, never gets old.

Thank you

A massive thanks to the Testpilot crew for putting on an event that was actually about riders. Thanks also to every CoPilot who took the Nº6 out on the Geisskopf trails and told us straight what they thought. Good weather, great trails, great food and hours of proper bike talk. Same again next year, please.