Down-country mountain biking is the sweet spot of adventure—speed meets trail. Gear up and hit the perfect mix of downhill thrills and cross-country prowess.
Combine short-to-mid-travel, progessive geometries and lighter weights and you get a bike that lets you ride far and have serious, serious fun. This is down-country! Here’s everything you need to know about this new mountain biking discipline.
What is down-country?
Down-country mixes cross-country, trail, and all-mountain riding. It’s a discipline where riders cover big distances and ride trails with seriously fun features on the way. Imagine an XC ride on steroids.
Think of challenges like the Tor Divide, Highland Trail 550 or TDMB. Trail rides that go on and on wherethe fun doesn’t stop. Go far, have fun, don’t try too hard. When we put it like that, it’s pretty obvious why we’re all so interested!
What is a down country bike?
Down-country bikes are mid-travel 29ers with progressive geometry. They’re good at covering longer distance quickly and taking proper trail bike abuse. They’re a super-capable XC bike and a pedal-all-day trail bike at the same time.
The best down-country bikes are fairly lightweight and agile, which keeps them fun and easy to handle on technical trails. This is all made possible by using elements that make XC bikes quick and combining this with smart component choices. Progressive shocks and stiff forks inspire confidence while big wheels mean they carry good speed and cover ground quickly.
Mainly, down-country bikes are a lot of fun!
Sonder Cortex down-country
The Sonder Cortex is a down-country bike released before its time! It’s a mid-travel 29er with progressive geometry that makes us feel like much, much better riders than we really are.
Neil Sutton, Head of Sonder, designed the Cortex after speaking to customers who wanted a bike they could ride all day and still take on big trails with confidence. So Neil set about creating a bike for epic days over mixed terrain.
Original launched with 120mm of travel, Cortex now comes with 140mm front and 135mm of rear travel. This is all delivered through a stiff frame and a metric rear shock to give an incredibly plush and endless travel when you need it. You can ride this bike on really big trails and it’s confidence-inspiring, stable and forgiving. Point it uphill and the angles set-in just right to give an efficient pedalling position to climb quickly and easily (depending on how fit you are! Some of us just want a motor.).
It’s consistently the bike we choose for big days out on big trails. Or to be fair, on big days out when we don’t want to feel too fatigued and battered by the terrain.
So while the industry has just come up with the term, we’ve had the bike for it for years!
Here’s what Guy Kesteven has to say about the previous Sonder Cortex with 120mm travel. Spoiler alert: he rather liked it.
Sonder Cortex
Short travel 29er
- SRAM SX Eagle 12-speed groupset
- RockShox Psylo Silver R fork
- RockShox Deluxe Select+ shock
- Sonder Nova 29" UK Made wheelset
£1,599.00
£2,049.00
or from £28 /month
Short travel 29er
- Shimano Deore M6100 12-speed groupset
- RockShox Psylo Silver R fork
- RockShox Deluxe Select+ shock
- Sonder Nova 29" UK Made wheelset
£1,699.00
£2,149.00
or from £30 /month
Short travel 29er
- SRAM NX Eagle 12-speed groupset
- RockShox Psylo Silver R fork
- RockShox Deluxe Select+ shock
- Sonder Nova 29" UK Made wheelset
£1,849.00
£2,349.00
or from £32 /month
Short travel 29er
- SRAM GX Eagle 12-speed groupset
- RockShox Pike fork
- RockShox Deluxe Select+ shock
- Sonder Alpha 29" UK Made wheelset
£2,399.00
£2,999.00
or from £41 /month
Short travel 29er
- Shimano XT M8100 12-speed groupset
- RockShox Pike fork
- RockShox Deluxe Select+ shock
- Sonder Alpha 29" UK Made wheelset
£2,399.00
£2,999.00
or from £41 /month
Short travel 29er
- SRAM GX Eagle Transmission 12 Speed Wireless Groupset
- RockShox Pike fork
- RockShox Deluxe Select+ shock
- Sonder Alpha 29" UK Made wheelset
£2,649.00
£3,349.00
or from £46 /month
Short travel 29er
- SRAM XO Eagle Transmission 12 Speed wireless groupset
- RockShox Pike Ultimate fork
- RockShox Deluxe Ultimate shock
- Sonder Alpha 29" UK Made wheelset
£3,349.00
£4,199.00
or from £58 /month
Mid Travel 29er
- Trail bike geometry
- Rockshox Deluxe Select+ shock
- Horst link suspension design
- Metric shock standard
£1,199.00
£1,599.00
or from £21 /month
- SRAM SX Eagle 12-speed groupset
- RockShox Recon Silver RL fork
- Sonder Nova 29" UK Made wheelset
£1,799.00
or from £31 /month
Your next reads
