Urban Trail HT 3.9 - Review

The alloy hardtail frame on the UT HT 3.9 is strongly butted and the welds on the tubes are neat. The top tube and bottom tube is joint at the front near the headtube. This bulked portion on the frame is capable of taking in all the hard hitting a trail would offer. The top tube is nicely slanted making way for more stand over clearance for the rider which is much needed on bumpy trails.The Zoom front suspension fork with 5mm of travel worked well during the test ride which had minimal bumps. Some hard drops and bumps won’t be the easiest to roll over with this minimal travel suspension fork.

The UT HT 3.9 is installed with Shimano Tourney derailleurs at the front and rear. These derailleurs are the most basic in the Shimano MTB gearing hierarchy. During the test ride the rear derailleurs worked well going up and down. The front derailleur did show some lag, especially when going down from 3 to 2 and then 1. This was a minimal thing and did not affect the ride quality and speed control much. The shifters were standard trigger type and were easy to use. For the price of this bicycle a minimum of Shimano Altus at both the front and rear as derailleurs is what I expected to see.

This hardtail MTB which I test rode came in a matte finished fluorescent green coloured frame with sky blue graphics. The welds on the edges of tubes were smooth. The slanting top tube was not just useful for the riding posture but also looked good. The front suspension fork, saddle and the rims are all colour coded in blue to match the secondary sky blue colour on the frame.

The Promax mechanical disc brakes on the UT HT 3.9 reacted well during the test ride. Braking when turning, sudden halts and interval braking all felt safe. This balanced pair of disc brakes gives good control of the bicycle for the rider on muddy trails. The brake levers were lengthy and easy to engage using just 3 fingers.The handlebar on this hardtail MTB is perfect for a trail bicycle. The completely flat and lengthy 74mm handlebar gives superior control of the bicycle on flat trails. The 1mm alloy bar ends on both sides of the handlebar give an extra handlebar position to hold on to especially when riding fast on a straighter patch.

As the name suggests the UT HT 3.9 comes with 29 inch MTB tires. The 29” x 2.1” tires were heavily treaded with buttoned rubber treads equally spread all over the tires. These tires perform well on both dry and wet trails with good balance even on fast turns. The stock UT saddle wasn’t the most ergonomic but had enough padding to keep the rider comfortable on rumbling trails. The overall ride quality was comfortable on trails.