There are always people that bag the AMB tests when one of their own products gets a bad score. Can i ask have you actually ridden a mongoose?
And how will the Giant end up costing as much as a Lahar in the long run?
I agree with NSM actually... they were highly critical of the pedalling (said it pedalled like it had a flat tyre through sand or something?) which was just stupid. There is some noticeable drag from the gearbox but it's not a big deal whatsoever. The rest of the review sounded extremely similar to the only other ride report I've ever seen published of that same bike... like they'd read it and decided to just summarily rewrite it rather than come up with descriptions of their own.
Personally, having actually ridden 4 of the 7 bikes on test in AMB (including the Lahar), I thought their comparison was pretty shit (though that's just my own opinion and obviously that isn't going to just override what anyone else happens to think of a bike), and as usual they spent too little time describing ride characteristics and most of the time wanking on about irrelevant shit like how rare the bikes are. That diagonal-line comparison is also retarded, because they say stuff like "The GT strikes a happy medium - sensational value for money but gives up nothing in performance, which is why it earns the highest rating here" (it got 9 out of 10), then go and compare that rating (which takes into account value for money remember)... against PRICE. Uh... wasn't the whole point to compare PERFORMANCE against price, thus DETERMINING the value for money?
Oh yeah and the test coordinator also happened to import one of the bikes on test... at least they were honest enough to include a note about it, but seriously as if he's ever gonna publicly trash a bike he sells (no slight on Mr Southwood personally - nobody would say negative stuff in public about something they were selling). Why not just avoid that situation? That kind of crap is just unprofessional. You don't see the Holden CEO writing reviews for Wheels magazine.
What was also pretty funny was that they said the EC-D has "outstanding, spritely pedaling ability" then later that same issue, criticised a much shorter travel enduro bike using THE SAME LINKAGE as being inefficient and relying on the shock for pedaling performance. Credibility pretty much gone by now.