Renowned for its forward-thinking approach to bike design, British brand Whyte has been on a bit of a mission of late to launch new bikes and tech. JD reviewed the whyte Kado RSX in the summer and reckoned it was one of the best electric mountain bikes of 2025: And we’ve also seen new versions of the award-winning E-Lyte Evo crop up over the past few months. Whyte’s regular pedal powered bikes haven’t been left out though it seems, there’s a new range of hardtails called the Secta that replaces the old 900-series bikes of old with a more stripped back and simplified approach. Whyte Secta RS need to know Secta is Whyte’s new aluminium hardtail range This RS model here is the priciest of two 29-er wheeled bikes and comes with a 130mm travel RockShox Psylo Gold fork Secta also comes in two 26in, youth-sized, versions for kids or smaller riders Modern hardtail geometry takes its cues from Whyte’s successful 900-series hardtails and carries over those bikes’ ultra-low bottom bracket heights There are two 29-in wheeled adult versions and an incredibly-priced 26in wheeled youth version that is going to be on a lot of parents’ radars at just £649. – Short of time? Click here to skip to the verdict – This top-of-the-line Whyte Secta RS here is just under £1.5k, and the S model is £400 less with a RockShox Rekon fork, Shimano Cues drivetrain and Tektro brakes. With Secta, Whyte is no longer offering a more high-end hardtail, instead recognising that bikes like this are more likely to be an entry-level or second bike in today’s world with more choice and competition for rider cash than ever across e-bikes, full suspension rigs and rigid models. That means it’s byebye to the brilliant Whyte 909 X Enduro, one of the best hardtail mountain bikes we’ve ever ridden. The Secta geometry and attitude still appears to borrow a lot of knowledge and design tech from Whyte’s previous hardtails though, and that can only be a positive. The brand practically invented aggressive, slack angles and super low bottom brackets in this genre. The Secta kit list is very well considered too and offers competitive pricing with sorted gear on this RS version for just under £1,500; impressive when many rivals are offering this kind of kit on trail hardtails for around £2,000. Frame Like all the brand’s award-winning hardtails for the last decade or so, the Secta uses a hydroformed frame sculpted from T6 aluminium. The front triangle uses better quality materials and construction processes and the whole thing is heat treated and guaranteed for life. The Secta is sensibly designed around a 130mm travel fork. I’ve always found hardtails with more travel than this end up feeling unsettled as the head angle steepens excessively when longer travel forks compress. A tapered, zero-stack, headtube at a beefy welded junction carries a quality RockShox fork and kicks it out at 63.5°. Further back, there’s a 76° seat tube that steepens as …Continue reading »

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