From: www.hammooncycles.com
Tested: Two months
RRP: £1240.00 for frame
Hammoon is a few guys trying to make their dream come true and – if you’re in the market for a handmade-in-the-UK hardtail – yours as well. We interviewed Will from Hammoon a while back and we’ve finally got some riding time on their trail hardtail, the Longhorn.
The Longhorn is their interpretation of a “hardcore hardtail” as well as a showcase of what they can do.
The Detail
Hammoon describe this bike as a “ride everywhere trail bike”. It came equipped with travel adjustable RockShox Revelations to flick between 120mm for the flats and climbs or popped up to 150mm for going down the steep stuff.
It comes with a 68 degree head angle, a relatively high 13in BB (measured with fork at full extension) and a 22.5in effective top tube.
In terms of construction there’s a lot going on for a “simple” steel hardtail.
It’s one of the first of the “new generation” 44mm headtubes that we’ve seen. Depending on headsets you can run 1 1/8th, tapered or 1.5in steerer forks.
Bottom bracket is the BB30 standard. As such it can accommodate all of the vagaries of BB sizes. It also comes with an ISCG-05 mount.
Dropouts are interchangeable between QR/12mm thru and even 142 mm.
It’s a slightly surprising frame considering some of the stereotypes that there are of steel bikes (retro, luddite, hair-lice-hessian sack). The Hammoon is in many ways just as up-to-date as a lot of full suspension bikes. The seat tube for instance is actually a Reynolds top tube from a road bike. Why? It’s 31.6 and it means you can run a modern uppy-downy seatpost inside it.
There’s load of lovely attention to detail from massive mud clearance…
Hamoon “H” reinforced seat tube split for the clamp…
Nicely OTT but pretty bottle boss reinforcements (using the “H” motif as well)…
The Ride
First things first, I’ve been riding a full susser a lot. I haven’t really ridden a hardtail in anger for a while.
Uphill it certainly felt light and springy, especially up fireroad climbs. But it did feel quite high and upright though. That may be due to me being usually mostly squelching uphill, most of the time ensconced in the first 30% of sag on my full suspension bike.
Downhill it was the cliche’d “pick a line give it a squirt of power”. It was nice having absolutely instant power. Off you go! More cliches: it’s more of a paring knife than a meat cleaver.
It is a blast on smooth singletrack. Great for covering miles on such stuff as well.
In many ways, though, a review of how the “build-it-how-you-want-it” Hammoon rides is sort of pointless(!)
If I was ordering one I’d have a longer top-tube, a slacker head-angle and a lower BB. This customisation is kind of the point – Hammoon can make the bike that you want.
Video funtimes here yes – http://www.vimeo.com/21033312
Overall: The Longhorn is in many ways a showcase of what these guys can do. And they can clearly make beautiful steel bikes.
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looks good (apart from the decals) and has a lot of the features I’d spec if I was building a hardcore hardtail. One question though, if it’s UK designed and built why not a front facing seat tube split?
Matt – what shirt you wearing? Bike specific? Been wanting something like that for ages.
Matt’s shirt is one of the new lightweight, smart riding shirts from Scott Sports.
http://www.scott-sports.com/gb_en/product/10435/55253/218512
Cheers Chipps
The bottle bosses look pinched from a P7 🙂
DaveyBoy shirt should be reviewed this week ;]
is that price right?
Does anyone *really* have that many problems arising from rear facing seat tube splits? Can’t say it’s something that’s ever caused me a problem. I should perhaps point out that I’m not a frequent seat post fiddler, nor do I feel the need for uppy-downy posts…
1240 Lira?
it’s not April 1st yet, is it?
£1240???
ditto.. £1240?
crikey – that is the price on the Hammoon website! Seems quite high for a new company. The equivalent Curtis (with custom options too) is about £400 cheaper. Or a Cotic / Genesis / On-one / Ragley for nearly a grand cheaper. Crumbs.
I would be well interested in a UK designed/built steel hard tail to replace my too short P7 but not for that price, a yeti 575 frame can be had for not much more! I would say £800 is the price point for custom steel £1275 is more your Ti bracket.
1thousand how much? What is their dream exactly?