Presscamp 2013: New Niner ROS9 and JET9

Niner chose this year’s BikePressCamp to release two new bikes: the revamped, 100mm racy JET9 and the brand new aggressive hardtail; the ROS9. Chipps was there to sample the goods.

Let’s start with the Niner ROS9.

Standing, approximately, for ‘Ride Over Stuff’ the ROS is an aggressive 29er steel hardtail that Niner reckons will be ideal for many riders in the UK. The frame shares many similarities to the SIR (Steel Is Real) frame, including oversize, double-butted frame tubes and minimal seatstay bridge.

Here’s the bike I got a few hours of test-riding on last week.

Nekkid frame

The frame also uses Niner’s Biocentric II eccentric bottom bracket which, along with neat hangerless bolt on dropouts allows for neat singlespeed operation. Even the direct mount front mech mount unbolts to clean the lines. The eccentric also allows even the geared bike to adjust chainstay length and BB height by up to half an inch. This, Niner reckons, really helps bring out the character of this long-legged play-bike. The effective chainstays can be brought in from 423mm to as short as 418mm

There are more burly appointments to the ROS9 too – including a bolt-on MRP bash guard (the eccentric BB shell precludes ISCG tabs to mount a chain guide to). There is a Stealth dropper post port, with a bolt-on blanking plate if you’re not running one and there’s a 142mm bolt-thru axle with those interchangeable dropouts for geared or not. Any and all of the cable guides are removeable if not needed.

There’s a 44mm head tube with external lower cup and the ROS9 will work with a 120mm or 140mm 29er fork. With a 140mm fork, the head angle is 67°. Frame weight is around 6.1lbs. It’ll come in Rally Blue, seen here, or Forge Grey and should be out in September with a frame price of £799.

The EBB and the bolt on mount for an MRP bash-taco

Here’s a good shot of the forged chainstay bridge that allows those short chainstays.

Compact frame and a dropper. A hooligan bike in the making.

There was something called ‘doost’ at PressCamp

44mm headtube with external lower cup.

Very neat dropper routing with blanking plate if you’re not using it.

Swish looking bullet brake mounts are probably not the lightest way of doing it, but they do look nice.

If you don’t have a stealth dropper, you can route the cable under the top tube.

The new Niner JET9

JET apparently doesn’t stand for ‘Just Enough Travel’ but that would be a good way to describe this 100mm racy-fast 29er from the singleminded folks at Niner. The JET has been in the range for a few years now, but has been brought up to date with 142mm dropouts, air-formed tubing (lighter and more accurate than hydroforming apparently) and an increase to 100mm of travel.

Very striking red colour for the Jet9

The bike will work with 100mm or 120mm forks, should be out in early autumn and will cost £1699. It’s distributed by Jungle and you can find out more details on the bike from Niner’s website here.

Niner also makes those neat bottle cap top caps.

Airformed tubing allows more subtle tube shaping with less welded add-ons needed.

We love a bit of 142mm axleness

Just visible is the mount for the low-mount direct front mech. Removed, there’s just a neat pair of bosses.

The frame drops 1/4lb too with all this new tubing even though the travel has increased to 100mm.

Jumbo Elephant Trucking? Jolly Eclectic Transporter?

There’s more info on the ROS9 here and, say, is that an XO1, 11speed option listed? I think it is… More on that in a minute.

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)