sea otter, pivot cycles, les, carbon hardtail

New Pivot Cycles LES Hardtail Launched

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sea otter, pivot cycles, les, carbon hardtail
The new LES, in Small to XL sizes, under a fast rider near you soon.

Pivot Cycles has used the Sea Otter Classic race this weekend to launch its new 2016 LES hardtail. Designed as a fast race, training and XC-hooning hardtail, it’s an evolution of the bike that Mike Hall used to race the Tour Divide in 2013 in a bonkers-quick time.

sea otter, pivot cycles, les, carbon hardtail
The LES allows for very neat cable routing (or wires if that’s your thing)
sea otter, pivot cycles, les, carbon hardtail
Boost back end. Get used to it, we’re sorry to say. You can’t move for it here.

For this year, the bare frame has dropped 50g and Pivot reckons that geared bike builds under 20lbs are definitely do-able. Like the Pivot Mach4 (as reviewed in the next issue of Singletrack Magazine) the LES is pretty future-proof with swappable cable ports for either gear cables or Di2 wires. There’s also the same battery hatch on the downtube that will fit a Di2 battery inside.

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sea otter, pivot cycles, les, carbon hardtail
The neat battery port and press-fit BB shell. Scratches, model’s own.

Out back, as they say in Australia, things get interesting with Pivot’s Swinger II dropouts. These can either be set solid with a chip that fills the arc of the adjustable dropout for solid wheel engagement when racing, or a smaller chip swap allows for the chainstay length to be varied to either suit rider preferences or to tension a singlespeed setup. The rear end is now Boost 148mm and the bike is designed for 29in wheels or 27.5+

UK prices remain unchanged at £1600 frame only. Medium and Large frames available to order now through your shop (via distributor Upgrade Bikes). Other sizes expected 4-6 weeks. We hear that team Pivot-Boompods racing will be running a few, and you’ll see the ever-charismatic Rory Hitchens racing one in 27Plus guise at Mountain Mayhem in June…

sea otter, pivot cycles, les, carbon hardtail
The Swinger II dropouts allow for that chain tension adjustment

And now, an inspirational video, of course…

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 22 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.)

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