What a great time to be in the market for a new bike! Last year’s bikes are now in the sales, while 2017 bikes are also hitting stores! The world’s your cycling oyster!
Of all the bikes we have seen over the past few weeks, here are the 10 that really caught our attention. There’s no order of preference to the following, they’re all just bikes that caught our attention.
Intense Recluse
The Recluse is a new name for Intense Cycles, and comes into the lineup as a ballsy trail bike with plenty of punch and plenty of attitude. The Recluse slots in as a new 140mm travel trail bike that’s built around 27.5in wheels. Unlike previous Intense models and some of Intense’ competitors, the Recluse has a dedicated wheelsize, so there’s no swapping around of linkages or forks to make it compatible with plus tyres or any such business like that. So it’s 27.5in only, and there’s only clearance for up to 2.4in wide tyres.
Alchemy Arktos
The Alchemy Artkos is equipped with 150mm of rear suspension travel, and is capable of fitting a 150-160mm travel fork on the front. It’s a long travel All Mountain bike that’s equipped with all the mod cons for those who like their trails steep, technical and fast.
Identiti Mettle
The love child of Pat Campbell-Jenner and Michael Bonney, the Identiti Mettle took 3 years of research and development to reach the (near) production ready status we see here. Frame features include ISCG 05 chain guide tabs, threaded bottom bracket, Syntace rear axle, “modern” sizing, Boost rear end and metric suspension. Looking over the geometry chart we see a suitably slack 65-degree head angle, nicely stretched out 648mm top-tube (on the large size) and a wheelbase of up to 1247mm!
Production Privee Shan GT
Production Privée have been clever to design the Shan GT to accept either 29-inch wheels (up to 2.5-inches), or 27.5-inch Plus size wheels (up to 2.8-inch). Meaning you can have your large radius cake and eat it. Even with the bigger wheels, the Shan GT retains a short chainstay (just 427mm) and PP’s own KTP flex system for improved grip and comfort.
Commencal Meta TR V4.2
The Commencal Meta TR V4.2 is the second generation trail bike from Commencal and uses the company’s updated V4 platform. The new frame sees the adoption of Boost rear wheel spacing and adds an extra half degree of slackness to the headtube. Like similar bikes, Commencal has opted for a shorter travel 130mm chassis while retaining aggressive numbers.
Cavalerie Anakin
Hailing from Lyon in France, Cavalerie is a small-time frame builder that didn’t originally begin as a frame building company. In fact, the company’s first product was actually a gearbox; the Effigear. The Cavalerie Anakin is a 160mm travel enduro bike built around the 9-speed Effigear internal transmission. It features a belt drive, a single-pivot suspension design and like the gearbox, is 100% made in France.
Radon Jealous
The Jealous is built around a seriously lightweight carbon frame that is claimed to weigh just 890 grams. Radon has used T1100 high modulus carbon fibers to offer a very high stiffness-to-weight ratio. It’s a bike that is made to race hard while being as lightweight as possible, in fact, the bike we saw on display weighed an astonishing 7.57kg. You can learn more about the Radon Jealous from our Cycle Show coverage.
Zerode Taniwha
Marketed as an enduro bike, the Taniwha uses a more conventional frame and suspension layout than the Zerode downhill bike, and it features 160mm of travel. Like the G27.5 downhill bike, Zerode has built the Taniwha around an internal gearbox rather than relying on a traditional derailleur setup like 99% of mountain bikes on the market. Zerode is using a 12-speed Pinion gearbox, which is mounted in the center of the frame around the bottom bracket.
BMC E-bike Concept
There’s no doubt in our minds that E-bikes are here to stay, and judging by this concept from BMC it is going to be harder to tell them apart from ‘regular’ bikes in the future too. The bike BMC had on show at Eurobike was a 3D printed concept, but a bike like it could be put into production as early as next year. Note the clever choice of background colour to hide the bulging battery pack.
Pole Evolink 140
Did you know that Pole offers some of the longest bikes on the market? Also, they’re a Finnish brand (despite what the name might suggest) and their Evolink 140 bike has a very interesting party trick! It can fold! Pole didn’t purposely design the bike to fold instead, it’s an interesting byproduct of the suspension set-up. Pole also have a longer travel Evolink 176 DH bike too.
So those are the 10 bikes we will be keeping an eye on for 2017 (with more to come). Which bikes have peaked your interest for the coming year? Let us know in the comments below.