Sea Otter 2015: new Turner – but what’s hidden?

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David Turner is always good to catch up with at the Sea Otter. He’s always ready with a comment on bikes, current trends, manufacturing (in the US and in China) and the sport in general. So we grabbed a chat and a few bikes from his trailer to showcase. We’ve already got a carbon Turner Czar in on test, so let’s collect the rest of the set, then.

First up is the existing Turner Sultan. David and crew were playing around with the new 27.5+ size wheels and discovered that there was so much much clearance (yay!) built into the trail 29er that 27.5in+ wheels and tyres fit right in. And it doesn’t look too much like a freakshow. Although you may have a different opinion…

The Sultan of Chub
Will this be year of the cartoon bike?
Still a fair amount of seatstay room

Look away now if you’re nervous of skinnier wheels. Here is the Turner Cyclosis. Mostly done so that the ‘cross keen riders at Turner (including DT himself) could have a bike to race on. It’s a race-geometry disc ‘cross bike with very neat internal cabling.

They’ll probably be too expensive to bring in, but call Silverfish if you’re keen on one.

Looking slightly similar to the previous Sultan with chubby wheels, here is the ‘proper’ suspension fat bike from Turner, the King Khan. It’s a 125mm travel fat bike ready for, well, whatever you want to roll over, really…

Well, at least it’s a 26in, right?
At least 1x shifting has caught up with the fat bike, so no front mechs allowed, or needed here

Now, let’s look at the classic Turner Burner – version 3. But wait, there’s been some fiddling… this is indeed the Burner 3.1 and there are a couple of interesting changes to Turner’s classic trail bike.

The Turner Burner 3.1 is said to be ‘meaner looking’ and has a bit more tube shaping than Burners of old. Still 27.5in+ and still made in the USA. There’s a brand new Turner/FSA collaboration headset up front. The head tube tapers from 49-62mm which allows a choice of headset angle cups to be installed (from 0.5° to 1.5°) while still offering a zero stack internal headset with a tapered fork, for the lowest front end possible. The seat tube has been shortened too so that the frame is lower for the same size (allowing dropper posts in there). If you’re between sizes, Turner recommends going UP a size and down in stem length. Our Matt Letch will be very happy with that advice. This will also allow riders to go to a 125mm dropper over a 100mm if they’re already set on a size.

 

The Burner comes in this rad looking small size too. Note the apparent lack of headset.

 

Dot on the side of the head tube is for a (missing today) cable guide.
No internal brake hose and cable routing here.

And while, when pressed, Mr Turner admits that he “would so love to awesome the world with a carbon RFX” it doesn’t seem likely. For now anyway.

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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