An Alpkit/PACT collaboration

Looks pretty good if the prices are real.

Like an aluminium Kingdom Vendetta 2 with a lower bb.

Fresh Goods Friday 253

Liking the tube shapes, bolt-on cable guides, slackness.
I was expecting something a little more ‘bikepacking’, but this could be better as all-purpose hardtail.

Looks great apart from the weird/fugly rear dropout.

Loop stays! Anything that reminds me of a Yeti ARC is good. It’s the first properly nice looking thing that Brant’s designed and despite the fact that I have no need for a hardtail anymore, nor any interest whatsoever in 27.5+, I kinda want one and it’s in “bike to work” realm for next year…

Looks OK for the quoted price but why the squashed top tube? I also don’t like the look of the skinny chainstays entering the fat dropout bit but it’s functional enough. Anyone want to enlighten me as to why bolt on cable guides are so good? They look like a bodge to me.

Looks like a blend of C456, Whippet and a Ti Brodie Holeshot (seat tube brace) in aluminium.

Dropout design brings the rear caliper into the frame, would give more options for rear rack mountings and more protection from damage if you drop it fully laden. Looks like it should be a properly fun adventure bike..

Bolt on cable guides are far superior to internal, for obvious reasons, and they are the easiest way of replacing full length gear outers. And you want full length gear outers, don’t you?

At £300 for a frame, they’ll shift loads of those I reckon. Handsome bike.
Edit; oh, it’s 650b+? Forget what I said.

squashed top tube

It’s more compliant, both to carry and in absorbing bumps from the trail.

Bolt on cable guides are far superior to internal, for obvious reasons

Like? It’s a load more holes in the frame and it looks messy. These (IMO) are much neater.

And you want full length gear outers, don’t you?

Never really found them that much better, prefer them like a road bike with completely exposed runs under the BB, no outer = no friction.

it’s niche, but a niche i may want to scratch in a couple of years if i get bored (doubtful) of my 26″ stanton

These (IMO) are much neater.

Neat until you end up with enough on there for 2x and dropper, but then only run 1x and no dropper.

do the bolt on guides clamp the hose slightly and stop it moving? If they do they might be useful in reducing cable rub. They also seem to hold the cable further away from the frame, not great for looks but can stop mud helping to abrade the frame quicker.

£300? That’s not bad.

my ragley had bolt-on guides, they were shite.

that bike looks ace, i wonder if 29″ wheels would fit? (which is after all, half the point of 650b+)

I like it. Stealth dropper routing too.

I have those cable clamps on my 2Souls QH and they are far preferable to the zip tie routing as they clamp the hose in place away from the frame to a certain degree, however, the rear seatstay guide looks a bit messy in the placement here.

I assume it will be followed up with a Ti version over which there will be much fwappage on here.

Looks nice. Glad the silly seatclamp is getting dropped but otherwise, boat floated. Cable guides are fine but almost all seem to be in the ugliest place possible? And yes, should have bottle cage bolts, yes maybe people will use it with a frame bag often but not always, stupid to take away options imo

thisisnotaspoon – Member

Like? It’s a load more holes in the frame and it looks messy. These (IMO) are much neater.

Provided you have exactly the right number of guides, exactly where the buyer wants them. But when you end up with empty guides, guides on the downtube when you want to route along the toptube, not enough guides, cable ties and baggy cables, all of a sudden they’re ugly as ****.

These ones are pretty hideous tbh just because the locations were picked by throwing darts at a picture of the bike. But done right it’s great.

If there was better availability of bolton guides they’d be a better prospect though. My ragley has 3-hose guides along the top tube, ragley ought to have made 2s and 4s available too, what’s the point of customisability if you can’t customise? This seems the same.

My Singular and Liteville both have bolt on guides.

I think they’re great, particularly as you can change them to hold only the number of cables you want/fit blankers as required.

It looks great to me, and 300 notes should see it sell well considering the price of FF29, Solaris, etc.which are pitching at the 27.5+ bandwagon.
As said above, will this run as 29er also?

Judging by the tyre/seat tube clearance in that top photo I’d have said that 29×2.25 or so should be fine.

These ones are pretty hideous tbh just because the locations were picked by throwing darts at a picture of the bike. But done right it’s great.

If there was better availability of bolton guides they’d be a better prospect though. My ragley has 3-hose guides along the top tube, ragley ought to have made 2s and 4s available too, what’s the point of customisability if you can’t customise? This seems the same.

Didnt the original ragleys have dodgy cable guides too, so hopefully some chance of improvement. Same guides looking at them, so as you say pretty pointless given lack of options available.

Also noted. Production will be BOOST hubs. Kind of a pain given the low price of the frame, trying to get wheels that fit will be difficult given so few options on the market.

As said above, will this run as 29er also?

Should do; not much difference in diameter between a 29er and 650B+

Boost wheels on a £300 frame? I’m out.

Be interesting to see what wheels are on the £800 full build.

The Charge 27+ bikes are running cheap boost hubs on the front (they are boost front on suspension forked models) so they are available to bike companies, just not us. Though don’t doubt you’ll be able to get a crappy hub for a lot of money just rebranded under one of the catalogue companies.

Am I missing something? I assumed this would be a bike camping optimised bike, is it?

I saw this at Cliffhanger in June and it looked good in the metal. However Alpkit had their Ti bike packing prototype there which looked very interesting. The guy from Alpkit said this would come with a steel framed option as well which would obviously be cheaper. The Sonder was intended as a Trail bike. The bike packer was wearing scraper rims with WTB + tyres when I saw it, running rigid with decent clearances and covered in Alpkit’s various bikepacking bag options.
Should be appearing around Autumn time.

The boost thing is a bit annoying, boost is becoming more widely available, I know theres XT hubs in 148 in the new range and I know Novatec have got some in there range soon so probably won’t be long until they are available branded as superstar.

Has nobody made a converter yet ;-)?

If I was in any danger of buying a boost bike, I’d machine up some bodge adaptors and spacers. Easy enough for the front, wee bit more hassle for the back

But instead, I’ve decided that boost can **** off and die.

You would also need to space /bodge your disc brakes as the rotors would not be in the right position if you used non boost hubs.

Yah, easiest part that

But is all that faff worth it on a 300 quid frame?

The Boost cock up is irrelevant anyway – it’ll be beset by the usual On-One, Ragley, Planet X quality issues. Something WILL be wrong with it, £300 is too cheap to guarantee there wont be problems.

OK, I’ll bite, why is boost being used on 27.5+ wheels? I can (just) see some slight point to wider hub spacing on a 29er. Most people seem to agree that stiff wheels are the key to a good feeling 29er and that should be a bit easier with a wider hub spacing. But I’ve not heard anybody complaining that it is hard to make stiff enough 650B wheels. Stick a great big tyre on and surely the stiffness of the wheel itself becomes even less important. So what is the logic behind this move?

I thought it might be something to do with shorter chainstays, but all the boost bikes I’ve seen so far have longer chainstays than some non-boost 29ers, which were already down at 430mm (and surely that is short enough).

Roverpig, as far as I’ve understood the arguments for boost, they are that the extra space offered by boost gets you better chain clearance for the + sized tires (I seem to recall the new Genesis Longitude 27,5+ ‘only’ being able to take a 2.8 tire and not a 3.0 one on the back because it’s sticking with 135mm spacing, apologies if I’m wrong) and that, as you say, you can make the chainstays shorter because the chainring moves out 3mm (even though BB width and Q-factor stay the same), giving you more clearance to move the rear wheel closer to the BB.

Ok, thanks. I guess that makes sense. So nobody is going to try and push these on regular 650b bikes then.

I guess there’s the possibility that the industry might just “standardise” on Boost as it would handle B+, 29er and 29+.

why would they want to standardise? the manufacturers want you to buy a whole bike using the latest standards, then in two years time, buy another one. component manufacturers can go hang, unless either supply oem and handle volume, or are small and nimble enough to adapt.

That’s 2 different things- moving to a new standard satisfies the industry’s desire for churn and forced obsolescence, but leaves them with the irritation of supporting multiple standards. So it’s in their interest to move all bikes to Boost.

(and then once all bikes are on Boost they can make BoostBoost for 29ers because once everything’s equally stiff they can sell “more stiffs” again)