Sea Otter 2013: Scott’s 27.5in Scale Hardtail

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Nino Schurter took the world by storm at the first UCI World Cup race last year by winning it on a 27.5in hardtail. He also rode one, to second place at the Olympics.

Scott, which has a whole lot of 27.5in stuff in the works for 2014 decided to sneak this bike out for the Sea Otter. It’s a Scott Scale 27.5in carbon (or ally) hardtail and it’ll be produced in limited numbers and when they’re gone, they’re gone. (For now.)

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The bike will come in a 710 an a 740 level version (around £2400 or £4300). The bike features Scott’s easy to use lockout lever for the compatible Fox fork. It also features 15mm thru axle front and 142 x 12mm rear, like an increasing number of XC bikes are doing. If you have other wheels (though it’s unlikely you have existing 27.5in race wheels…) there’s a 135mm QR and 135mm x 12mm versions too.

Wheels obviously are the middle size. Scott was the first big manufacturer to get behind the new standard (and I guess it is a new standard now, seeing as everyone’s doing it, but at the time, Scott was kind of out on its own for a while) and the bike is pretty much the sub kilo frame that Nino was racing.

Scott's lockout lever. Way neater than Fox's own. Sorry guys!

 

Simple lockout arrangement uses Scott's RideLoc switch

 

Nice matt/gloss raw and paint finish.

 

Bolt on front mechs. Again, increasingly popular.

 

Daylight! Pretty good clearance.

 

Internal gears, external brake hose. As we like it.

 

142 x 12mm back end.

 

Slim stays

 

Neat moulded cable lugs.

 

 

This is the 710 version of the bike. The 740 has an aluminium frame and slightly less flash components.

 

We've already called the Apostrophe Police.
The Scale 27.5in should be out very soon in Small to XL sizes

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.)

More posts from Chipps

Comments (5)

    Looks awesome!
    How come internal gear cables are popular again, when in the past they were always gritty and stiff as buggery?
    I had 2 Kleins and the gears never ran smooth. (Looked tidy, though!)

    Beautiful finish on the frame… Not convinced by 27.5 though. I’ve only just started riding a 29er!

    having both 29er and 650b, the latter is more akin to the 26″ bikes, definately better handling, althought the 29ers have got better from the early ones I tried. Straight out of the box you get the slightly larger wheel, but without the sacrifice to handling or riding position, it definately doesn’t feel like you’re sat on a gate like you can do with the 29ers

    That colour scheme has gone right back to the original Scale design, which is great as my 1st gen frame now looks cutting edge!

    If I raced XC that’d be near the top of my wish list. Thankfully for my bank balance I don’t

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