The Orange Five is dead. Long live the Orange Five!

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Orange.
It’s the bike that many riders have been expecting. The Orange Five is dead, long live the Orange Five. It’s gone 27.5in. It’s a move that will please some riders who’ve been holding off buying a Five – and it’ll horrify more traditional Orange purists.

How about that apple green colour?
New, lighter shock mounts
New graphics help distract from the different wheel size

The bike gains many of the overall frame improvements first debuted on the Five 29. There’s a longer shock mount, which allows the force to be spread over more of the down tube. This, in turn, allows for a lighter down tube. There’s a new, forged shock link on the swing arm and 142mm dropouts with a thru-axle. Travel remains at 140mm. The apple green bike here will be around £3,000 when it comes out in July.

The Five gets the rounder swingarm with oval cable exit points
The head tube is shorter now to account for an external headset
142mm dropouts - hooray for that!
Prices:
Five S, £2499.99
Five Pro, £2999.99  (The bike above is a Pro with upgraded fork (to a 34 Factory Float from a 32 Performance Float) and shock
Five SE, £4499.99
Frame only:£1499.99
The new Five will be out in July.

 

The bike is proudly 27.5in, but the tyres still reckon it's called 650B. People seem to be settling on 27.5in

 

Over in the corner was another revamped Orange. The Orange Crush now features 27.5in wheels and a similar cockpit feel to the new Five to help riders who have one of each feel more at home. The Crush also gains an E-type bolt-on front mech and a 49mm untapered headtube.

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Orange also has a new marketing guy who seems rather familiar. Oh yes, it’s Sim Mainey who, for eight years has been designing Singletrack.

Short, yet long.
The Orange Crush will be, £1299.99
Frame only: £349.99
It’s also coming out in July.
In case you didn't notice.
The Crush and (to left) the new Alpine, as tested in STW!
Room for tapered, plain, or Anglesets

Geometry:
Five
XS – 14″ Effective TT 560mm
Small – 16″ Effective TT 580mm
Medium – 17″ Effective TT 600mm
Large- 19″ Effective TT 620mm
XL – 21″ Effective TT 640mm

Headangle: 67º

Crush
Small – 16″ Effective TT 590mm
Medium – 17″ Effective TT 605mm
Large- 19″ Effective TT 620mm
XL – 21″ Effective TT 635mm

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Headangle: 67º

 

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Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 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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Replies (25)

    SimonR June 10, 2013 at 12:25 pm

    Might be a daft question but with the extra weight of the 27.5″ wheels on the Five and the Alpine 160 going on a bit of a diet how close do these bikes get in terms of weight? Any ideas?

    hepstanton June 10, 2013 at 3:08 pm

    Damn this industry and its insistence in making things work better. I really wish things would stop progressing and we could just ride old stuff that swaps around really easily.

    flowmtbguy June 10, 2013 at 3:40 pm

    +1 what hepstanton said.

    my fork + frame aren’t compatible with that old set of QR wheels I was keeping for a rainy day.. but the new stuff is better… those old wheels probably don’t have disc compatible hubs. Damn those “marketing” people making our bikes better…

    hodge June 10, 2013 at 6:43 pm

    The latest IMB editorial is worth a read, better than Singletrack’s

    bigrich June 11, 2013 at 4:22 am

    I like how Orange have ticked pretty much every current innovation box. For a small manufacturer they really are keeping up (ahead?) nicely.

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