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

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…

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.

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…

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.

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.