New! Niner’s New Rocket RKT race bike launches

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Niner introduces its new no-compromise cross country race bike with the sentence “Victory Favors the Equipped” – going on to say “the RKT 9 RDO is made to fly. Our completely new frame design will have you rethinking what is possible on a short-travel, race-ready full suspension 29er.”

It has multiple Leadville (and other hard-arse events) champion, Rebecca Rusch on board too. She says:

“I’ve been a disciple of the 29er movement since my first Leadville win in 2009. I’ve been sold on the wheel size since my first 29er ride. What’s different now is how the technology has evolved and radically improved the 29er ride. This new Niner blows me away. When I think of a cross country or endurance race bike, first I think “light”. Next I think, “twitchy”. My experience with super light race bikes has always involved compromise. If I wanted light, I had to give up handling. If I wanted confident handling, I had to accept more heft. I dreamed of a light race bike that could also be confidence inspiring, solid and super fun! It seems my dreams have been answered.”

Can you say ‘Ga-naaarrrr!’?

The bike offers 90mm of CVA rear suspension and it’s optimised for 100mm, though it’ll work with 120mm forks too.

 

Special people get the stars and stripes paint job

 

Designed to still cope with ‘modern’ XC racing over the gnar

The bike offers a 73mm PF BB ‘which provides compatibility with the latest 1x and more conventional multiple ring drivetrain configurations and can be adapted to a threaded bottom bracket via adaptors.”

Frame sizes medium and larger have water bottle mounts on both the underside of the down tube and within the front triangle “allowing for ample hydration during longer marathon-style endurance events” and there are clear protective decals on the frame to protect from rock strikes.

Looks pretty purposeful from here. Frame only will be £2899

The RKT is the first Niner to feature Boost 148mm x 12mm rear spacing and has clearance for up to 2.4in tyres. This feature allows for a wider spoke interface and an overall stiffer wheel and swingarm combo.

 

Just hanging out in Leadville, OK?

 

Here’s how a built-up machine looks in the grellow decal option

Frame only pricing is an eyebrow-raising £2899 UK rrp – complete bikes starting at £4199 rrp. The first batch of frames are due with importers, Jungle in the next week or so.

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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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Comments (7)

    The old Yeti lawwill 6’s were £3,000 back in the 90’s so it’s far from the most expensive ever… Bloody spendy though

    ‘Most expensive bike we’ve seen in recent times’, then? 🙂

    Oooooh, this I like. Team bike next year maybe? Hopefully I can persuade Jungle to swap the ‘orrible RSIs for some BOS forks.

    Yeti SB6c, the Singletrack award winnging frame no less, is £200 more… And until recently many Santa Cruz’s were more expensive too…

    Granted, for an XC FS frame it’s top dollar, but theres plenty more spendy bikes out there.

    My current bike frame is still available new and retails for £3250. Not a gram of carbon in it either! Might be slightly cheating though as its designed for two people….

    Nice bash guard

    All of the bike frames mentioned so far are mere chump change compared to the world’s most expensive frame which I think was made by American in the mid 90’s out of Beryllium.

    It cost $30,000 back then so would be pushing close to $100K now – unfortunately it was displayed at a trade show and stolen overnight!

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