Bike Place 2016 – Niner, BOS, Wickens and Soderstrom

It’s probable you’ve seen some of the news coming from SantaCruz today, but what about the other stuff that’s brought in by SC distributors Jungle?

Niner RKT9

First up is the carbon Niner RKT9, which is an unapologetic head-down speed machine:
It’s blessed with 90mm of travel from Niner’s distinctive back end; angles and lengths are built for Going Fast. It’s optimised for 100m forks, but it’ll also work with 120mm for a more trail-y feel. Stiffness is increased by going for a Boost back end. Looks quick to us.

It’s available as a frame only for £2,899; full builds start at £4,200 and go up from there.

BOS

Jungle had a couple of interesting BOS things on their stand; first up is the Deville, which now comes with an FCV valve – which stands for Frequency Control Valve. Basically it alters the feel of the fork on the fly, and means a more buttery feel with less nose-diving. They’ve also re-vamped the crown, lowers, damping and the air spring. So quite a few changes, then…

The Deville FCV (160mm of travel) is available for 27.5 only at £1,000.

The similar looking but everso slightly lower-spec Deville TRC is now available in 140, 150 and 160mm of travel for £850.

All the forks now come with a shock pump, spare seals, spare oil and a seal remover tool, too. Which is something we’d like to see other manufacturers take up, too…

Wickens and Soderstrom

Wickens and Soderstrom have what looks like an empty bottle of bike cleaner – but it’s just very, very concentrated. You add the water yourself. Saves on transport costs and is therefore better to the environment, an that. Nice.

More details of all of this stuff can be found on Jungle’s site here

Barney Marsh

Barney Marsh takes the word ‘career’ literally, veering wildly across the road of his life, as thoroughly in control as a goldfish on the dashboard of a motorhome. He’s been, with varying degrees of success, a scientist, teacher, shop assistant, binman and, for one memorable day, a hospital laundry worker. These days, he’s a dad, husband, guitarist, and writer, also with varying degrees of success. He sometimes takes photographs. Some of them are acceptable. Occasionally he rides bikes to cast the rest of his life into sharp relief. Or just to ride through puddles. Sometimes he writes about them. Bikes, not puddles. He is a writer of rongs, a stealer of souls and a polisher of turds. He isn’t nearly as clever or as funny as he thinks he is.