Eurobike 2016: Salsa Cycles Versatile Woodsmoke 29/27.5+/29+

Salsa Cycles aren’t afraid to throw oddball concepts out into the cycling world, and in a way that is often also performed to perfect by Surly, Salsa does have a habit of creating its own niches. One bike that we’ll be interested to see if it catches on or not is their latest carbon hardtail: the Woodsmoke.

The Woodsmoke is a unique looking bike with an elevated chainstay design.

Carbon fibre headtube with a lovely hourglass shape.

Who doesn’t love woodsmoked edible things?

Press-fit bottom bracket shell that’s about to be swallowed up by that enormous rear tyre – the clearance on the back of that seat tube is SNUG!

So the whole concept with the Woodsmoke was to build a big-wheel trail hardtail with super short chainstays. To do that, Salsa elevated the driveside chainstay above the chain. That way they can tuck the rear wheel right into the BB junction, without having to worry about a pesky chainstay yoke to worry about.

It looks odd, but it offers heaps of versatility via the Alternator dropouts. You can adjust the dropout position to suit regular 29in wheels, 27.5+ wheels, or even 29+ wheels. Or, just just use the adjustable chainstay length to run the Woodsmoke singlespeed – how’s that for versatility!

Simple integrated tensioner offers adjustable chainline with the Woodsmoke frame, while also adjusting BB height to keep the geometry stable when swapping wheels around.

There’s a white one too. Note the inside paintjob on the rear triangle.

We recently reviewed the Salsa Pony Rustler plus bike, but it still looks ridiculously beefy with its 3.0in wide rubber, so we took another photo of it.

With all the obsession over plus bikes at the moment, we almost forgot that Salsa offer one of the only full suspension fat bikes on the market: the Bucksaw. Reckon we should test one of these?