Transition Bikes 2018 Sneak Preview

Not so long back, Transition revealed a new bike, the long travel 29er Sentinel, when announcing Speed Balanced Geometry (which is basically using shorter fork offsets in combination with a few other geometry tweaks to change bike handling). In a new video, along with the Sentinel, they’re teasing a complete relaunch of several of their existing full suspension bikes, including the Smuggler, Scout, and Patrol. Just like the Sentinel in the video linked above, and as indicated by the “SBG” alongside each in the video below, they all appear to be running fork crowns with short offsets.

Skip to 2:50 in this video if you’re not fussed about the cowboy parody and just want to see the riding:
https://vimeo.com/230078670
(No video? Try this link).

Here’s what we’ve eked out of the snapshots they’ve revealed so far: These are pretty fancy builds, and we imagine there will be some more wallet-sparing options to come. All are Fox suspension equipped and all with similar linkages, but with shocks on the shorter travel Smuggler and Scout using more traditional looking eyelet mounts; the Sentinel and Patrol have more compact trunnion mount ones. All are also shown with Fox Performance Elite forks, which means boost spacing, black anodised stanchions and FIT4 dampers. The four builds in the video are all running eThirteen wheels, SRAM XO1 Eagle drivetrains, and Rockshox Reverb seatposts.

Brakes are also SRAM, though unfortunately far too distant from the camera for us to see whether they’re Code, Guide or Level, no matter how much we screamed “ENHANCE!” at our computers.

The frames all appear to be aluminium and quite similar in design, but so far the Sentinel is the only one they’ve released any geometry numbers for (see below). We’ll be speaking to Transition at Eurobike next week, and will get you the low down on everything they’re showing, along with UK pricing if it’s been decided yet.