Swiss company, Bold, was showing off its latest trail bike at this year’s Sea Otter. Featuring 170mm (or 180) travel up front and 165mm rear travel, so far so normal, but what sets these frames apart is the concealed rear shock, which leaves a very neat looking frame with a hidden shock that’s protected from the elements.
Bold has previously shown a 130mm 29er/27.5plus bike, but the new Unplugged has taken that nipper, lighter design and beefed it up and slackened it out to be more in keeping with modern geometry. Travel is now 165mm rear and 170mm or even 180mm up front. The rear shock is integrated inside the seat tube and Bold reckons that there’s even room for coils and piggyback shocks in there.
Is this a 27.5mm or a 29er? Bold reckons it does both and it offers a pair of flippable rear pivot chips that change the chainstay length.
Having a hidden internal shock is no good if it takes you half an hour of unbolting things to be able to change your rebound by a click, so Bold has made a ‘thumbwheel and magnet’ access plate that comes off in seconds, revealing the business end of the trunnion-mounted shock.
Perhaps surprisingly for a longer travel bike, the Unplugged features a remote rear shock lockout, actuated by RockShox’ super neat new twist lever. Twist to lock and press the RockShox logo button to release.
Out back, the bike features adjustable chainstays, which allows the fitting of different wheels. The bike can be configured to run with 27.5in x 2.4-2.6in tyres or 29in x 2.4-2.6in tyres.
The two different flip chips can change the BB height by up 20mm. And there’s more adjustment at the headset too.
At the headset end, Bold has had some custom bearings made that offer a 2° difference to the head tube angle. By using a custom bearing that can only fit in one of two positions, any vagueness in getting the right angle is eliminated.
The bike also features an integrated KS dropper post (which can be removed if you want to run a longer post). The integrated post offers 125mm drop for the medium frame and 150mm drop for the large size frame. Or you can run your own dropper which will probably offer more drop, making the integration one more for aesthetes who want the clean lines to extend to every component.
The bike will be offered in a couple of different specs, still to be finalised, but will come in at roughly SFR5200 for an XT or GX spec, weighing around 12.5kg, which is an impressively light weight for the travel.
For more travel, see boldcycles.com
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No. Cables routed under the bottom bracket are awful and can never be classed as neat.
That cover plate looks a bit vulnerable to rock strike and you can’t really zip tie a bit of old tyre around it. Clearances don’t look brilliant either. Mud proof the shock but not the frame. Think I’m out.
I’ve never come across Bold bikes before but if this rides as well as it looks i’m sure i’ll be seeing a lot of them out on the trails soon. And a completely selfless act i’m willing to undertake uk test riding for Bold to see how their bikes stand up the rigours of uk riding…