We touched on the Sick Bicycles Sleipnir a few months back in our post about the DFA Titanium full bounce bike spotted at Fort William. Today the 180mm enduro bike edges closer to production with a, so far, successful Indiegogo campaign that has secured 70% funding in just a few hours.
In true Sick Bicycles style, the Sleipnir looks nothing like anything on the market today, it actually looks like a bike from the 90’s reimagined with modern geometry and a Pinion gearbox.
With an on-trend high single pivot placement, 180mm of travel front and rear, 29in wheels and a gearbox, the Sleipnir sounds like it could be designated for the downhill World Cup circuit, but Sick has actually designed this bike to be a new-breed Enduro smasher.
As we’ve seen on downhill bikes from Commencal, Norco and GT, a high-pivot promises a super active rear end, while the use of an idler should isolate suspension action from the pedals. The idea being that this 180mm travel monster should truck down aggressive downhill courses with ease, then pedal back up again, perfect for modern EWS stages.
Not everyone needs a monster truck of bike though, which is fine as the Sleipnir isn’t designed to be for everyone but rather racers who want a beast of a bike that will handle anything that they throw at it;
“We didn’t design a trail bike, we didn’t design a bike for the masses. This is for the brave, foolhardy and insane. Not a weekend warrior.”
The use of a gearbox along with a single pivot design means that services should be few and far between, and with fewer moving parts wobbling all over the show it should be quiet on the trail too.
In keeping with the radical design of the bike, Sick is being quite radical when it comes to spare parts and components for the Sleipnir too. Items that need to be changed or are likely to take a beating will all be open source, meaning Sick will host the blueprints for items like the idler hanger allowing third-party manufacturers to produce them or even let customers make their own.
If you’re worried about future proofing and standards, then Sick Bicycles has you covered there too. The bike uses off the shelf parts for the headset, a standard 31.6mm seat post and even the rear hub is a none boost 142mm unit.
On top of all this, an aftermarket cradle will also be offered in case customers choose they want to move away from the Pinon gearbox unit to a BB73 and standard drivetrain.
If you feel that your riding warrants a 180mm travel monster and you’re after something completely different head on over to the Sick Bicycles Sleipnir Indiegogo page where you can pick of a chassis from £2490 over £1000 less than the RRP. A complete bike will set you back between £5799 – £10,000.
Tell us what you think of this radical UK made bike in the comments section below.
Comments (12)
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Is there any higher accolade than to be called ‘too cool’ ?
Mountain biking is cool.
It’s not all flat caps real ale and bovril.
Amazing that people can still find something to moan about.
Good looking frame, great to see small bike co’s are the ones pushing on, and making more radical designs
looking at the Indigogo site, 2 people have pledged to buy frames. Forgive me for not steaming in to beat the hordes of others trying to get one…
^^^^ proof, still the biggest dick on STW^^^^
That your nomination for the reader awards Phil? Not sure there’s a category for that xx
I didnt think crowd-funding sites allowed campaigns to go ahead that didnt feature a functional prototype?
From what I can see this frame has never been made before, even in prototype form – Those are some brave customers willing to drop £3k on a frame that has never existed in the real-world. Just how many revisions does the average prototype go through (following destructive and real-world testing) I wonder from big brands, and thats with massive resources.
Its an intersting looking frame, I like it, using the customer for product testing isnt sensible though, this should have seen the real-world for a few months at least just to make sure everything works as it should and get any small revisions out of the way, I mean what if heat-treat doesnt go as planned etc?
All the best with it to the Sick guys but knowing manufacturing this plan looks dangerous.
£3k !!!? Blimey I only came to view the sick comments to find out that I’d prefer a Nicolai
You would have thought that when using a computer image they could have sorted the quality of the paint job out.
Looks awesome!
I’m 50/50 just cause that red ano paintjob would be sick as…
I also Hammerited my BMX sometime around 1989 🙂
I really like some of what these guys are doing, but would not stick that much cash in a kickstarter thing.
Also love the idea of a Pinion, but the slow pickup is the only think putting me off. I’ve ridden Rohloff on a MTB for years and it has a lot of positive qualities but I grew to hate the slow pickup over time.
for that price a nicolai ion with the pinion gearbox seems to be the much better option.
At least they are experienced with frame building and using gearboxes.
Moreover, they – as a german company – seem to be more trustworthy than this start up