lone bikes parabellum first look

First Look: Lone Bicycles Parabellum

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After over a year of waiting we finally get hold of a Lone Bicycles Parabellum for some winter shredding.

Cast your minds back to Eurobike, no not Eurobike 2019 but 2018, and you will probably remember a bicycle from a French brand that showed off a clever bike design that allowed the BB to be raised and lowered so that you can choose to run either 27.5in or 29in wheels.

Lone Bicycles Parabellum
Funky French ride with bright green boing!
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That bike originally called the Beretta due to the look of the CNC machined eccentric bottom bracket, is the brainchild of French mountain biker Romain Olmos, the same clever mind behind the HXR Easyshift chainset.

Since our first introduction to Lone Bicycles, their first bike has had a name change to the Parabellum, but the design and unique features remain untouched, and now the bike is on sale and available to order.

When designing the Parabellum, Romain found himself at a point where the industry seemed to be adopting new standards faster than the change in UK weather conditions so to combat this he designed his bike to “f@$k all standards”.

So if you decided to buy a frame alone you can use a metric shock or an imperial shock. You can run 27.5in wheels or 29in wheels, and if you find that the wheels you have aren’t Boost you don’t have to worry as HXR, Romain’s component company, makes Boost adapters for standard wheels.

If this wasn’t all refreshing enough then you might want to take a look at that bottom bracket area.

The first thing that you’ll notice is that the rear suspension rotates around the BB. In theory, this would mean there isn’t any chain growth and you could potentially build the Parabellum as a single speed.

Lone Bicycles Parabellum Geo.

But look again and you see that the BB is mounted in an eccentric CNC alloy component like those found on a tandem. Whereas on a tandem the eccentric BB is designed for adjusting chain tension, on the Parabellum it’s here so that the BB height can be adjusted.

This means you can adjust the BB if you switch from 27.5in to 29er wheels without radically changing the geometry, OR, you could fine-tune the geo to just how you like your bike with just a few twists and turns.

As well as adjustments to the BB height, the Lone Parabellum has sliding dropouts for chainstay length adjustment, and as mentioned above you can run either a metric or imperial rear shock and that changes rear suspension travel from 159mm to 163mm.

Lone Bicycles Parabellum
It’s a mullet don’t you know.

If you look at the Parabellum we have to test you should have noticed that our bike is in a mullet mode, with a 27.5in rear wheel and a 29in front wheel. That’s just how versatile this frame can be, but for a well-rounded review, Lone has sent over a complete set of 29in and 27.5in wheels to fit to the bike so that we can test it with matched and mismatched wheels too.

Speaking of the build, we’ve been treated to DVO suspension front and rear, Mavic wheels, Schwalbe tyres, and an HXR Easyshift chainset. We’ve tested the Easyshift in the past, it basically features a freewheel on the crank arm so that the chainring spins instead of the cassette while coasting. The pawls in the hub are replaced with solid parts to prevent the cassette turning, an upgrade that Mavic does allow and won’t void your warranty for. With this configuration you’re able to change gear without pedalling, pretty cool don’t you think?

More unique components come from BOX for the rear mech and shifter. Magura provide MT7 brakes, Production Privee the stem and the bar is another HXR own component.

We’re pretty excited to test the Lone Bicycles Parabellum and will be hitting the dirt on this French Fancy in the coming days, but if you have any questions about this bike feel free to ask in the comments below or visit the Lone Bicycles website here.

Andi is a gadget guru and mountain biker who has lived and ridden bikes in China and Spain before settling down in the Peak District to become Singletrack's social media expert. He is definitely more big travel fun than XC sufferer but his bike collection does include some rare hardtails - He's a collector and curator as well as a rider. Theory and practice in perfect balance with his inner chi, or something. As well as living life based on what he last read in a fortune cookie Andi likes nothing better than riding big travel bikes.

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Comments (3)

    I’m gonna be the first one to question how well it’s going to climb… Concentric bottom bracket, plus what looks like a super slack effective seat tube angle with the post fully up (maybe it’s just the mullet making it look that way). It’s pretty steep round your way, isn’t it?… And they can keep their crank freewheel – I do not fancy that lot whizzing past my calf on a sketchy decent. I’ll keep an eye out for the first ride – always happy to be priced wrong!

    Proved wrong. Blinkin’ autocorrect

    Hey
    Mr. Porters excellent Geometron G1 can do all that ‘properly adjusting to different wheels’ business. With a proper long reach, a steep seat angle so you can climb and a nice slack head.
    Plus sensible suspension pivots
    Have you written up the G1 test yet? I remember the “when Chris Pieter dropped off the G1” video. But not seeing the test.
    Thanks for all the years of superb content

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