18 Bikes No 9 | Sheffield Steel Hardtail

First published in Issue 127 of Singletrack Magazine, this 18 Bikes No 9 was reviewed as part of our British Steel test of steel hardtails built in the UK.

18 Bikes No 9

• Price: £900.00 (frame only)
• From: 18 Bikes, 18bikes.co.uk

18 Bikes is a well-loved bike shop in the tranquil Derbyshire town of Hope, run by a two-man band. Si Bowns is the business brain of the outfit and is very active in local trail advocacy. Si’s brother Matt is the other half of the 18 equation, and has been building custom frames for over a decade. While previously concentrating on full custom bikes (with Pinion gearbox frames being a particular speciality), this year 18 Bikes has introduced the Workshop Series frames, of which the No 9 is the 29in-wheeled version. (There’s also a 27.5in frame called, unsurprisingly, the No 7.) These off-the-peg frames come at a lower price than a full custom build, but still embody Matt’s ideas about what a hardtail should be. If you happened to see Matt’s ‘Project Stupid’ full suspension bike that was exhibited at Bespoked a couple of years ago, which sported a 525mm reach and a 62° head angle, you’ll know that he’s happy to push the geometry envelope until it rips – in the good sense of the word.

So let’s get the No 9’s most noticeable attribute out of the way first – it’s long. The reach on my test bike is 475mm. That’s a full 10cm longer than many cutting-edge trail bikes were just a few years ago. It’s longer than many manufacturers’ XL frames. And this is the shortest version of the No 9 that 18 Bikes produce. If you want, you can size up to a 500mm or even a 525mm. 18 Bikes doesn’t size its frames conventionally, and all the frames feature extremely short seat tubes, so you’re free to choose your preferred length of bike regardless of what size you usually ride.

I say the No 9 is long, but that’s only partly true. The rear triangle brings the wheel right up to the seat tube, to the point where it’s almost buzzing it. Interestingly, the longer frames have proportionally longer chainstays. 18 Bikes claims this is to make all the sizes ride similarly but I’m not entirely convinced, given the effect on handling that even a few centimetres of chainstay length can have. That said, a taller rider with longer arms may well find a slightly more stretched-out rear triangle doesn’t change the way the bike rides too much.

The BB is low, but thanks to a 66.5° head angle, a 110mm head tube, and a set of Truvativ 20mm riser bars for good measure, the front end of our test bike sat pretty high. The very short seat tube is a concession to smaller riders and on this size it means your saddle will probably be hitting the back wheel before it achieves its lowest possible height. It does look great though, with the top tube forming a continuous line with the chainstays – the sort of aesthetic usually seen on dirt jump bikes.

Unlike one of the other bikes on test, which is also designed to accept 27.5 Plus set-ups, the low BB height makes the No 9 very much a 29in-specific frame. The main tubes are Reynolds 853, mated to a Dedacciai Zero back end, and under the paint job the frame features a manganese phosphate coating for corrosion resistance. Cable routing is taken care of by some chunky bolt-on downtube guides which also conceal a single set of bottle cage bosses, and there’s an ISCG mount if you’re intending to get properly rowdy.

There’s no fancy tube manipulation on the No 9, but some savvy choice of raw materials means it’s a fair bit lighter than its hench appearance suggests. Cosmetically, our test bike was a little below par, with some pimply welds and some barely perceptible bubbly paint. The decals are stickers with no clear coat over them, and there’s a choice of just two colours. However, with this bike, you get the impression that it’s meant to be ridden, not photographed. Given the proclivity of bike journos to wreck the bikes they review, the slight surface imperfections could also explain how it came to end up as our test bike in the first place.

Seeing how it is a bike shop as well as a frame builder, 18 Bikes is happy to fit out your frame with everything else you need to get rolling. The No 9 arrived with a respectable but not flashy build, including a RockShox Pike Select fork, SRAM NX groupset and Guide R brakes. Unlike the other bikes in the test, 18 has eschewed fatter new-school rubber, and specced conventional 2.3in Maxxis tyres on DT Swiss E1900 wheels. The 125mm KS dropper post is probably a bit shorter than most riders would choose, but again, this is a test bike, and you’ll be able to build yours up how you like.

The length of the bike means that even the 760mm handlebars on our build looked a bit like something from the start line of a mid-1990s cross-country race. In the flesh, the No 9 is quite aesthetically pleasing, but it undeniably deviates more from my old-school ideas of a hardtail than the other two bikes in this test.

The Ride

Like a lot of the new generation of stretched out, long-reach mountain bikes, the No 9 feels odd for the first few pedal strokes, then you immediately forget about the preposterous front triangle and get on with riding it. At a thoroughly average 5ft 10in, I did wonder whether the No 9 would feel like I was permanently locked in Graeme Obree’s Superman position, but it just felt like a bike. Indeed, 18 Bikes suggests that riders down to 5ft 3in can happily fit the 475mm version of the frame, as long as they use a sufficiently short stem like Pacenti’s 25mm P-DENT.

The No 9 climbs competently, if not supernaturally, thanks to a 74° seat angle and a modest heft. Awkward sections that require a bit of weight shifting can be tricky, but then I doubt anyone will be buying this bike with the intention of cleaning near-unrideable uphills. As you might expect, the No 9 is all about the downhills. With the rider’s weight over the front tyre, coupled with that high front end, it revels in anything steep and loose, and if you’re a rider of average ability like me, you’ll be reaching your limits just as the No 9 is getting going. It’s very capable indeed on anything techy, and not just vertiginous loam. It’ll gamely tackle trails you’d normally want to fling a full suspension bike down, and then happily prance back to the top of the hill for another go.

There’s a trade-off though, which is that the No 9 isn’t the most comfortable hardtail I’ve ridden. I managed a few longer rides on it, but the enjoyment tailed off as the miles increased. Part of this could have been due to the build: it had the skinniest tyres in the test, and the Burgtec ‘The Cloud’ saddle it came with might as well have been called ‘The Cheesewire’ for all the cosseting it gave my sit bones. But I suspect that the short, stout chainstays, and the beefy seat tube cluster also played a part.

The rear triangle’s stiffness also worked against the No 9 on the more chattery, rocky trails I rode it on. Having started the test on flats I ended up clipping in for a bit more control – not ideal, given that the No 9 tempts you to ride the sort of trails where bailing out needs to be as easy as possible. The low BB height also necessitates a bit of adapting to, although pedal strikes aren’t as frequent as on some ground-hugging full sussers I’ve ridden.

Mud clearance is also a bit of an issue, thanks to the short chainstays and straight seat tube. After a ride involving a bit of gravelly muck, I noticed the back tyre was actually starting to remove the decals from the seat tube. This is unlikely to be an issue if you go for one of the longer sizes, but on the shortest bike I can see it being a source of seasonal pain.

Back end issues aside, for short, sharp shreds, the No 9 was very hard to beat. And unlike some of the more extreme long ’n’ slack bikes out there, which are undeniably faster against the clock, but seem to slow previously challenging trails down to the speed of a damp Bank Holiday weekend, the No 9 doesn’t steamroller the fun out of the ride. The compact rear triangle means that you can pop and drop your way down rocky descents without having to recalibrate your brain into long bike mode, and it’s quicker to change direction than some of its ilk too.

Apart from the rather stingy dropper post, 18 Bikes seemed to know exactly what suits this frame. The bike’s capabilities really justify a beefy fork like the Pike, which helped support the front end through any inept line choices. Those 760mm bars also turned out to be perfect, sitting in the sweet spot between extra control and that ‘riding your Dad’s bike’ feeling.

Overall

In some respects, the No 9 is exactly the sort of frame you’d expect it to be from its mean, low-slung silhouette. It’s quick, purposeful, has few concessions to comfort, and is very much biased towards a rider who wants to get to the bottom of the steepest, sketchiest trails in the least amount of time. However, it’s also more user-friendly than first impressions suggest. It’ll build into a lighter bike than many in its genre, and the long geometry doesn’t mean it favours fast over fun.

It’s possibly the least versatile frame in this test, thanks to its dedication to a single wheel size and its adequate but not generous tyre clearance. It certainly isn’t a bike I’d pick for all-day epics. A 30.9 seat tube, with a bit more give and mud clearance, would be a nice alteration to the ‘short’ size we tested. But it’s very good indeed at what it does. It has the fingerprints of a builder who’s played around with some fairly extreme geometry, and then taken his favourite bits to build his own vision of the perfect hardtail.Add block

18 Bikes No 9 Specification

• Frame // Reynolds 853 steel, 130mm travel, 12×148
• Fork // RockShox Pike Select, 130mm travel
• Hubs // DT Swiss E1900
• Rims // DT Swiss E1900
• Tyres // Maxxis Minion 3C, 29×2.3, Aggressor 3C 29×2.25
• Chainset // SRAM NX Eagle 170mm, 32T
• Rear Mech // SRAM NX Eagle, 12-Speed
• Shifters // SRAM NX Eagle, 12-Speed
• Cassette // SRAM Eagle, 12-Speed, 10-50T
• Brakes // SRAM Guide R
• Stem // Truvativ Descendant 45mm, 35.0
• Bars // Truvativ Descendant, 760mm, 20mm rise
• Grips // Burgtec lock-on
• Seatpost // KS Lev Integra 31.8 x 125mm
• Saddle // Burgtec The Cloud
• Size Tested // 475mm
• Sizes available // 475mm, 500mm, 525mm
• Weight // 29.7lbs / 13.5kg (as tested)
• From // 18bikes

Review Info