Salsa continues to raise its profile in the mountain bike world with another full suspension bike release. Or is it two bikes? The Salsa Cassidy and Salsa Blackthorn are revealed.
Salsa has in recent years been more associated with gravel, the Tour Divide, and the more drop bar luggage carrying side of off road riding. However, it seems they’re giving a bit more attention to the mountain bike side of things, with the launch of a new frame that adds two whole bikes to their menu.
Salsa Cassidy
- £3,300 carbon frameset
- From Lyon
- 165mm rear travel
- 180mm fork
- 29in or 27.5+ wheels
- Enduro bike
- 63.8 deg head angle
- 75.7 deg seat tube angle
Salsa Blackthorn
- £3,300 carbon frameset
- From Lyon
- 140mm rear travel
- 160mm fork
- 29in or 27.5+ wheels
- All mountain bike
- 64.6 deg head angle
- 76.5 deg seat tube angle
The bikes share a single frame with split pivot link, but each set up uses different links to allow the fitting of the different length shocks – air shocks only, coil shocks aren’t recommended. Once you’ve opted for your Cassidy or Blackthorn set up, you still get the option of choosing between a 29in or 27.5+ set up, using the flip chip to alter the head angle by 0.3 degrees and the bottom bracket height by 4mm.
Blackthorn Carbon
The super boost 12×157 rear spacing may raise an eyebrow among standards monitors, but the threaded bottom bracket should please plenty.
Both bikes are designed to help you ride without a pack – there’s room for a full sized bottle and pump inside the frame, plus there’s a frame protection built in next to an integrated spot for a strap.
There are four frame sizes – S,M, L, XL – and both carbon and alloy models. The carbon model has a carbon main triangle and seat stays, with 6061-T6 aluminium chain stays. However, import costs mean that for this year only the carbon frame in raw black will be brought into the UK by distributor Lyon. So, no glitzy grape or other bright colours for us then. Humph.
As soon as we can get a complete bike built up, we’re hoping to have one of these – or indeed both of these – out to test. Watch this space.
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“Yes mate, it’s only £3.3K for the frame …. no, you can’t have a colour option for that price point.”
In the depths of one of the biggest recessions we’ll see in our lifetimes good luck with that.
@cheddarchallenged, not to mention coming from a distributor who, while they have an excellent reputation in the outdoor industry, barely scratch the surface of the bike industry, and even then with a fairly niche brand portfolio.
One shall await the loaded to offload on ebay for £900 lol
Was going to say that looks rather nice, with good geometry for a change from Salsa, but then spotted we don’t get the nice colours here, and the frame is £820 more than in the US…err, what!?
I spy Bob Ross’ mountain!
@mudeverywhere. The Carbon will set you back $3,199 USD in the USA, convert that to £ GBP, add import duty and Great British VAT (that they don’t have in the USA), allow for shipping and the USA vs UK price is pretty close. Don’t blame the distributor… write to your MP about VAT 😉
Yep, VAT sucks. However the gulf in pricing between the US and UK is still wider with this frame than other comparable brands. In fact there are still some US brands where prices are the same dollar for pound, admittedly mostly whole bikes rather than frames. So actually cheaper here after adding US sales tax.
Also missed the bit about this being super boost, which pretty much kills it for me 🙁